Wine, Scotch, Rum, Tequila, Vodka, and the like

[LITT]

Blantons was, I believe, the first single-barrel bourbon on sale in the US. It's a Buffalo Trace product using the company's #2 (higher rye) mash bill, which is also used for Ancient Age (at the low end) and Elmer T. Lee (at the high end). Just like every other Buffalo Trace product these days, it's pretty much unobtainium unless one is either very lucky or is willing to spend a lot of money on the secondary market. Because it's a single-barrel, there's going to be quite a bit of variation of flavor between bottles. There are also eight different horse corks/stoppers in all, which spell out B-L-A-N-T-O-N-S (the two "N"s are different; one has the apostrophe, the other does not).

Like pretty much all BT products, it's a good solid bourbon, but I would say it's not worth the inflated prices that people try to charge for it. It's basically competing with stuff like Knob Creek Single Barrel, Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Select, and Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel, which IIRC are all around the $60 price range.

yeah, I saw what it goes for on the internet, and I would never pay that for a bottle.

and yes, my sister and her husband are very much 'we want the trinket", but did it in an annoying way, so I may 'forget' and throw it out with the bottle

i cant find a B for the life of me. have everything else and will finally put my neverending search of blantons to bed

[Shyster]

From what I've read, Buffalo Trace is near the end of a $1 billion+ expansion effort that will allow it to effectively double production. The expansion includes a new still house and 14 new barrel warehouses, among other facilities. So it may take 5-10 years to see the changes, but we should eventually have a lot more BT whiskey on the shelves.

[Shyster]

Picked up a bottle of Vieux Carré absinthe so that I could make Sazeracs with it, which is a cocktail that I've never tried before. I can't say I've ever been a huge fan of anise, but I do like the cocktail.

[shafnutz05]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna69883

A thirst for rare bottles of bourbon appears set to have cost the executive director and other top officials of Oregon’s liquor and marijuana regulating agency their jobs.

An internal investigation by the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, obtained by The Associated Press via public records request Wednesday, concluded that Executive Director Steve Marks and five other agency officials had diverted sought-after bourbons, including Pappy Van Winkle’s 23-year-old whiskey, for their personal use.

[willeyeam]

Wouldn't we all though

[blackjack68]

Picked up a bottle of Vieux Carré absinthe so that I could make Sazeracs with it, which is a cocktail that I've never tried before. I can't say I've ever been a huge fan of anise, but I do like the cocktail.

Learn something new every day. I always thought Sazerac was simply the rye whiskey.

[Shyster]

Been trying out some new cocktails for my repertoire. First, the Bourbon Renewal by Jeffrey Morgenthaler:

2 oz bourbon
1 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz creme de cassis
1/2 oz simple syrup
1 dash aromatic bitters

Shake with ice. Basically a whiskey sour with the addition of creme de cassis. Very nice and refreshing. You can cut back on the simple if you want it a little more tart. The creme de cassis is very sweet on its own.

Next, the Basin Street cocktail, which is very similar to the Bourbon Sidecar:

2 oz bourbon
1 oz triple sec
1 oz lemon juice

Shake with ice. Also very nice and refreshing. I approve.

Third, the Blood and Sand, which dates back at least two the 1930s and may have been named for a 1920s silent movie. We're at the tail end of "good oranges" season, and I have a fridge full of blood oranges, so I wanted something that uses fresh orange.

1 oz Scotch
1 oz sweet vermouth
1 oz Cherry Heering
1 oz blood-orange juice

Shake with ice. This one I don't like so much. The classic equal-parts recipe is very sweet, and to me Cherry Heering has a pretty powerful flavor that isn't my cup of tea and reminds me of cherry cough syrup. So I set out to improve. Reducing the Heering to 1/2 oz and upping the Scotch to 1.5 oz was a definite improvement, but the Scotch sort of gets lost under the cherry and orange, and it was still a little too sweet for me. I want more whiskey from a whiskey cocktail, so I switched to bourbon and changed the Heering to maraschino:

1.5 oz bourbon
1 oz sweet vermouth
1/2 oz maraschino
1 oz blood-orange juice

Shake with ice. This IMO is much better. I think bourbon works better with orange and cherry flavors than does Scotch, and because the orange juice and vermouth are sweet enough by themselves, the maraschino being less sweet than Heering isn't a problem.

[genoscoif]

Been trying out some new cocktails for my repertoire. First, the Bourbon Renewal by Jeffrey Morgenthaler:

2 oz bourbon
1 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz creme de cassis
1/2 oz simple syrup
1 dash aromatic bitters

Shake with ice. Basically a whiskey sour with the addition of creme de cassis. Very nice and refreshing. You can cut back on the simple if you want it a little more tart. The creme de cassis is very sweet on its own.

Next, the Basin Street cocktail, which is very similar to the Bourbon Sidecar:

2 oz bourbon
1 oz triple sec
1 oz lemon juice

Shake with ice. Also very nice and refreshing. I approve.

Third, the Blood and Sand, which dates back at least two the 1930s and may have been named for a 1920s silent movie. We're at the tail end of "good oranges" season, and I have a fridge full of blood oranges, so I wanted something that uses fresh orange.

1 oz Scotch
1 oz sweet vermouth
1 oz Cherry Heering
1 oz blood-orange juice

Shake with ice. This one I don't like so much. The classic equal-parts recipe is very sweet, and to me Cherry Heering has a pretty powerful flavor that isn't my cup of tea and reminds me of cherry cough syrup. So I set out to improve. Reducing the Heering to 1/2 oz and upping the Scotch to 1.5 oz was a definite improvement, but the Scotch sort of gets lost under the cherry and orange, and it was still a little too sweet for me. I want more whiskey from a whiskey cocktail, so I switched to bourbon and changed the Heering to maraschino:

1.5 oz bourbon
1 oz sweet vermouth
1/2 oz maraschino
1 oz blood-orange juice

Shake with ice. This IMO is much better. I think bourbon works better with orange and cherry flavors than does Scotch, and because the orange juice and vermouth are sweet enough by themselves, the maraschino being less sweet than Heering isn't a problem.

Challenge accepted

[Dickie Dunn]

My problem with a lot of cocktails (Morgenthaler stuff especially) is that I never have certain ingredients on hand and I'm never going to buy something like creme de cassis for a single drink. Learned my lesson with buying maraschino for eggnog.

With that being said, those all sound pretty damn good except for Blood and Sand. I don't like that much sweet with Scotch. However your adjustment sounds solid and gives me a use for my maraschino.

[shafnutz05]

Shyster, you are an alchemist.

[Shyster]

I agree that it's annoying that many modern cocktails require something obscure. I'm trying to keep it simpler by focusing on whiskey cocktails and trying out ones that require common ingredients.

Many of those cocktails are longstanding classics, and many newer cocktails are merely riffs on the old ones, like the Bourbon Renewal basically just being a Whiskey Sour plus the creme de cassis. The 1948 book The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks argues, for example, that there are really just six basic cocktails (Daiquiri, Jack Rose, Manhattan, Martini, Old Fashioned, and Sidecar) and pretty much everything else is a variant made by substituting a different base spirit, modifying one of the other flavoring agents, or changing ratios. I think there is merit to that assertion. Like a Daiquiri is lime juice, simple, and rum. Swap bourbon for rum and lemon for lime, and it's a Whiskey Sour. Swap the rum for tequila and use triple sec to sweeten rather than simple, and it's a margarita. I'm trying to get a feel for how to do those sorts of substitutions.

[count2infinity]

I bought a book called “The One Bottle Cocktail”

Each recipe requires one spirit. The rest is produce and/or common pantry ingredients. It has all sorts of simple syrups and other things like shrubs that make it easy. Seems this is a big whiskey thread, some of my favorites from that chapter:

Spanish penny:

2 oz rye
1 tsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp sherry vinegar

Ice in a rocks glass, add ingredients, stir. Enjoy.


Switchback highball

2 oz rye
1/2 oz apple cider vinegar
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/4 oz maple syrup

Shake with ice, strain and top it in a glass with ice, top with ~2 oz ginger beer.

Newton’s law (great fall drink)

1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp hot water
1.5 oz bourbon
1/2 oz lemon juice
2 tsp apple butter

Dissolve the sugar in the water. Add the rest with ice and shake. Pour on the rocks. Top with cinnamon if you’d like.

There’s a really good mezcal cocktail called the sassy flower that has mezcal, lemon, and a hibiscus rosemary syrup.

It also has multi drink recipes like punches or pitchers worth of drinks. A tamarind orange lime tequila one is great.

Highly recommend the book as it has some pretty simple accessible cocktails.

[Ad@m]

Whiskey Lottery

https://www.finewineandgoodspirits.com/ ... &langId=-1

[tifosi77]

Since I quit drinking last year I have embraced the mocktail.

This is a book by the team behind The Aviary, the bar by the team that brought you Alinea in Chicago.

Zero: A New Approach to Non-Alcoholic Drinks - Reserve Edition

If you're willing to devote time to crafting some of the base ingredients (like syrups and infusions and such), the reward is pretty great.

[genoscoif]

Wife got me a bottle of whistlepig 10yr small batch rye. Never had it and wanted to get a sense of the profile, so I just had it neat. Really enjoy this one. Super clean. It's a bit different, but I can't quite figure out what I tasting. The wood comes through, and it's definitely spicy, but there's something else there. Almost grassy...like a corn husk? I dunno, but I like it. Trying to decide between an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan next.

[MWB]

Old fashioned

[Shyster]

Second on the Old Fashioned. It's just whiskey, sweetener, bitters, and maybe a twist of lemon or orange peel. It's the ur-cocktail—the ancestor of them all. It's a great place to start with mixed drinks.

Trivia: the word "cocktail" originally coined for a mix of spirits, bitters, and sugar: the exact definition of an Old Fashioned. Later, when enterprising bartenders started to add liqueurs, fruit juices, and other stuff to made additional types of "cocktails," people who wanted the original simple mix of whiskey, sweetener, and bitters would say they wanted one of the "old fashioned" style cocktails, and the name stuck.

There are a ton of different ways to make an Old Fashioned. The bitters matter a lot, and while a couple dashes of Angostura is probably the standard, different bitters make for a very different taste. I've been collecting different brands and types of bitters to try out. Two I can recommend very much are The Bitter Truth Old Time Aromatic Bitters and The Bitter Truth Bogart's Bitters, but the options out there in terms of craft bitters is pretty much endless (check "cocktail bitters" on Amazon). A couple dashes of peach bitters, for example, will make a very different Old Fashioned than some chocolate bitters or some black walnut bitters, even keeping all other ingredients the same. Some bitters I like so much I just drink bitters and soda.

[Shyster]

Speaking of rye, a bottle that survived being in my luggage back from Colorado (curse the TSA's carry-on liquids rule) is a bottle of Leopold Bros. Three Chamber Bottled in Bond Straight Rye Whiskey. It uses a mash bill of 20% malted barley and 80% heritage grain Abruzzi rye that is distilled using a special type of "three chamber" still that was widely used before Prohibition but pretty disappeared afterwards in favor of column and pot stills. Leopold Bros. in Colorado commissioned a new still of that type and has the only operational one in the world. It's supposed to be as close to what an original pre-Prohibition rye would taste like as anyone is making today.

I haven't yet opened the bottle because I was still sick. It cost me $220, so I'm very happy it survived in my luggage.

[LITT]

had pappy for the first time. pretty good

[robbiestoupe]

@Shyster have you tried the Balcones yet? I have some of that sitting around and think it's decent. Too overpriced though.

My brother and I shared a bottle of 1792 on vacation last month. That is one that I will go back to. For the price it was pretty darn good. I'm not a spirits guy for the most part, but really enjoyed that.

[Shyster]

I've had the Balcones Baby Blue corn whiskey. I thought it was pretty decent, but there are better whiskeys for the price. I haven't yet opened the bottle of Balcones Texas Single Malt that I bought in Chicago last Thanksgiving.

I just counted, and I have 48 unopened bottles of whiskey—plus eight more open—so it's going to take me a while to get to everything. I kinda went a little overboard on buying stuff for a while there.

[Shyster]

Kicked a bottle of the standard Cooper's Craft bourbon. Cooper's Craft is a fairly new bourbon from Brown-Forman that is made at the same distillery as Old Forester, but with a slightly different mash bill. It also goes through a charcoal-filtering process similar to another Brown-Forman product, namely Jack Daniels.

I quite liked the flavor, although I'm not quite sure where Cooper's Craft fits in the market. Cooper's Craft is a relatively low-proof bourbon at only 82 proof, but it's priced roughly the same as other mid-shelf bourbons that offer more proof, such as WT 101, Elijah Craig, and Old Grand Dad BiB. I suppose if someone wants a very nice sipper, doesn't like a higher-proof bourbon, and doesn't want to add water themselves, Cooper's Craft would be a good choice. It also makes for lower-alcohol cocktails without giving up on flavor. I could see it as a "starter" bourbon to get someone into the genre without hitting a new drinker over the head with proof, and I would say it's better than the other low-proof options, which are often the bottom-shelf bourbons. But I don't really see myself buying it again over the other mid-shelf options. It's certainly not bad—not at all—but when I would get WT 101 for pretty much the same price, I'm personally going with the WT 101.

[LeopardLetang]

Prices are running out of control on scotch and I have such limited variety where I live, so for the last few years I've been creating my own blends with fair success. I started making forever bottles maybe five years ago (especially with bourbon) but now it's become my standard drink. A typical blend will be a handle of monkey shoulder on sale for $60 something and add a quarter of a bottle of classic laddie ($60) (which just came available for the first time in my 15 years of drinking in Altoona). Basically it lets me spend an average of $45-50 on a bottle still but gives me a nice quality above the lower shelves which are all about $40 now. I used to get tamnavulin or glen moray 12 for example for $30-$34 dollars. Both have gone up on average over $10. And I gave glenfiddich 14 like its fifth try and it does nothing for me even with a big discount.

So doing this has helped curb my boredom with the local selection and helped price. I really need to take advantage of trying to purchase online and having stuff shipped.

[Shyster]

Opened the bottle of Flores Zuta Osa Slivovitz that I bought over in Ohio last year. The only slivovitz I've ever seen in PA is Maraska, and I want to say the Flores Zuta Osa (product of Serbia) is sweeter and "plummier" than I recall the Maraska slivovitz being. I quite like it. Unfortunately, I just checked the Ohio spirits page, and it looks like it's been discontinued in the state.

I saw some recommendations that slivo can work in a sour, so I made a slivovitz sour with 2 oz. slivo, 1 oz. fresh lemon juice, 1/2 oz. of simple, a couple dashes of Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas Bitters, and a tablespoon of aquafaba.* Holy crap, that's a tasty drink, and perfect for hot weather. The Flores Zuta Osa slivo is sweet enough that I think I'll reduce the simple a little for the next one.


* I'd read that the bean juice in cans of chick peas makes for an egg substitute called aquafaba, so when I was recently using canned chick peas for a salad topping, I took the juice and froze it by the tablespoon in an ice tray. It does indeed make a great substitute for an egg white to give a nice creaminess to a sour or other shaken cocktail, and I personally don't taste any bean flavor in the final cocktail. I recommend giving it a try. I first shake the little cube of frozen aquafaba with the spirits so that it fully melts, and then I add regular ice and shake again.

[eddy]

Snagged a bottle of Weller Full Proof. What a delicious treat.l! I prefer it with an ice cube. This is like a desert and I look forward to savoring it.