Bourbon lovers,

Saw this list at a restaurant and thought of this thread: http://www.picanrestaurant.com/Docum...N_BOURBONS.pdf

This should make everyone feel better about how much we're paying for our bottles of whiskey!

^^^That place is ridic. If anyone is ever in Nashville and looking for a really nice bourbon/cocktail bar w/ pretty reasonable prices check out Patterson House. It's like a speak easy and they make some really great/unique old fashioned's and have some great bourbon at a pretty reasonable price. AH Hirsch 16 was 30 there as well as Pappy 23 and after ordering those a few of the cheaper drinks I had were free. It's always crowded(on the weekend at least, idk about weekdays) but they only let enough people in as they have seats for so it's not overly packed at all, but u might have to wait a little bit to get a seat so get there a little early.

^^^Simliarly, if anybody is ever in DC, recommend checking out Bourbon: list here, you'll have to scroll down a bit to get to the booze.

Two locations in the city, one in Adam's Morgan, which is always packed, but in the middle of popular area to go out, so lot's of other options to bounce around to if you like. The other is a bit further north in the city in Glover Park. This is the original location, and the one I prefer (upstairs FTW) as it's more low key.

For all you Willett fans out there, note the ton of Willett options on the list.

Whisky fans,

Had some friends over for a blind single malt tasting this weekend. Didn't get to do the cheap/expensive bourbon faceoff this time, but loved the blind tasting format. Here's what we had:

Amrut Fusion
Ardbeg Corryveckan
Ardbeg Uigeadail
Caol Ila 10 (Gordon MacPhail bottling)
Clynelish 14
Jura Superstition
Laphroaig Petrus Cask
Yamizake 18

The Laphroaig Petrus cask showed up late after we had set everything up, so we just tried that first. Was delicious, similar to a Margaux finish Laphroaig I have. I really love the combination of Laphroaig flavor with a sweeter finish.

Then we proceeded to the blind tasting part. We wrote down our impressions and then at the end tried to match up to the bottles. The best performance was me and one other person with only 3 of 7 correct.

#1: I thought this was very light and harsh. Not much flavor and too much bite. Just about everyone's least favorite. I guessed the youngest thing there, the Caol Ila 10. Instead it was the very delicious sounding Amrut Fusion. Indian single malt fail.

#2: This was creamy, peaty, caramely and just plain delicious. Just about everyone's favorite, I got this one right - Ardbeg Corryveckan.

#3: This was very light and tasted OK, very easy to drink but nothing special. Nobody loved this, nobody hated it. I guessed Clynelish, but it was Isle of Jura Superstition.

#4: This was another light one, but with a nice touch of peatiness and better balanced than #3. Most people liked this quite a bit. I guessed Amrut due to the peat + light flavor profile. It was the Caol Ila 10.

#5: This was very very smoky, but smooth and easy to drink. Most people's second favorite, I correctly identified this as the Ardbeg Uigeadail.

#6: This was sweet and full of flavor, very smooth and very good. I liked it a lot. A couple people found it too sweet. This was obviously the odd man out in this batch, the Yamizake 18.

#7: This one was very fruity and very smooth. Nice flavor, very good balance. I picked Isle of Jura, but this was the Clynelish 14.

So, overall, the 2 Ardbegs were the concensus winners in this lineup. The Clynelish, Yamazake, and Caol Ila were middle of the pack. And the Jura and Amrut were the least popular. Even those were pretty tasty, though (to be expected w/ the guideline here being bring a $50+ bottle).

Doing this blind was a spur of the moment decision, as we've never done these blind before. It really added a lot to the tasting and I am sure my opinions would have been influenced had I known what I was drinking beforehand.

The only thing we'll change is that we'll limit blind tastings to a single style/region and have a mix of price/age/etc.

Surprised everyone hated the Amrut Fusion. I really, really like it. I'll have to try blind tasting it against some other stuff I have or something. Would be embarrassing if I was just imagining I like it because Indian single malt sounds cool. I also have a bottle of Amrut Peated which I like almost as much.

Gents,

http://www.singleoakproject.com/





This project seems like mainly a marketing gimmick (192 different barrels to taste/rate over 4 years to come up w/ the "perfect barrel"), but I was actually very surprised at how different these 12 tasted. Definitely a wide range of flavors and balance. Three really stood out as awesome, three sucked (harsh alcohol bite and weak flavor), and the rest were all OK/normal.

That looks awesome ElD. I signed up on the site, but can't find any information at all about where to actually get hold of some samples to try, where did you get yours from?

PR,

I tasted w/ a friend who works in the industry and got samples of all 12 that are being released. The way you are supposed to get them is to buy 375ml limited release bottles at liquor stores.

Ah I see, I thought you signed up and you could then buy the samples from the site. I doubt there will be anywhere here in the UK selling them, but you never know....

I'd love to try them if they had put out some 100ml sample packs of 12 or something but I probably wont end up buying a single bottle of it just because I agree that is seems like a marketing gimmick, yet they are passing it off as using the consumers to help them pick the best ones in their quest for the "perfect" bourbon. The problem is the everyday consumer cant afford to buy 12 of those bottles to try them all even if he could find all 12 from a release. It's just 192 different BTEC bottles w/ a new title and a website that gives points on a system that rewards buying a ton of bottles(not sure u can even do anything with the points either). I like a lot of BT's products and will continue to buy them but I'll pass on this unless I find a store near me doing a tasting and find a really great bottle there that I love.

This really affirms to me that it is a marketing gimmick. BT has found a way to sell ****ty bourbon that didn't make the cut. Hey u can come on our website we put up and tell us ur $70 375ml bottle u bought sucks and we will never make it again. I just wonder how much ****ty bourbon they will sell to consumers under this pretense.

This is true but otoh you have a shot at picking up something awesome for a bargain. Although are they really selling the 375ml bottles for $70? I don't buy a massive amount of whisky and I'd be gutted if I spent that much on a half bottle and it turned out to be awful.

By the times it hits many stores that will be the price tag on it. I guess you may find it for $50-60 if ur lucky in some stores but look at the prices some stores charge for any BTEC bottle.

A shot at picking up something awesome for $50-70 for 375ml doesn't appeal to me when I can get Pappy 15/20 for $55/$95 and GTS or WLW from the BTAC for $65-70 and they are virtually guaranteed to be awesome, and a full size bottle.

Strongly agree with this. BT turns out some great bourbon (some of my favorites), and I appreciate that they're constantly experimenting with new tastes. But what they've really done better than any other distiller, IMO, is marketing. They're largely responsible for creating the high-end/specialty bourbon market in the US and getting suckers like me to happily plunk down $60/70+ for a bottle of their product.

Consider the genius of the annual BTAC release. "OMG, BTAC is out again, it's that time of year for me to hunt down and buy my 5 (or more if you count getting multiple bottles of the Stagg and Saz, which I always do) bottles for $300++ total." And you know what? I'm /excited/ to drop that money EVERY YEAR because:

a) I like the booze
b) It's always a little adventure to find which stores in the area have bottles in stock
c) I feel like I'm truly getting a "limited release" that I don't want to miss out on.

So yeah, good marketing, especially when they're aging some of the BTAC stock in Stainless steel between releases such that the 2009/2010/2011 releases of Saz or whatever are really the same stuff.

Anyone tried green spot irish whiskey?

Thoughts?

They are tanking it to stop the aging though if it is tanked too long some people say it picks up a little bit of a metallic flavor(some say this about AH Hirsch 16 gold foil). And to be fair Julian is doing the same thing with his VWFRR.

It's a matter of having a certain amount of stock left and not wanting to dump it all on the market at once. I still find bottles of Saz on store shelves now so if they released several years worth at once it would still be around on some store shelves years later anyway.

I don't particularly have a problem with anyone doing this. I don't have a problem with BT trying to make money. The only thing I have a problem with is them selling awful bourbon to us through some marketing gimmick and the customers getting gouged for BTAC prices for a 375ml bottle of undrinkable bourbon.

Guys,

I agree w/ pretty much everything you've written about this singleoakproject.com being a pretty bull**** marketing initiative. I would be disgusted to pay $45 for a 375 if I got a few of those bottles we tasted.

It's not like they don't know or this was subjective. Two of us who are v experienced drinkers w/ very different tastes in whisky agreed 100% on the three that were really ****ty.

They could just use a ceramic or glass-lined tank to prevent the metallic taste from happening.

Yep, I understand they're tanking it to stop the aging. I guess I just had a poor understanding of what the BTAC was until a year or so ago. I used to think it was, "We're releasing XXX barrels of our whiskey this year that we're branding as the various BTAC labels, and then that's it...it's all gone. Next year we'll release a different set of XXX barrels, and so on." The VWFRR stuff, on the other hand, I never assumed or expected to necessarily be different from release to release. On a side note, it's damn near impossible for me to ever find the Van Winkle Rye by the bottle here in DC, must be bad timing.

Nor do I, didn't mean for my post to come off like I was pissing about being marketed to by BT. Was just pointing out that I think they're better at it than anybody else in the industry.

Well if you look at the age of the boubon on a certain bottling over the years it's kinda all over the place. Like GTS was 15yr old boubon every release til 09 which was 16yrs old and 10 was 17yrs old. Whereas WLW bounces around a lot more than that. So some of it may have been tanking w/ GTS for awhile then barrel aging them the past 2 years. WLW I'm not 100% sure as they are all over the place in terms of how old. I guess they are just taking the best of their wheated bourbon that matches the WLW mashbill(after Julian) from a certain part of the warehouse and offering it at barrel proof. Since they make a fair amount of wheated bourbon anyway this probably shouldn't be hard for them to do and would explain why there is such variation in years.

TBH though, I really don't care what they are doing with it personally as long as it's good and they don't keep jacking the price up every single year. It feels a little silly to be paying $70 for WLW when BT is giving Julian 1st pick of whatever barrels he wants for his 10 and 12 year bourbons and I assume he has been putting some back for when he runs out of Pappy 15 for an ORVW15 line. So WLW I guess could be considered the barrels that Julian passes on(I think they are the same mashbill but I've never actually checked) though he doesn't make a ton of bourbon and the WLW is plenty good so it seems there is lots of good wheated bourbon left. And the fact that they offer it at barrel proof is a huge bonus and a big reason I only really buy GTS, WLW, and Handy...taste being the main reason though.

I'm looking for a smooth scotch without too much smokey flavor. I bought a bottle of Teacher's Highland Cream the other day, I like the taste but it finishes a bit too smokey for my flavor.


I'm new to scotches so I don't know what to get. I'd like to keep it below 40ish.

Also, how is Jameson? I get good discounts at work on liquor so I wanna try some stuff before I go back to school.

Jameson 12 is nice but the regular Jameson lacks aroma and flavor in my opinion.

Regarding scotch I recommend you The Glenmorangie 12yo (single malt), not smokey at all but tiny bit spicy.


edit: I'm a bit of a noob

Jameson is a mixing whiskey, and that it. You wouldn't see many people order jameson by itself. I lile it with diet coke.

Now scotch is a whole other story, if you want a decent base line i would go with a glenfiddich 12 year. It has a fruity nose with hints of fresh pear and oak that finishes with said oaky flavor. Its their baseline product which for a base is good.

I like that one as well. I think the best "noob-whisky" is Macallan 12y. It's taste is like the archetypical basic scotch taste to me. Not noticably smokey, peaty, sweet or any kind of special aroma, yet stil a very enjoyable experience.