I’m not going to get into the whiskey v. whisky thing again, I think I already stepped deeply enough into that one.
But when thinking of cold weather booze I have to mention this beloved brown liquor. When it comes to whiskey, it’s all good - Irish, Scotch or Bourbon.
Each one has it’s own tradition and the difference in flavors is remarkable, as much among the three distinct styles as among the various distilleries that make them.
I like to keep it simple with whisky. I typically drink it over ice but when I’ve just had enough with the cold, I just add water at about 50/50 proportions. Simple, tasty and warming.
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I love Knob Creek. I’m by no means an expert in whiskey but I know what I like and Knob Creek is easily my favorite bourbon. That’s not to say that I won’t drink other whiskeys - I will and here lately I’ve had to do a lot more of that.
It hadn’t really occurred to me until I read this article but Knob Creek has been missing from the shelves of my local liquor store for a few months now. I thought that I was just out of sync with the delivery schedule or something but it turns out that everyone is running out of Knob Creek.
There is an overall shortage of the lovely bourbon. Yeah, baby, we’re drinking ‘em dry!
But, rather than panic about their dwindling supply, the clever folks at Knob Creek decided to turn the problem into a branding opportunity. They launched an ad campaign with the tagline “thanks for nothing” that explains the shortage and asks fans for patience until the next batch can be released. The ads ran in a few of the biggest newspapers in the nation and will be appearing in beverage trade magazines through October.
While I’m pleased that the brand is doing well, I really just want to know where my damn bourbon is!
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Have you noticed a change in the look of Jim Beam’s bottles? Well, if you haven’t yet you will soon.
I usually have a bottle of Jim Beam somewhere in the house. I like bourbon and, while JB isn’t my favorite, it’s certainly affordable and very decently palatable. It’s my ‘every day’ whiskey.
For about a month - from Memorial Day to the Fourth of July - Jim Beam bottles will feature the Operation Homefront logo. Now, there was nothing in the email I received about this that mentioned any sort of “proceeds from the sales” sort of situation. Nevertheless, this isn’t some crass bid at patriotism on JB’s part. Besides raising awareness of Operation Homefront with these bottles, JB is also a big contributor. They rank with top contributors according to OH’s website and, according to JB contributed a quarter of a million last year and are on course to contribute even more this year.
If you don’t know what Operation Homefront is take a moment and check out their website.
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Yep, it’s March which means stout, Irish whiskey, corned beef and cabbage and lots and lots and lots of green. Whether you like your green on a tee shirt, a pair of flip-flops or beer there will be plenty of it as we get closer to St. Patrick’s Day.
As far as I’m concerned, though, you can keep your green beer. The part of whole thing that I look forward to is that it provides a better excuse for me to participate in two of my favorite pastimes - drinking stout and drinking Irish whiskey. That’s not to say that I don’t find plenty of chances to do both through the rest of the year it’s just that in March I feel like I’m part of something when I do.
For my stout this year I started with a six pack of Schlafly’s Irish Stout last week. I’m down to two bottles and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. I tend to prefer dry stouts (Irish) over sweet stouts and this one delivers. It has a huge body and, at 8%, a fairly hefty serving of alcohol. It also has lots of bittering hops so it bites back a little, just how I like it.
I plan to drop by my local brewpub soon and see what kind of stout they’ve whipped up.
As for my whiskey? I’m not quite the snob in that area as I am beer. Bushmills Original does quite nicely for me.
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Malt Advocate, a whisky magazine, has named its pick for the microdistillery of the year. Before I tell you who the honoree is, take a guess where it’s located. Scotland? Ireland? Kentucky? Nope. Nope. And Nope.
The big winner for 2008 is Penderyn Distillery in Wales. Who knew there was good whisky made in Wales? Well, besides the Welsh, I suppose.
But what’s a microdistillery? This word caught my eye because I’ve been amused to watch the rise and of a similar term – microbrew. Beginning sometime in the 80’s and then getting big in the 90’s were the now virtually unheard of microbrews. Ever wonder what happened to them? Many slipped out of existence thanks to their own success.
See, the word micro necessarily implies smallishness. At the time they were making the inescapable comparison between themselves and the evil megabrews – Bud, Miller, Coors. Everyone loves a good David and Goliath story so it was quite a lot of fun to watch the microbrews march onto stores and take up their rightful space on the shelves. It wasn’t long, though, before beer geeks were explaining to themselves and their patient loved ones that Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada weren’t really micros. To qualify as a microbrewery one had to brew X or less amount of beer. One by one beloved microbreweries were becoming micros no more but *gasp* megas!
Fortunately the Brewers Association and others started using the term craft beer and microbrew has virtually fallen out of use. However, the somewhat more ambiguous distinct of “craft” makes the lines between the former micros and the establishment beers against which they were rebelling somewhat less bright.
But how long can a term like microdistllery last? The clock is already running. One distinction of microdistillery according to Malt Advocate is that the distillery can only be ten years old or younger. In this case micro is more about age than size which is a fascinating choice. Suppose a whisky maker remains small and innovative purposefully sacrificing growth for creativity. I guess after ten years we’ll just have to call them craft distillers.
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For most Scotch lovers the art of the thing is what’s inside the bottle. Since Scotch is on the pricier end of the booze spectrum I haven’t had the chance to taste a lot of really fine bottles. But the few that I have tried left indelible sense memories that are as strong as the first Monet original that I saw or my first experience hearing Mozart from a live orchestra.
But here’s a bottle with as much art on the outsidel as on the inside. It’s a limited edition Macallan 21 with an eagle etched in the glass of the bottle. With only 21 of these issued it truly is a limited edition.
The etchings are done by hand; hands belonging to the artists at Inner Light Crystal Studios.
With only 21 of these bottles they’re not cheap - $2,500 – but a bottle would be quite a “get” for the Scotch collector who thinks he has everything.
To learn more about or to buy a bottle check out For Scotch Lovers.
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I recently found myself in a conversation with William C. Meyers, Scotch Enthusiast. (That’s what the card he handed me said.) And enthusiastic about scotch he is. As we chatted he mentioned with some amusement that he’d been looking for rare bottles on Ebay and he came across one unopened bottle of scotch that was declared to be 32 years old. But, he told me, the label clearly said that it was 12 years old so he emailed the seller for clarification. The bottle was bought 20 years ago so 12+20=32 reasoned the seller.
Scotch and other spirits don’t age in the bottle like wine or good beer. When a bottle of whisky declared that it is 9, 12, 20 or whatever number of years old that means that the liquor sat in the barrel that long.
There’s not a lot in whisky when you come right down to it. In fact there’s little more than water and alcohol. One of the primary contributors of the characteristics of whisky that lovers and enthusiasts cherish such as color, aroma, character and flavor is the barrel and it happens during this aging process.
Generally speaking the longer the whisky sits in the barrel the more it will pick up from the barrel and the more it will mellow in flavor and character. But once it is removed from the barrel and bottled this process stops. So, even though the bottle in question was well over thirty years old, the whisky was still only twelve years old.
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The Whisky Magazine has named their winners for the 2008 World’s Best Whisky awards. For the first time the single malt award didn’t go to a Scottish distiller. The winner this is the twenty year old Yoichi from Japan. Yeah, Japan.
So, what does this world’s best booze taste like? Here are some of the judges’ tasting notes.
Dense Dr Pepper or Vimto with an aroma that explodes with water.
Medium amber hue with a bold nose of sherry tobacco and old leather. Very interesting, complex and bold flavour profile hazelnuts, orange peel, a hint of the sea, some smokiness, leather and dark cigar tobacco.
and my favorite
Sweetness coats the mouth, liquid dessert, makes me want to eat cookies.
But single malt isn’t the only category. Here are some of the other winners:
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I’m a pretty flighty drinker. I rarely buy the same beer as the last one I purchased and I’m all over the place with wine. I used to be this way with whiskey but for the last few months I’ve found myself drinking Bushmills almost exclusively. Its round, soft flavors appeal to me.
Its distillery just turned 400. According to the Bushmills website “on 20th April, King James 1st grants Sir Thomas Phillips, governor of Ulster, a ‘licence to distil’ ulsce beatha (that’s gaelic for ‘water of life,’ or whickey as we know it today) within ‘the territory called the Rowte in County Antrim.’” Rowte would later be called the Bushmills area.
Here’s a nice, quick tour of the Bushmills distillery from BBC.com.
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Got a spare $30K lying around? You might want to head to Christie’s in New York this weekend for some pretty interesting old and rare bottles of booze are going on the block.
Among the amazing array of ancient alcohol are madeira from the 1700 and 1800s, 132 year old cognac, and the highlight of the event, a 1926 bottle of single malt which is expected to go for as much as $30,000.* In all there are over 1000 such lots at this particular auction.
I’m always amazed at things like this. Obviously the buyers are interested in more than whatever it is these bottles contain. If the stuff is really worth thousands or even tens of thousands why is it still around? Let’s assume that you could afford such a thing; upon obtaining it wouldn’t your first impulse be to see what a $5000 bottle of booze tastes like? I know it would be for me. So why haven’t one of the owners of these bottles through the years tasted it? I know the answer: They’re collectors.
Brewers, distillers and vintners do what they do so people will drink and enjoy what they make. If they wanted to produce museum pieces they would have spent their youth studying painting or sculpting. Instead they learned about the best soil for growing grapes, which trees produce the best wood for aging whiskey or where to find the best water for brewing. They make a consumable product and I’ve never met one of these men or women whose greatest joy wasn’t to see others enjoying it.
This isn’t to say that I don’t have a few bottles of this and that stashed away waiting for a special occasion. But when that occasion arrives I won’t hesitate to open them. This stuff is just water, fruit and grain. Enjoy it don’t collect it!
*That Scotch wound up selling for $54,000 - BE 12/10/07
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