âDonât you know there ainât no Devil, thereâs just God when heâs drunk.â
âTom Waits
âThis tastes to me a bit like the first tide pool that developed chemistry sophisticated enough to make its own alcohol.â
Sold.
and⌠sold out. dammit.
Donât care for the booze but mightily pleased that Spider is still here and writing to tell us about it.
My all-time favorite author recommends a whiskey, and the site he recommends buying it from canât ship to Canada. Which is ironic, as said author lives in Canada ( and has given writerâs workshops at my local library! ).
Going to have to find somewhere else to buy this apparently magical liquor.
Also the âso many of his booksâ link is totally borked for me.
You think you have it bad? Texas liquor laws were apparently written by the Ottoman Empireâs Grand Vizierâs Chief Obfuscator! Thereâs a reason Texas is so vast. If it were any easier to get out of, people would be heading for wetter pastures left and right.
It puzzles and amuses me a little that âuisge baughâ has gone down almost universally in US folklore as the source word for whiskey - the Irish and Scots Gaelic is uisce beatha. I suppose itâs classic telephone game - a bit like how the word whiskey itself originated.
If anyone managed to find this please let me know, I had no luckâŚ
Usquebaugh is both Irish and Scottish Gaelic for Whiskey, which came from Uisce Beatha (Irish) or Uisge Beatha (Scottish). âuisge baughâ seems to be a mangling of the two terms (or maybe an intermediary form).
Here ya go:
https://www.masterofmalt.com/whisky-or-whiskey/
This sounds like a good find, Cory, and reasonably priced. There are some bottles not far from me, Iâll be picking one up. At $49.99 CDN, itâs cheaper than at MoM. Next time youâre in New Brunswick, stock up, eh.
Yes, well. . . at $65 a bottle . . . I have to think âdo I buy one bottle of this or six bottles of cheap scotch and just cry in it myself?â
The big revelation here is that Master of Malt apparently ships to my state, which is empowering and terrifying, given that Iâve come to assume that alcohol canât be shipped here.
Where is this $10 scotch you know of??
Used to buy Tullamore Dew for $14/bottle â Its distilled and blended at Jameson, in middleton. Near that old potstill Cory used a photo of. There are only two distilleries of note in Ireland, so this is either a Jameson or a Bushmills variant. As Spider likes Bushmills, Iâd guess its there?
Aside from a very colorful âI like itâ â Iâve got nothing to go on. The guy likes Bushmills and that doesnât make me want to buy whiskey from him.
To be fair, Iâve been known to pick up some Old Crow when the bourbon money isnât pouring in, and that stuffâs anywhere from $7 to $10 for a bottle. Itâs not great, but it isnât terrible, either.
Itâs a lot easier to justify buying expensive whiskey in Canada, because the cheap stuff just isnât that cheap. The cheapest (full size) bottle of whiskey you can buy in quebec is $24 for Canadian Club, at which point thereâs not much reason not to spend a couple bucks to go a bit upmarket
So at Middleton there are 3 working stills, in series. All the liquor is distilled in the same place at the same time â regardless of it going into Tullamore Dew, Jameson, Redbreast, Midleton or any of the other over 100 labels they distill and blend for, there.
The difference between Midleton, arguably their proudest blend, and Jameson which is their most produced, is simply quantities from which barrels, whom sat for how long and evaporated, what quantities are mixed? Triple distilled, youâll find all whiskey from Midleton is. All the marketing buzz is just buzz, the booze is the same with the only variations being time cask.
The trick to this all, while it involves some amazing technique, science and skill â is really yield management.
Again, all Iâve got to go on with this stuff is âI drank Bushmills before and liked it.â which is not me. I keep Jameson and Midleton around. I prefer the Jameson, frankly.
Jameson is my favourite for a basic whiskey (makes much nicer sours than bourbon as well), the 12 year old is really nice on itâs own, as is Crested Ten.
Writerâs Tears appears to be a Walsh label. Walsh has an agreement where Irish Whiskey Distillers (JAMESON) distills for them.
Iâm in Dallas and have no problem getting my Jameson Gold. Are you stuck on one of our dry counties?