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Yeah I looked it up when I got home and I don't know that I got the best $ deal by buying the Highland Park but I tried the 12 year and loved it. I'm sure the 18 will be awesome. Maybe if the Glenlivet thing wasn't some kind of Christmas special it can be next month's purchase.
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Dec 28, 2011 16:56
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Kenning posted:Oh yeah also one friend said "It's like a Charizard cumshot," which is pretty cool. A friend of mine described it as being 'like a hospital by the sea' and I think if that hospital had been gutted by a fire that would be about the most accurate description I'd ever heard. 10 year is fabulous. I have a bottle of 18 but I'm actually less fond of it; it's way more alcohol-y and most of the peat notes have mellowed off, which is one of the main things I like about Laphroaig. Both 10 year and QC beat it by miles. I find all this talk of scotch being A MAN'S DRINK amusing, though. 
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Dec 28, 2011 18:12
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Got a crystal decanter for xmas and am wondering how to properly keep scotch in it. I was thinking of putting a cheap blend in it like Black Label or something and just having it there for a quick pour on weeknights, but my liquor shelf/rack gets a lot of light. Is direct sunlight for a few hours a day enough to alter a decanter full of whisky within a month or less? Also whats all this about lead leeching into the liquid, is that just with older crystal or does new crystal do this as well?
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Dec 29, 2011 15:51
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Anybody had johnnie walker premier? It's on sale at the grocery store here for 80 a bottle.
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Dec 29, 2011 16:22
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iwentdoodie posted:Anybody had johnnie walker premier? It's on sale at the grocery store here for 80 a bottle. I've had it a while ago now. I remember it being more interesting than Blue Label (not hard), I think it was a bit more sherried perhaps? Worth a go moreso than Blue to me at least.
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Dec 29, 2011 22:38
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For Christmas my mother got my father a bottle of Booker's bourbon, and I got him a bottle of High West Rendezvous Rye. The rye was interesting, strong flavor and kinda smoky tasting for an American whiskey. As for the Booker's, I haven't had too much of barrel proof bourbons before, just the rather milder Wild Turkey Rare Breed, so it was a very different sort of thing. I might need to get that some time. Also when I was at the big liquor store picking it up I saw a few wheat whiskeys. Is that a new thing? What sort of character do those have relative to corn or rye?
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Dec 29, 2011 23:03
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Was it an all-wheat whiskey, or was it a wheated bourbon? The most well-known wheated bourbon is Maker's Mark, which I (and many in this thread) find a bit flabby and bland. It just lacks the bright spice of bourbons with rye in the mashbill. I imagine an all-wheat whiskey would just take that to the extreme.
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Dec 30, 2011 00:35
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I was at BevMo about to buy a bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask, and the guy there upsold me to Balvenie 14-year-old Caribbean Rum Cask (it was $5 more). I absolutely loved Laphroaig 10, but the guy there said that if I liked the smokiness of Laphraoig, Balvenie was like that but with more vanilla. Should I run back and return it before I open the bottle, or should I give it a shot?
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Dec 30, 2011 01:05
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Aglet56 posted:I was at BevMo about to buy a bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask, and the guy there upsold me to Balvenie 14-year-old Caribbean Rum Cask (it was $5 more). I absolutely loved Laphroaig 10, but the guy there said that if I liked the smokiness of Laphraoig, Balvenie was like that but with more vanilla. Should I run back and return it before I open the bottle, or should I give it a shot? Give it a shot, yes, but don't expect any of the smoke character that Laphroaig has. No no no, not at all.
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Dec 30, 2011 02:10
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Balvenie is a fine whisky but comparing it to Laphroaig??? Nah, it's both single malt scotch whisky but really the styles could not be further apart within those bounds.kidsafe posted:I don't know though...I think I'd choose the Glenlivet pack based on bang for the buck. $100 for three bottles vs. $115 for two. Glenlivet 18yr is no slouch and the 15yr French Oak is an interesting diversion (much like HP 15yr is a diversion from the rest of HP's core range, too bad it isn't included in the gift pack.) I glossed over the part where the HP set was two, and the 'livet set was 3 bottles. On second thought the Glenlivet set was probably the best deal. Glenlivet 18 and 15 French oak are quite excellent. Still I'd take an equivalent HP over them any day. 
spankmeister fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Dec 30, 2011 |
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Dec 30, 2011 02:19
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Killer robot posted:As for the Booker's, I haven't had too much of barrel proof bourbons before, just the rather milder Wild Turkey Rare Breed, so it was a very different sort of thing. I might need to get that some time. I'm curious as to your take on it. I bought a bottle awhile back and it tasted like dust and not much else. Based on other reviews I must have had a bad bottle. Killer robot posted:Also when I was at the big liquor store picking it up I saw a few wheat whiskeys. Is that a new thing? What sort of character do those have relative to corn or rye? My only experience is with Makers and Weller which I would describe as bland but others may say mild or light.
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Dec 30, 2011 04:25
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wormil posted:I'm curious as to your take on it. I bought a bottle awhile back and it tasted like dust and not much else. Based on other reviews I must have had a bad bottle. I just tried a little taste more of it. This bottle was pretty heavy on oak and vanilla, though that got a little clearer with a bit of water added: at 128 proof I think it's strong enough that the alcohol burn overwhelms a lot of the flavor. On the one hand, it's a pity saying you need to water down a whiskey that expensive, but on the other hand, if you cut it to 80 proof the price per shot would be more like a $30 bottle than a $50 one so I guess it all evens out.
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Dec 30, 2011 05:18
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Killer robot posted:Also when I was at the big liquor store picking it up I saw a few wheat whiskeys. Is that a new thing? What sort of character do those have relative to corn or rye? I'd be interested to hear what wheat whiskeys there were. The only two "Straight Wheat Whiskeys" I can think of are Bernheim's and Dry Fly's. As opposed to being a wheated bourbon like Makers or Old Fitz which are still at least 51% corn with a good amount of wheat along with it, these wheat whiskeys contain a mash bill of at least 51% wheat. Like a wheated bourbon, the wheat brings a sweet flavor with a really mellow, smooth body. It's still aged in new oak so you get a lot of similar flavors, but of course subtle differences.
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Dec 30, 2011 06:10
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So I picked up a bottle of the JW Premier. First two bottles had corks that fell apart in my hand, my wife got the third one open by being far more gentle than I am capable of. Still had to recork with a champagne cork as the one it came with is brittle beyond belief. Not bad for a blend, I don't feel bad spending 80 on it considering I have never in my life seen a bottle of it. Very spicy, hint of oak and oats. Very complex tasting.
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Dec 30, 2011 13:36
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Curious if you could recommend a scotch I've had Oban 14, which I liked, Laphroaig (don't know the age it was one drink, bought for me) was too smokey for me. Currently been drinking bourbon: Noah's Mill and Willet Pot Still; Suntory Yamazaki 12yr.
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Dec 31, 2011 02:24
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"[ts posted:xenophobe"] Hazelburn 12 if you can find it and are willing to pay is also a fair mix of sherry sweetness plus heavy wood influence and seaside influence. Old Pulteney as well...it has a reputation for being 'salty,' but it's really not that extreme.
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Dec 31, 2011 10:55
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Had some Glenfarclas 175 yesterday. Worth a punt if you can find some.
biglads fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Jan 3, 2012 |
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Dec 31, 2011 12:59
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So Seattle (as far as I can tell, I've only lived here like 6 months) sucks balls for liquor stores for now until this new initiative takes hold and all the liquor stores aren't state run anymore. I'm trying to get my hands on a 12 or 18 yr Yamazaki for a late Christmas gift. Anyone have any recommendations for trustworthy online vendors, or anyone in the Seattle area able to recommend a store that's going to have a wider selection of scotch and whiskey?
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Jan 1, 2012 07:01
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CubanRefugee posted:I'm trying to get my hands on a 12 or 18 yr Yamazaki for a late Christmas gift. Anyone have any recommendations for trustworthy online vendors, or anyone in the Seattle area able to recommend a store that's going to have a wider selection of scotch and whiskey?
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Jan 1, 2012 10:42
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Had some Yamazaki Sherry Cask and after that some Ardbeg Uigeadail. What were your new years drams Goons?
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Jan 1, 2012 12:31
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spankmeister posted:Had some Yamazaki Sherry Cask and after that some Ardbeg Uigeadail. What were your new years drams Goons? I had 10 shots of Yukon Jack. I wouldn't recommend that experience to anyone.
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Jan 1, 2012 12:35
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spankmeister posted:Had some Yamazaki Sherry Cask and after that some Ardbeg Uigeadail. What were your new years drams Goons? I figured start the year with (one of?) my best, Highland Park 25yo. 
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Jan 1, 2012 12:52
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spankmeister posted:What were your new years drams Goons? My wallet is hosed over the next 12 months.
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Jan 1, 2012 13:16
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I drank some mediocre scotch with ginger wine and it owned 
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Jan 1, 2012 16:49
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I had lots of Maker's with ginger ale and do not remember most of the night
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Jan 1, 2012 17:44
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Fireball cinnamon whisky and Bulleit Rye, both out of these novelty candy cane shot glasses my sister-in-law got. Hey, not the best NYE drinks I've had, but did the trick.
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Jan 1, 2012 23:24
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Turns out Balvenie 14 is pretty delicious. I miss the smokiness of Laphroaig a lot, but the vanilla notes are very pronounced, and it goes down real smooth.
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Jan 2, 2012 00:51
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So, I was just poking through my parent's liquor cabinet and found a lonely bottle of Chivas Regal Royal Salute 21 year old. They don't drink hard liquor (only keep it around for entertaining) and said I can have it, they received it as a gift (sealed) a few months ago and some neighbors had some on New Years Eve, it's a bit over half full. It's got a brown ceramic bottle, so I'm assuming it's an older bottle, since it looks like all the bottles currently on the market are blue. Does anyone have any idea when the brown ceramic bottles are from? Either way, talk about a nice gift! I don't even think they know what they have. 
deadwing fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Jan 2, 2012 |
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Jan 2, 2012 03:10
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WT101 was my New Year companion.
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Jan 2, 2012 05:47
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Gift was a Glenlivet 18 from the old man. Haven`t cracked it open yet, though.
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Jan 3, 2012 05:40
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Just got back home from spending Hogmanay on Speyside, racing southwards to avoid Hurricane Bawbag2. I made some interesting purchases including a Single Cask Arran and the new bottling of Bunnahabhain 18 (big disappointment) and had some cracking drams at the Highlander Inn (whiskyinn.com). I got talking to a guy who works for Diageo who told me that they are considering re-opening Port Ellen. I expect that if they did this, it would be a brand new distillery as the old one is full of the maltings and maturing Lagavulin.
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Jan 3, 2012 16:09
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Yay, a new whiskey thread! I have just been getting into whiskey in the last year or so, and have built up a meager collection of bourbons and single malts. My favorite bourbon is probably Blanton's single barrel. I finally bought myself a bottle of this last night after having it multiple times at my uncle's. I love this stuff with just a cube or two of ice. I also can't deny that the bottle looks awesome, and the color of the bourbon is just beautiful. Also, in case you guys didn't know, the little bottle stopper has a horse on the top and a little letter underneath it. The letters spell out 'Blanton's' and each horse has a slightly different pose so when you line them up it's a full stride. Pretty cool! I found a liquor store in town with a really good selection of scotch, and a decent selection of bourbon that has Blanton's for $39.99, which is as cheap as I've seen it, so I finally picked one up for myself. I also really enjoyed the Four Roses Single Barrel that I had. This might have been the easiest bourbon to drink that I've ever tried. I didn't like it quite as much as Blanton's, but it was very good. Honorable mention goes to Woodford Reserve and Evan Williams Single Barrel. The EW was especially nice for a $24 bottle. On my 'to try' list is Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, Jefferson's Reserve, Wild Turkey Rare Breed(just bought a budde a bottle so hopefully he has me over to try it), Wild Turkey kentucky Spirit(own a bottle but haven't gotten to it yet). As for scotch, I am far less experienced. I like the Balvenie doublewood, which besides the taste I really like because the aforementioned liquor store sells it for $32 a bottle! They also have the Balvenie Signature for $36, would you guys recommend that for an extra $4? I like the Glenfiddich 15 I have, and The Dalmore 12(I don't like this quite as much as the doublewood). I have found that I don't like the peaty scotch's, I have tried some Talisker 10 and it was hard for me to finish it. I also got a bottle of Jameson 12 special reserve from a friend, so I'm anxious to try that out. I haven't had any irish whiskey besides regular Jameson. If I like it I might have to check out some other varieties like RedBreast or something. Also, I was just thinking of how hard it would be to start a new distillery to make and sell scotch. I mean aren't you looking at 10-12 years before you can even sell product? That's a long time and a lot of operating cost you have to eat before you can make any money.
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Jan 3, 2012 23:30
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DoctaFun posted:Yay, a new whiskey thread! quote:As for scotch, I am far less experienced. I like the Balvenie doublewood, which besides the taste I really like because the aforementioned liquor store sells it for $32 a bottle! They also have the Balvenie Signature for $36, would you guys recommend that for an extra $4? I like the Glenfiddich 15 I have, and The Dalmore 12(I don't like this quite as much as the doublewood). I have found that I don't like the peaty scotch's, I have tried some Talisker 10 and it was hard for me to finish it. quote:I also got a bottle of Jameson 12 special reserve from a friend, so I'm anxious to try that out. I haven't had any irish whiskey besides regular Jameson. If I like it I might have to check out some other varieties like RedBreast or something. quote:Also, I was just thinking of how hard it would be to start a new distillery to make and sell scotch. I mean aren't you looking at 10-12 years before you can even sell product? That's a long time and a lot of operating cost you have to eat before you can make any money. e: not sure if Amrut has just started distilling or if they've been at it for some time. spankmeister fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jan 3, 2012 |
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Jan 3, 2012 23:36
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DoctaFun posted:
First thing you need is a good water source.
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Jan 3, 2012 23:37
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DoctaFun posted:Also, I was just thinking of how hard it would be to start a new distillery to make and sell scotch. I mean aren't you looking at 10-12 years before you can even sell product? That's a long time and a lot of operating cost you have to eat before you can make any money. Very true, though there are ways around it. I was looking at High West Distillery when I bought some of theirs. They were established just a few years ago, so they so far just sell vodka that doesn't have to be aged, unaged whiskeys, and rye they bought from other distilleries to blend and bottle themselves while they're working on their own aged products. I don't think there's unaged whisky made in Scotland like there are in the US and Ireland, but you could still make vodka and other unaged spirits for some income while sitting on the barrels.
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Jan 3, 2012 23:45
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DoctaFun posted:Also, I was just thinking of how hard it would be to start a new distillery to make and sell scotch. I mean aren't you looking at 10-12 years before you can even sell product? That's a long time and a lot of operating cost you have to eat before you can make any money. This is an interesting question. I guess the best way to do this would be to purchase barrels from other distilleries to make a blended malt while you distil your own spirits for future batches?
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Jan 3, 2012 23:46
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spankmeister posted:I suggest you try Pappy Van Winkle. I would love to try this, but I haven't seen it any stores around my house. This is normally pretty pricy too right? spankmeister posted:Try a Higland Park sometime. It has some peat, but it's not as peppery as the Talisker. I suspect the pepper has put you off, not the peat necessarily. I will have to try this out as I've heard such good things in this thread. Maybe that will be my next purchase. spankmeister posted:
Do you mean it's in a different league than Jameson's normal offering, or just any Jameson in general? I know Jameson is marketed pretty hard and is thus pretty 'popular', but is the 12 year not any better than the normal stuff? I'll definitely try out the redbreast sometime though. spankmeister posted:Whisky can be legally sold as such after aging for three years. There have been a few upstart distilleries the past few years like Kilchoman, Penderyn, I guess I just haven't seen many scotch's sold that advertise anything less than 8-10 years aged. And I know geographic location has a lot to do with how quickly the whisky ages, and comparing years isn't apples to apples between different distilleries. But is there much of a market for 3 year aged scotch? I'm not talking American whiskey or canadian, but scotch. It would be pretty rad to start your own distillery, but it also makes sense why so many of the distilleries are so old. Pretty daunting task to put up money for 3+ years before you can really sell anything. Do a lot of the distilleries sell off a portion of their product after 3-7 years to be used in blends or for other purposes or anything?
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Jan 3, 2012 23:56
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DoctaFun posted:I would love to try this, but I haven't seen it any stores around my house. This is normally pretty pricy too right? quote:Do you mean it's in a different league than Jameson's normal offering, or just any Jameson in general? I know Jameson is marketed pretty hard and is thus pretty 'popular', but is the 12 year not any better than the normal stuff? I'll definitely try out the redbreast sometime though. quote:I guess I just haven't seen many scotch's sold that advertise anything less than 8-10 years aged. And I know geographic location has a lot to do with how quickly the whisky ages, and comparing years isn't apples to apples between different distilleries. But is there much of a market for 3 year aged scotch? I'm not talking American whiskey or canadian, but scotch. It would be pretty rad to start your own distillery, but it also makes sense why so many of the distilleries are so old. Pretty daunting task to put up money for 3+ years before you can really sell anything. Do a lot of the distilleries sell off a portion of their product after 3-7 years to be used in blends or for other purposes or anything? Generally speaking, if it's less than 10 years they will just omit any age statement. And most of the young whisky produced by the established brands does go into blends. But I doubt if a distiller is just starting that they will be able to sell their young product to blenders. In any case small independent distillers that have just started will generally not be interested in selling to blenders, but they want to sell their product as single malt. Taking Penderyn as an example, it's a distillery that started 6-odd years ago in Wales producing malt whisky. Once their product reached 4YO or so they started bottling it, and quite successfully, it's rather good. I wonder how the 10YO will be in a couple of years.
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Jan 4, 2012 00:04
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spankmeister posted:The 12 YO is better than the normal offering, but yes, Redbreast is in a whole other league from whatever Jameson offers, IMHO. Some of the more experienced dram-masters here might differ, but in my experience Jameson Original = bland as can be, 12 y.o. = very good, and Redbreast 12 = angelic.
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Jan 4, 2012 05:04
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Redbreast is off the hook. I can corroborate this.
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Jan 4, 2012 08:43
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