Dram of the "day": Aberlour A'Bunadh

See, I knew I wouldn't make it very long before I missed a dram. Tonights dram is Aberlour A'Bunadh, which is just sort of fun to say. I am in fact dramming batch 28. The A'Bunadh, besides being fun to say and very hot (59%abv) is a good representation of the current trend in whisky bottling. There is no age statement given, merely a batch number. This is also an extremely sherried scotch, so if you are not a big fan of sherry finishes you may want to skip this one.

Aberlour A'Bunadh batch 28
It really is all about the sherry. The sherry starts on the nose and carries all the way through the palate and into the finish. On the palate there is a thick reach creaminess. There are hints of smoke, mint and a pepperiness.

Dram of the "day": Monkey Shoulder

It is a mad dash to get in the dram of the day before the day is over. Monkey shoulder is a blended malt. This is not to be confused with a blended scotch. A blended malt is a combination of multiple single malts from different distilleries. In this case Balvenie, Glenfiddich and Kininvie. All of these are owned by William Grant and Sons.

Monkey Shoulder,

For me, I get banana on the nose. This is apperentlydue to the way I discern esthers, they burn off smelling like banana. On the palate it is incredibly smooth. Lots of honey, malt and grass flavors with a touch of vanilla. Incredibly smooth. If it wasn't for the difficulty in finding this stuff, I could drink it all night long.

Dram of the "day": Eagle Rare 10yr

Time to go back to whiskey, this time I thought I would go with bourbon. I thought I would pick another of the barrels that Julio's Liquors has selected. This is sort of a unique release, it is what they refer to as one of their Angel's Share barrels. As spirits age in barrels, a portion of this is lost to evaporation and floats up to the heavens. In some cases there is a little more loss, which seems to result in a full flavored spirit. In this case, I believe they only managed to get 77 bottles out of the barrel, normally you get around 240 bottles, depending on how long it has been aging.

Eagle Rare 10yr, 45% abv
The nose starts sweet with a little bit of wood. The body has good structure to it with notes of cherry, vanilla and some spice. The finish is crisp but not to long. A very nice dram, especially with it being 0 degrees outside.

Dram of the "day": Milagro Anejo tequila

I thought I would take a break from the scotch and go with a different spirit for today's dram, tequila. Supposedly tequila is the next "in" spirit, we shall see. A large portion of people i offer tequila to often respond with something along the lines of "oh man, i haven't been able to drink tequila ever since that time the astronomy club got trashed on the top of the physics building". Thankfully I have never had one of those bad over indulges with tequila, so I am still able to enjoy it.

I suppose I could be considered a snob, I prefer to think that I have refined taste, but when I talk about tequila, I don't mean Jose Cuervo. Most of the tequila that I have tasted, especially the ones that I drink straight are 100% agave. I suppose we could go into the whole "how tequila is made" thing but I am sure you can find that on wikipedia. I will at least cover the 3 main types of tequila. There are silver (or blanco), reposado (rested) and anejo (aged) tequilas. Silver tequilas are usually bottled after distillation, reposado tequilas are rested, often in used bourbon barrels for several months and anejo tequilas are given plenty of time to age and mature and develop additional flavors. Anejo tequilas are your target for a sipping tequila, lots of flavors, smoother and a little sweeter.

Milagro tends to be my standby tequila, it is a good flavor for the price, especially if you can catch it on sale. Generally I have q bottle of the silver on hand, but I thought for today we could dram withthe Anejo.

Milagro Anejo,
A nice rich color. The flavors are sweet with a slight bitterness on the end. There is lots of nice fruit flavors and hints of woody. Incredibly smooth and easy to enjoy. Drink this one straight up, add an ice cube if you want.

Dram of the "day": Highland Park 15

I'm going all out today. So far I have posted a cocktail on the blog and my weekly cocktail over on Facebook, so I might as well get the Dram of the "day" out of the way while I can. I think I will continue with the single malts, but head to a different island. I bet you are thinking I am going to go with Skye, but you would be thinking wrong. I am going with Orkney, and Highland Park. I guess actually, you probably could have guessed that based on the fact that Highland Park is listed in the title, but hey, you may not have known it was on Orkney.

I really like Highland Park, it has some really nice flavors. There is smoke, but it is a role player, not the lead actor. The peat level is just enough that it does not hide but it allows the other flavors to also allows the other flavors to come through, I suppose that would put it up for a best supporting actor nomination.

Highland Park 15
The nose presents with peat, hints of heather and a gentle sweetness. On the palate the heather becomes a little more pronounced, mixing with grass and the sweetness from the sherry barrel come forward. All of these flavors are tempered by the smoky peat. The finish continues the gentle peat but it is mixed with a subtle citrus note as you get the last of the sherry flavors. Just wonderful. If you want to take baby steps into the world of peat, this is a good intermediary bottle.



As an added "bonus", here is their short introduction movie.

The continuing adventures of white rum, lime and syrup

So far we have had a Daiquiri and a Mojito, what else can we make with this magical combination of flavors? How about a Brunswick Sour. What magical concoction is this you ask? Essentially it is a Daiquiri with a float of merlot on top. The merlot adds a nice added little bit of kick to the drink, and if you pull off the float, it looks great. I would recommend using a clear cocktail glass so that you can show off your awesomeness.

How do we pull off the float? Well, take my bar spoon and turn it over so that the bowl is facing upwards, and then I press it up against the glass at about the line of where the liquid is. Then gently pour the wine onto the back of the spoon so that it rolls down to the tip where it is pressed against the glass, and there you go.

Brunswick Sour

1 1/2 ozs light rum
3/4 oz lime juice
1/4 oz simple syrup
1/4 -1/2 oz merlot (depends on the size of your glass, you want to make sure you have enough to create a layered effect)

Shake rum, lime juice and syrup with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass and float the merlot on top.

Dram of the "day": PC 6

I thought I would continue on the peat train. It is pretty cold outside and nothing really warms me up quite like a nice peated scotch. So I thought I would pour a little of the Port Charlotte 6. This is a great scotch for several reasons, beyond the fact that it just tastes great. Let's start with it's age, it is in fact, get this, six years old. Bet you never would have guessed that. So it is a young scotch, which is a divergence from older is better line of thought. The other thing is unusual is that this is a heavily peated scotch from Bruichladdich. Bruichladdich usually is a fairly lightly to not at all peated scotch. The PC series (and the Octomore) are not subtle.

Bruichladdich PC6
The first thing you smell when you bring the glass to your nose is the smoke of the peat.The flavors are rich and malty with added raisin notes from the Madeira finish. It is big and brash at 60% abv, but it is also smooth, creamy and chewy. The finish lingers and draws you back to take another taste and try to figure out what the other flavors are. Is there some vanilla in there lurking on the bottom? Maybe a little sea air? Maybe some earthiness. Oh, there is the raisin again.

Dram of the "day": Ardbeg Uigeadail

A return to scotch for today's dram, and what a scotch. Granted not everyone loves the oogie, but it is one of my favorites. To begin with, Ardbeg is an Islay distillery, so we are talking some peat. The oogie has it's birth in comments from Michael Jackson (the whisky guru, not the singer) complaining that the lightly peated Ardbeg Blasda was nit a true Ardbeg. In response, Ardbeg created Uigeadail.

Ardbeg Uigeadail begins with some heavy peat on the nose. This continues once you take a sip and that is when you are greeted with the rich mucky earthiness. Oogie also has an incredible mouthfeel (someone remind me to talk about chill filtering someday), rich and dense, and just a little sweet. The finish lingers forever, mmmmmmm.

Dram of the "day": Pierre Ferrand Ambre

On the nights that I want to pretend to be sophisticated I reach in to the back of the cabinet and pull out the cognac. I was very sad to see exactly how low my bottle of Pierre Ferrand Ambre has gotten. So it is probably best that I get this one out of the way as a dram of the day before it is gone.

Pierre Ferrand Ambre
I have not had a lot of cognac so I can't really say if it is better then others, so I will say this, it is incredibly smooth. Light and delicate but nuanced with subtle flavors that inter mingle. There are hard fruit flavors on the nose, like pear and apple. The palate resembles more of a scotch aged in sherry, golden raisin and vanilla with a tiny hint of oak. What is really nice is the way that it rolls around in your mouth, really great body and structure. The finish is long and gentle with waves of flavor. This is a great way to end an evening.

Dram of the "day": Unpeated Caol Ila

This is like the fourth one in a row, inconceivable. Of course the posts keep getting smaller and smaller. So today's dram is an unpeated style Caol Ila. Caol Ila is normally a peated scotch with a wonderful smokiness to it. Not the iodine peat of Laphroaig and not quite the burning ember that Lagavulin has. It is a nice not so subtle smokiness, like opening up your bbq smoker before putting the ribs on. Underneath that smokiness are some great flavors that are a little obscured, but when you make it without the peat, all of those flavors come out.

Caol Ila 10yr old unpeated style,
A very sweet nose with hints of vanilla and maybe some honey. On the palate it has a nice mouth feel, with sweet fruit and floral notes and a touch of heather. The finish lingers with a touch of sea air on the final note.

Some more cocktail fun, the Mojito

I got my self a little out of order by throwing the Aviation out there. I had originally planned to riff through a bunch of white rum drinks. I started it with the Daiquiri; white rum, simple sysrup and lime juice. So what happens if you add some mint and seltzer water? You get a Mojito. Pretty simple. Ok, we add in one extra thing, we are you going to muddle the mint.

Muddling is really quite simple, but requires some slightly different approaches depending upon what you are muddling. At the end of the day, the goal is the same, extract the oils from whatever you are muddling. How you do this is a little different depending on what the you are extracting the oil from. If you are muddling something like a lime, you can feel free to mash away and use a muddler that is rough on the bottom. In the case of mint, you just want to gently bruise it, if you smash and shred it up, you will end up picking mint from your teeth all night. Just gently press into the mint and give a slight twist, nothing to hard.

So now that we have our technique done, how about a Mojito.

Mojito

1½ ounces white rum
¾ ounce fresh lime juice
¾ ounce simple syrup
1 mint sprig and 4 mint leaves (use tender, young mint tops; peppermint is best because it doesn’t wilt and retains its shape).
1 ounce soda

Muddle gently one mint sprig with the simple syrup and the lime juice in the bottom of a highball glass. Add the rum and the ice and top with no more than two ounces of club soda. Give it a gently stir to combine everything. Garnish with a generous sprig of mint.

Dram of the "day": Sazerac Rye

How about some rye whiskey for today's dram? It is somewhat cold outside and nothing warms me up quite like rye whiskey. I don't think that I have paragraphs of introduction to go through for this one. Let's see, it is a rye whiskey, so at least 51% of the grain that it is made from is Rye. If you want to be fancy and pretend like you know things, the next time someone pours you some whiskey to drink, take a sip, look thoughtful and the then ask what the "mash bill" is. The mash bill is the percentage of different grains in a bourbon.

Sazerac Rye whiskey comes in an unusual shaped bottle, and if the camera wasn't downstairs I would be tempted to post a picture, maybe another day. The other thing to know about this whiskey, is that it is often referred to as "Baby Saz". There is an older grown up version that is part of the Buffalo Trace Antique collection, but Baby Saz does the job quite well.

It should probably be noted that this is a somewhat unique bottling. This is a single barrel version that was selected and bottled for Julio's Liquors.The Sazerac company was kind enough to send some barrel samples north for a tasting and the winner was bottled for sale only at Julio's.

Baby Saz, 45% abv. This is a wonderful example of a rye whiskey. Vanilla and spice on the nose with the vanilla becoming more pronounced on the palate. The vanilla mixes with some citrus and just a hint of mint. The finish comes through as the standard pepper that you find in a rye. I am feeling warm already.

Dram of the "day": Ron Zacapa 23

Two days in a row, odds are this won't happen again. So the second dram is some rum. Thanks to a neighbor (or no thanks depending upon who is looking at the credit card bill) I am much more appreciative of rum. I won't pretend to know anything about it like I pretend with scotch, but suffice it to say that rums are very different. There are white rums, gold rums, dark rums, spiced runs, rhum agricole and who knows what else. Some rums are made fro molasses, some from pure cane sugar some from beet sugar. They also vary based on where they were produced, Guatemala, Jamaica, Bahamas or any other island or number of countries.

Rum is not just for mixing drinks, though it is very good at that. There are some very nice rums that are great in a glass for drinking on their own. That us why today's dram is Ron Zacapa, a great rum for sitting back and sipping.

Ron Zacapa 23
This Rum is in fact from Guatemala and made from first press sugar cane. It has a nice dark color and the initial aroma strikes you as a rich molasses/ brown sugar with slight tropical fruit. The magic happens when you take your first sip and swallow. Sweet dried fruit, cocoa and molasses. And smooth, man is it smooth. This is not your grandmas rum. Have it with dessert after dinner, have it on the porch after mowing the lawn, or better yet, have it on a beach under a nice umbrella.

Dram of the "day"

So I thought I might be able to pull off the whole "you have to post in your blog every day to keep up interest" thing if I post some sort of tasting note on a daily basis. To give myself a little wiggle room, I have decided to call it a dram so that I have a little wiggle room on the spirit I am dramming. I have also decided to use the quotes around day because, well, I know it won't be daily, ask people about my cocktail of the week posts.

So, the inaugural dram of the "day" is:

Balvenie 15yr single barrel

What else would it be?
Where to begin with this one. Let's start with the single barrel part of this one. Essentially what this means is that the distillery chooses a barrel and fills as many bottles as they can from that barrel. Then they label the bottle with the barrel number so that you can identify which one you liked. Isn't this what all single malts are you ask? Not really. Single malt designates that it is all coming from the same distillery. Generally what happens is that there is a blending tank and barrels from different years are placed in the tank and mixed together to develop the overall flavor that is desired. By law, the age on the label is the age of the youngest barrel that is in the bottle.

So what is the impact of this single barrel approach? Well, every barrel is a little different. Barrels filled on the same day and sitting in the same warehouse right next to each can taste completely different. So to some degree, you are playing a bit of a game of chance. That being said, each of the barrels is hand selected to resemble a desired flavor profile, so that from bottle to bottle, depending on the barrel, some flavors may be a little stronger, some may not be in there at all. Yes, there are people out there that keep track of all of the individual barrels that they have tried.

Next up, that 15yr label. It is possible to get a 17-18yr old bottle if you stare at all of the labels. Why? Well, it is cheaper to just have one label and you just fill in some of the other information. It makes marketing a little easier as well. The moral of this story, it is worth doing the math sometimes to see how old it really is.

So what is the overall flavor profile? Well, it is a Speyside (see how I worked in my other post from today), so you won't be finding any peat in this. What you will find is lots of honey. There will be a sweet floral nose. On the palate you will get honey, grass, heather and probably some hard fruit notes, like apple and maybe some soft fruit peach notes. The finish will be a little on the short side but you will find that the flavors will stay with you for a little while.

And that is the dram of the "day".

That which we call a Spey by any other name would smell as sweet

I thought we could visit another region of Scotland. Looking back at the Lombard tasting I realized I referred to it as a nice representation of a Speyside whisky. So what exactly does that mean?

Let's start with where it is and move from there. Speyside is a nice region that borders the sides of, wait for it, the river Spey. The region stretches from Inverness to Aberdeen and includes a lot of barley farms. Smack in the middle of Speyside is Dufftown, a great place to go if you are looking for a whisky shop.

Speyside is home to some of the most popular whiskies; Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, Macallan and Balvenie all come from this area. Some of my other favorites like Glen Elgin and Mortlach also come from this area, but they tend to be a little harder to find.

I typed all of that so I could sum up Speyside whisky in like one or two sentences. Typically there is little to no peat in a Speyside whisky, so if you have found that you don't like all of that peat, try exploring Speyside whisky. Some of the other key characteristics of these whiskies is that they tend to be a little sweeter with lots of fruit flavors and some heather. Generally, Speyside whisky is on the gentle side, but not necessarily light. You can still find some fairly heavy hot chewy malts, like the Arberlour A'bunadh.

There you have it, another region. Maybe next we will look at the Highlands. There is some really good stuff up there.

Thirsty in Boston?

I figure I have talked about Julio's Liquors and the Loch & K(e)y enough, so we have covered where I buy my liquor. With that covered I thought I could talk about where I go when I want a drink. I believe I started this blog off by saying that I have the fortune of living in the suburbs outside of Boston, so I guess I should talk about where I go for a drink in Boston.

I don't know why it began, only where, but a group of us decided we wanted to go out for drinks. That night we headed into a bar in Harvard Square, but this post is not about that bar, it is in fact about the second bar we went to. The second bar we ended up at was Drink. Next to the aptly named bottle of scotch called Hedonism, Drink has one of those perfect names.. "Where do you want to go for a drink? I don't know, how about Drink?"

There are many things that I enjoy about Drink. The ambiance is perfect. It is not a pseudo speakeasy that requires a special knock to get in. You just have to know the address, which is on their website. Drink is all about your interaction with the bartender, it's like having your own private chef willing to cook you almost anything ( I say almost because there are some things they don't stock). To top it off, not only are the bartenders knowledgeable, they are fun to talk to. What this translates to, is that they are willing to put up with me.

As luck would have it, I was able to get out to Drink last night. As we approached one of the bartenders saw us approaching and waved to us. Naturally we saddled up to her station and began figuring out what we wanted to drink. By the end of the interaction we ended up with 2 drinks created by some of the bartenders at Drink. As always we finished the evening wishing we could get to Drink more often.

I could keep going on and on but I want to get this posted so I will stop here and simply recommend stopping in at Drink if you find yourself in Boston. I will leave you with one other thing, Drink's house Manhattan, The Fort Point.


The Fort Point
2 ounces Rittenhouse Rye
1/2 ounce Punt e Mes
1/4 ounce Benedictine

Pour all ingredients over hand-cracked ice in a chilled glass pitcher. Stir thoroughly but gently, being careful not to incorporate too much air into the liquid. Pour slowly into a pre-chilled cocktail glass. Serve with a Benedictine flavored cherry on the side.

Lombard Scotch

Another cross post of a Whisk(e)y Wednesday tasting with the Loch & K(e)y at Julio's Liquors. This time we were treated to some great single malts and a nice vatted malt from Lombard Scotch.

The evening started with the Lombard 8yr old Speyside, 43% abv
The rep giving the tasting has not been informed as to what distillery this 8yr spey is from, so for the moment I suppose we will just have to enjoy it for what it is, a nice representation of the Speyside style of whisky. Sweet on the nose, a light body with plenty of fruit and honey. A touch of grass and nut round things out with a slight hint of peat appearing at the end along with a nice finish.

After the mystery spey we moved on to the Jewels of Scotland single malts.

Clynelish 21yr old, 50% abv, distilled 1982, aged in oak.
It is Clynelish, fruity and oakey. What makes this stand oat from the normal 14yr old is that the extra aging appears to have allowed the peat to come forward a little more. There is also a little cloying note on the end, that I couldn’t quite place, the notes from Lombard describe lemon and maple flavors and the maple is close. I really enjoyed this one, my favorite of the night.

Bunnahabhain 25yr old, 50% abv, distilled 1979,sherry barrel (not finished, spent the whole time in sherry)
Ok, I will fess up to not really enjoying this one all that much, there were some in the room who really did. It does open up well with water. Very nutty with plenty of malt and a little bit of yeast. It appears to have developed a stronger sulfur flavor imparting that “rubber hose” flavor.

Highland Park 16yr old, 50% abv, distilled in 1988, oak barrel.
This was Another favorite of the night. A very nice Highland Park expression. A nice smokey nose and incredibly smooth and silky mouth feel with a rich flavor and citrus notes. Nice oakey finish.

Tidal Ebb, Islay pure malt, 40% abv
We were asked not to divulge the origins of this one, but it is composed primarily of a southern distillery. Heavy iodine peat on the nose, vegetative flavors with some brine and spice. Nice even finish, lingers well.

A really nice tasting. I look forward to sampling some more of their pure malts, based on Tidal Ebb, I have high hopes for some very reasonably priced well constructed malts.

There is more then one Grand Marnier?

I have never approached Grand Marnier from a tasting perspective, it has always been something that I use when cooking, or in a cocktail or maybe in a glass along side dessert.
I have not written up my tasting notes on Lombard scotch yet, but I wanted to post something. So I thought I would post notes froma tasting I attended a little while back. Every once in a while the Loch & K(e)y is treated to a non whiskey tasting. In this case it was Grand Marnier. I have never really just sat back with a glass of Grand Marnier after dinner, nor did I know that they have more then one one release and I have never tried to pick out the flavors. I was pleasantly surprised by this tasting and really enjoyed it.

The tasting started with the traditional Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge that you see everywhere. This is made with no age statement on the cognac. What I found interesting was that on the nose it came across as orange rind, not just orange aroma. In my head I could picture the white pith and the peel. Once you take a sip you can tell it is a liqueur. Very sweet on the front side followed by the strong orange flavors.

Next was the Cuvée du Centenaire. This is not 100yr old Grand Marnier, it was created to celebrate the 100th anniversary. It continues cognac as old as 25yrs in it and it is aged in oak for 2 years. The result is a much less prominent orange aroma. Instead it is more like a tangerine or clementine with overtones reminiscent of Peychaud's bitters. On the palate I got some cherry and woody notes with a very slight hint of anise almost. Much thicker and creamier then the cordon rouge.

Next up, Cuvée du Cent Cinquantenaire. This was created in honor of the 150 anniversary. It contains cognac as old as 50 years. This one is aged for 3 years in oak. The result for me is that the orange is almost completely gone from the nose and the cherry flavors are more pronounced on the palate. This one felt like there was a little more burn on the swallow, though all of the bottleings are 80 proof.

We finished the evening with a tasting of Navan. Instead of oranges, they are using vanilla to flavor the cognac. Very strong vanilla flavor, almost as strong as some of the vanilla extracts that I use for baking. It was hard to pick up on much else. The vanilla starts on the nose and carries all the way through. Again like the cordon rouge you get the heavy sweetness up front in the mouth and then the vanilla, the astringency of the vanilla seems to leave a little bitter flavor on the finish.

Cocktail post #2. - The Aviation

They say that you should update your blog daily if you want to keep your audience. Not sure who "they" are, but they must have a lot of free time. So while I think of something to write about I thought I would post another cocktail. We all Qin they way, I get to jeep my audience by posting, and the three of you out there reading get to, well, read.

Originally I was going to do another rum drink, the Bacardi (which, surprisingly enough is made with Bacardi rum), but I decided to go incanother direction totally. I though instead I would go with gin, and at the same time, get the benefit of trying to remember the recipe got another drink.

Last weeks was a simple combination of a sweet (simple syrup), a sour (lime juice) and a spirit (rum). The recipe I was thinking of posting is a sweet (maraschino), a sour (lemon juice) and a spirit (gin). Pretty basic pattern. Maraschino is a liqueur flavored by marasca cherries.

So without delay, the Aviatin.

Aviation
2 ounces Beefeater gin
½ ounce Maraschino Liqueur
½ ounce lemon juice
Preparation: Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

If you want, you can add a dash if creme de violet. If you do opt for that, go gently, it can quickly overpower a drink and leave you feeling like you are drinking perfume.