Tag: whiskey

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Spirit Day – Chilled

I generally don’t cool whiskey.  Sometimes a splash of water but that is about it.  But since the Nesh Whiskey Chiller can take a liquid from room temperature to 36 degrees in 15 seconds, It just might solve the issue of recently purchased beer that has warmed up on the way home from purchasing.

The science is that “the area around the coils is frozen solid – exposing your whiskey to 3 feet of ice as it pours through while remaining isolated in a stainless steel tube. This significantly reduces the temperature of the spirit without directly exposing it to ice or water.”

Might be interesting to experiment with.

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Book Review – Whiskey Women

I have been listening to Fred Minnick on the Bourbon Pursuit podcast that he contributes to and then I saw he had a book about women and whiskey and bought it.

Whenever I read a book about women in history, I wonder what the world would be like if weak men weren’t so damn scared of women.  

Whiskey Women brings a few women from whiskey history to the fore and if any of them had as much rope to use as men did, wow, would Bourbon, Scotch and Whiskey be different.

We learn about poitin in Ireland, bootleggers in America and peat in Scotland through names new to me that should be talked about far more than they are now.

To me, the most fascinating tales were of the wives and daughters who inherited distilleries and proceeded to run them very well.  Basically men had to die for a woman to run a distillery.  

Thankfully, this is shifting in the right direction but it is still too slow for my taste.  Minnick shows page after page and woman after woman that we miss out when we don’t allow everyone to rise to their potential.

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Blinded

Thanks to my lovely spouse, I got a Blind Barrels tasting for my birthday.

Here are my thoughts on the spirits and how it worked…

First, the first reveal of the four varieties

A. Corsair Triple Smoke American Single Malt Whiskey

B. Broken Barrel Barrel Pick Rye Whiskey

C. RY3 Cask Strength Blended Rye finished in Toasted Barrels

D. Krobar Cask Strength Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Second, my ranking was D nudging slightly ahead of B and C who were tied with A being a very far distant fourth because I am not a fan of smoke in my whiskey. The Krobar had just enough vanilla to it that it balanced out the cask strength. A was only 80 proof while B through D were all between 106 to 120 proof.

And that was my only real issue with this specific box. A was such an outlier that it was either gonna win by a country mile or be dead last. I might have liked all cask strength but maybe have one be have a finish instead of two, one be rye instead of two and have the proof range be 100 to 120. Maybe that is because I prefer teasing out the subtle difference.

But this is a fun way to taste and the reveal is as easy to do with the QR Code. And I know now to look for Krobar spirits.

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Needed or Not? – Mystic Galactic

The bottle of whiskey in the fancy bottle above will set you back $75,000. Why? Because it will be aged in a low altitude orbit above the Earth. The very definition of “space aged”.

But wait, that is not all. You get an NFT, exclusive launch and re-entry parties, a piece of one of the space barrels and a sample bottle so you do not sully the main bottle. If the wooden barrels filled with alcohol do not explode on re-entry, of course.

Part of me wishes that craft beer would bring back the over the moon, wack-a-doodle ideas that cost more than they taste good. Age a beer in a cemetery. Brew a glitter seltzer shandy. Break some rules!

Needed? – Of course not. You can spend that 75k if you want, but you have to spend the same amount on a charity at the same time.

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Blinded

As I found out in my trip to Kentucky, there is a lot and by a lot, I mean a LOT of bourbon out there and finding a favorite is hard especially at some of the bottle price points.

Enter Blind Barrels.

You can get a quarterly subscription or annual. Annual has a price saving. You get four samples of unknown whiskey. You get tasting notes and a QR Code to show who made it as well as a link to buy it if it strikes your fancy.

Thinking about this for my birthday.

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Bourbon Buddies

Collaboration is not just for breweries, Broken Barrel, who I have written about on this very blog and this month the L.A. whiskey maker has released a new whiskey with the Los Angeles Distillery. 

Here are the details…

“These 5.5 year single barrels culminate the five years the two whiskey brands have known each other, and also mark the five years since Seth bought his first barrel of whiskey to tinker with. The team selected three wheated single barrels – all partnered with Total Wine California where these limited edition releases will go next week.”

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A Different Whiskey Stone

Stone Imperial Stout. Classic craft stout.  It is also now the base for Stone Imperial Whiskey.  In partnership with Iowa’s Foundry Distilling Company, the “whiskey is made with the wort of Stone Imperial Stout (liquid resulting from the first stage of the brewing process), distilled and aged in 30-gallon charred oak barrels for 30 months.  This is a monster of a whiskey clocking in at 127 proof.”

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Near to Me

I am much more finicky with spirits than I am with beer. Tequila will be off limits due to the headaches I get the day after and Irish whisky or Scotch is just too peaty for my taste.

I have found better success with Rye and Tennessee whiskey and so far Uncle Nearest is at the top of my small list. And that is saying a lot because my expectations were high. This brand has had deserved press. It is women owned and women distilled and it honors the mentor to Jack Daniel.

The 1884 is a blessed combo of smooth vanilla notes with a cantankerous ABV hit. I get a little bit of wood character but it is a side player here. I have had it straight twice in two days and look forward to it again. Usually a bottle will sit a bit between visits.

I wish I could find small bottles of the different variants to do a taste test.

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Newly Distilled in Torrance

As is often the case with Strand Brewing, they tease a new venture in advance and then it gets a little lost before it comes to fruition.

I posted about their distilling a few months back and now, as you can see from the photo, whiskey and vodka under the Strand moniker has arrived.

Available at their taproom to go.

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Your Whiskey is Arrogant

It kind and surprises me that Stone hadn’t licensed the Arrogant Bastard name to multiple spirits by now. A spicy whiskey or vodka probably would have been easy picks. But instead the have gone the whiskey route which I think is probably a better choice. Maybe a Dayfall Wit Gin is next?