Continuing the discussion from Trump NatSec advisor HR McMaster to resign. Fox News analyst John Bolton to replace:
What with the shite that is going down, and seeing the mention of Red Breast, I thought we might as well make the best of a shitty situation and share our poisons.
Me, I shall be making a huge dent in a bottle of Teeling Small Batch. I also have some Teeling Spirit of Dublin Poitin, but that stuff is scary.
Fuck it, the world is scary. Slainté!
Bruichladdich right now, though normally it is Bunnahabhain. I gather Teeling is a form of rum masquerading as whiskey?
Local shop has Monkey Shoulder on sale, I don’t usually buy blends but I tried some recently and think I’ll stock up for the Boltopocalypse.
Teeling is a rather new distillery, hoping to bring back the old Dublin traditions. When starting off, they didn’t want to wait until the first casks were aged enough so they decided to sell the fresh stuff as poitín. Their other whiskeys are true whiskeys, though not distilled in Dublin.
I was given a bottle of Redbreast Lustau edition for Christmas, and it’s really lovely stuff. The first Irish Whiskey I’ve owned but it’s spicy (in a cinnamon sort of way), sweet, and tastes of honey and biscuits. Really nice.
I was also given a bottle of Compass Box Orangerie, which is a blended scotch infused with orange. Yeah, I know, flavored scotch, heresy! But it’s very light, very subtle, not at all sweetened, and very enjoyable.
Bourbon, usually Rebel Yell unless someone buys me a nicer bottle. Just never got a taste for Scotch or Irish. Toured the Dalwhinnie Distillery last year, was fun and interesting, but the tastings there and at the Edinburgh Airport were not compelling enough for me to keep drinking the stuff.
One more recent whiskey (well, sort of) recommendation:
There’s a distillery in California called Lost Spirits that’s doing crazy mad-science-lab stuff. They built their own devices that can take young spirits and ‘age’ them, infuse them, and transform them to recreate long-lost spirits and the flavor of long-aged whiskeys.
They’re not allowed to call them Scotches or Whiskeys due to arcane laws about barreling, but their ‘peated malts’ are worth checking out. The Crying of the Puma tastes like a rare Highland Scotch but it costs about thirty bucks.
I recently tried Rebel Yell as Trader Joe’s was out of the house brand. It was surprisingly nice for a $11 bottle of bourbon. TJ’s is a bit nicer but still under $20. Sadly all the local stuff costs $40+ and most really isn’t worth that.
Had drams of their Port Charlotte and Islay Barley 2007 last week. Really interesting relatively new distillery. Have you had their Botanist gin?
This week drams came from a bottle of Old Grand-Dad 114 proof. I’m not normally a bourbon fan, bit too sweet, but at cask strength with a high rye mash bill it was quite decent and noticeably superior to their 80 proof.
That’s been my conclusion about all the fancy bourbon too. Somehow even steady old Jim Beam has been migrating up the shelves. The only one that ever truly caught my fancy I haven’t seen in a long time. It was 7 years old, 107 proof and called Old Weller. I don’t believe it’s made anymore.
By the way even Rebel Yell is closer to $20 around here! I used to stock up when kayaking in West Virginia.
Old Weller 107 is still around. It’s made by Bufallo Trace which has a lot of good stuff in their portfolio. It’s a wheated bourbon (meaning the distiller uses wheat instead of rye as the secondary grain). If you like Old Weller, you might enjoy Larceny. Though it’s only 92 proof, the taste is slightly superior in my consideration, and it’s considerably less expensive at around half the price, though still in that $30 to $40 price range.
Interesting, I haven’t seen it around here in ages. And it used to be under $30 a bottle!
The booze market I don’t understand is Brandy. The only thing that makes Cognac Cognac is it’s from Cognac France. But we see very little else in this country of comprable quality except for Armagnac and a couple others. Below that it’s a long way down to even anything. There’s a few decent French brandies under 20 a bottle but the Portuguese and Spanish stuff is undrinkable in my opinion. But what baffles me is why the big distillery American stuff like E & J is so awful too? Where’s the craft distilleries making quality American Brandy from American grapes?
I have both grape vines and peach trees, making Brandy is one of my retirement projects…
I believe tonight is going to be an Auchentoshan night.
There’s a Portland Distillery Row crawl coming up. I’ll get a bottle of whatever I find along it that tastes good.
Love this thread. Thank you for creating.
Daily go to:
Redemption Rye/Bourbon
James Oliver Rye/Bourbon
Knob creek Bourbon
Templeton Rye
Special occasion:
Mad River Rye
Basil Hayden bourbon
Cleveland underground bourbon
Bookers bourbon
I like a very limited amount of scotch or Irish whiskey. Definitely prefer Rye and bourbon.
I’ve yet to encounter an American brandy that seemed worth it. Cognac is so variable, and it doesn’t have much to do with price, but my favorite brandy is Kelt’s Chateau du Saint Aubin Bas-Armagnac, which is hella pricey, but I drink it so rarely that a bottle lasts me forever.
I’ve never been hugely into brandy though, so it’s a very occasional drink.
I pondered relatively new for a while and can agree if you take the traditional destilleries with their 150-odd years as a comparison. 
They have been making quite an impact, but the 2007 Islay Barley which sits here on my shelf isn’t one of their best. They had a golf course series, one of which was aged in Sauternes. Bloody brilliant. Must have been 2007 when I had it, so maybe destilled around 1995?
I’d have one of those, thank you very much.
Going with Woodford Reserve bourbon tonight. It’s quite good.
“A smooth, balanced body infused with vanilla, caramel, honey apple and spices at the forefront lead to a creamy midpalate and end with a lingering honey oak finish.”
Cheers!
Bruichladdich shut down for a while and then reopened under new investors circa 2001, which is what I meant by new, and they’ve shown a willingness to experiment a little which wasn’t as common in the scotch world when they re-opened as it’s becoming now.
But yeah, in Scotland old means old.
I haven’t seen the 114 in a while, but I definitely like the 100-proof version of Old Grand-Dad. Tasty by itself and great in cocktails, and the price is reasonable.
Tonight, I decided to open up an old bottle of 131.8 proof George T. Stagg that I hadn’t visited in a while. This one definitely has to be watered down to drinking strength, but it’s oh so good. Think of it as whiskey concentrate. One oz. whiskey to 1/2 oz. water is perfect.
The stock OGD used to be 86 proof, but it was cut back to 80 proof a couple years ago, which was a mistake. I’ve never had the 100 proof, but I don’t doubt it’s better. You can always add water, but you can’t remove it. Even the 80 is decent for cocktails though. The main thing I like about OGD is that it’s cost effective. I picked up the last two bottles on the shelf of the 114 for $19 each after tax at Twin Liquors (the lowest I’ve ever seen it). It’s definitely harder to get a hold of, but it pops up from time to time.
