Boozin’ Blog

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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Do you know who Ernest Shackleton was? After Columbus, he might be the most famous explorer who didn’t find what he was looking for.

In 1909 he and his team attempted to go to the South Pole. When supplies ran out they had to turn back before making it.

Now we know that they left a few things down there as well, specifically, two cases of whisky. The “Rare Old” brand was made by McKinlay and Co. McKinlay, now owned by Whyte & Mackay, doesn’t make Rare Old anymore but these two cases have survived, frozen in the ice in Antarctica.

Whyte & Mackay has asked a team to go down and recover the lost whisky. It was first discovered in 2006 but was too embedded in the ice to be taken. Now it is hoped that it can be retrieved with special drills.

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Have you been to the liquor store lately? The holiday booze has definitely arrived.

The most noticeable of the lot are those spirits gift packs. They usually consist of a distiller’s most popular product and a couple of old fashioned glasses. Sometimes, especially with spirits like gin that are primarily mixed there will be a cocktail shaker or some other bartending implement. These are wrapped up in oversized packaging with, perhaps, a bow printed on the packaging.

I used to look at these silly things and wonder who would buy them. Clearly someone was spending money on them because every year they moved and every next year they returned. Actually, I even bought one once. It was well into January and the package was marked way down – cheaper than the regular bottle. I can’t remember what kind of whisky it was, just that it was whisky. I still use the old fashioned glasses, though. The gold print that branded them has long worn off but they are my favorite daily sipping glasses.

Anyway, back to who would buy these before they’re marked down. If there’s a boozer in my circle of friends or family who might appreciate the spirit there’s no way for me to guess if he would like those glasses. And as for the shaker; if someone wants a cocktail shaker he probably already has one.

Then I got a job in a corporate office. Employees never know what to buy their boss. They don’t want to spend too much – he might start thinking that they are overpaid – but they don’t want the gift to look too cheap. If they happen to know that he likes, say, Crown Royal they can all pitch in and get him the gift box. It’s big, garish, probably useless once the bottle’s empty, and perfect for the crap that goes down in most offices.

So, on behalf of office workers everywhere, thanks for making our office parties cheap and easy, booze-makers!

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For a few months, I lived in a small apartment in Kansas City. It was a quiet neighborhood not far from the business district. I worked in the suburbs and when I left for work in the morning, the air was heavy with the smell of coffee. This wasn’t your typical “cuppa Joe before I go” smell of morning coffee, this was a grab you by the lapel, throw 8 ounces of espresso in your face and slap you around a few times sort of smell. I liked it.

Eventually I learned that a big, corporate roaster was just a couple of blocks away - Folgers or someone like that. To this day when I pick up an especially strong whiff of coffee I get an immediate sense memory of those strange few months I spent in my little apartment in KC.

Here’s another: These days I don’t live too far from St. Louis, MO. Whenever I drive into the city, I pass the Anheuser-Busch Inbev brewery in I-55. Most times, I pass they are brewing and that wonderful smell of cooking malt fills the car. I don’t drink a lot of ABI product but I sure love the smell of their brewery. It’s a smell of place for me and anytime I pick up the scent, regardless of where I am, I think I’m driving past the brewery for just a moment.

I’m sure you have your own similar scent triggers.

So, I find this story particularly odd. The North British Distillery in Edinburgh, Scotland has reached an agreement with the environmental group Sepa to suppress its smell.

By all accounts, it’s a pleasant smell, not unlike the aroma of a brewery, I’d imagine, and the local city councilman doesn’t have any memory of complaints. In fact, it seems that the area has had the smell hanging around for well over a hundred years and the residents have come to associate it with home.

Nevertheless, the distillery is installing a special chimney designed kill the smell. There is no mention in the article of what specific environmental problems this will solve so the whole thing it just kind of puzzling.

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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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I think it was George Carlin who neatly divided all other drivers on the road between idiots and morons. The idiots are anyone who is driving faster than you as in “Would you look at that idiot go?” Morons are anyone who is driving slower than you, especially if they are in your way as in, “Would this moron drive or get out of the way already?” Of course he said it better and funnier but if you’re looking for well crafted comedy you’ve come to the wrong blog. I’m just borrowing his point.

The same principle is carried out in the drinks world, especially on the high end where people pay thousands for a bottle of undrinkable wine simply because it’s old and from a famous winery. In this case we’re talking about a bottle of Scotch.

The label features a nude model - don’t get excited, nothing’s actually shown - in a picture taken by a well-known nude photographer. The bottles are going for £950 which converts to roughly $1 million $1350. And no one has any doubt that these bottles will sell out quickly. It will be the idiots who buy them.

Why do I call them idiots? Notice that I haven’t said one thing yet about the quality of the booze inside. That’s because it’s unimportant. Whisky collectors with more money than brains are already sold on the bottle. It could contain flat cream soda and vodka and they’d be happy. See, they are very unlikely to drink the stuff. They’re idiots.

Now here’s where the morons come in. They are people like a commenter on another blog who described this whole matter as an outrage. Human rights violations are an outrage. Starving children in Africa and Arkansas are an outrage. Bernie Madoff is an outrage. Rich idiots being separated from their money buy a clever distiller is not an outrage.

Calm down. Take a swig from your bottle of $30 booze and move on. Don’t be a moron!

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This is the first I’ve heard of a distillery turning to alternative energy sources. Admittedly I pay more attention to the beer industry so I’m familiar with breweries from Anheuser-Bush Inbev and Molson Coors to New Belgium and Brooklyn Brewery using energy produced from wind, spent grains, spilled beer and waste water. Chances are Maker’s Mark isn’t the first to look for ways to squeeze some energy out of their by-products but they still deserve recognition for doing so.

Making booze, any kind of booze, takes a lot of energy and water. Growing the sugar source, fruit or grain, that will ferment into alcohol, transporting the materials, heating and/or boiling vast amounts of liquid, cooling vast amounts of liquid, cleaning and sanitizing tools and packaging, and storage and shipping all take energy or water and sometimes both. So anytime a booze maker can give one of these two things back or cut down on their usage of them it’s a good thing.

In Maker’s Mark’s case they’re using a system that traps the spent grains and water from the distillery. This soup is then allowed to basically rot which produces gasses like methane. When controlled and used properly these gases can be burned in place of natural gas. MM’s new system, which cost them $8 million, will produce up to 165 btus of usable gas or an offset of 15-30% of the natural gas they currently use.

Not bad at all, Maker’s Mark!

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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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Scotch maker Glenfiddich recently announced that they’ve selected the lucky barrel for this years vintage reserve release. The barrel, cask #4414 for those keeping score are home, was put away on March 7th, all the way back in 1977. For the past three decades it’s been developing the hints of malt cereal, smokiness and leather that made it this year’s favorite of the selection panel.

The panel consisted of six Scotch whiskey experts included a writer, a restaurateur and a professor. Over three hours they studied and debated half a dozen of the final casks chosen. While they all had their merits 4414 had that something extra special that put it over the top.

The panel’s tasting notes reveal some of what they wanted to see in the final selection.

Whisky writer Gavin D Smith said “There is a delicate smokiness to the finish that comes upon you rather unexpectedly when you’ve experienced the light citrus nose to begin with.”

Jim Bradley, owner of two award winning New York restaurants – the Red Cat and the Harrison, said “The intriguing hint of lemon giving way to leather was very cool and helped seal my vote.”

Erik Touzmohamedov,Russia’s foremost Scotch whisky expert was impressed with the nose. “This was by far my favourite, he said. “It has none of the burn associated with whiskies of such strength and produced a fantastic nose that didn’t dominate the whisky.”

Here are some videos covering the process.

For more information about Glenfiddich check out Glenfiddich.com or WilliamGrant.com.

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