So, what are you drinking now?

@MadSingleMalt - HP = Heavily Peated.

@MadSingleMalt yeah sorry I was probably not very clear about that. @bwmccoy is correct that it was Port Charlotte Heavily Peated - nothing new that you've missed out on!

BBQing beef and vegetable skewers tonight.. Looking for something appropriate, and also looking to thin out the cabinet.

SO I reached for my dwindling supply of Lagavulin 8. 9 months since I've tasted it, and I had almost forgotten how good this is. Too bad it can't be replaced at a reasonable price here...

Smoke and Ash!

60+ forest fires burning in North Eastern Ontario, 30+ Out Of Control. Smoke and ash has hung in the air for more than a week. Today the wind carried all of that in a different direction. It has been a Laphroaig day, even with the temperature at 85 degrees farenheit. Recent rain hasn't helped as lightning has started several new fires.

A nice little Red Stripe stubby that has been chilled to almost freezing point! A little afternoon reward for prepping all the BBQ things in readiness for tonight's feast

The 2018 16th annual Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. @Dramlette, @Maddie, and I just returned from Tales in NOLA. Tales is a giant (alcohol) hospitality industry meet/network/education/mutual support meeting, extending over 6 days. Most of the attendees are professional bartenders. This year's Tales is for the first time a Foundation, having previously been a private profit-oriented enterprise. Tales is now very pointedly with a mission to serve and support the needs of bartenders.

From the spirits consumption perspective Tales is like a very casual friendly 6 day continuous happy hour. 3 drinks before 10 am? That could be every day for you at Tales, if you want it. Scheduled events and classes take place in multiple locations starting from 8 to 10 am and lasting til 5 pm. Spirits dinners and many additional parties then go til 2 am or later, if you want them. This is NOLA, extremely loosey-goosey...take that go-cup (at Tales "Geaux cup") onto the street as you make your way to a different tasting a block away.

I signed up for 2 whisk(e)y related courses at Tales this year. One was 9 bottlings of Craigellachie: New Make Spirit, OB 13 yo, SMWS 14 yo 44.78 Peek-a-Boo , Exceptional Cask 18 yo, 19 yo, 23 yo, 31 yo, 33 yo, and one other whose age escapes me. Craigellachie prides itself on using minimal copper in their stills and producing sulphurous malt. It is true. It is all sulphurous, but it gets better after 30 years. I did learn a great deal about Craigellachie.

Another course 'From Cornwall to Kirkwall' featured 9 Irish and Scottish whisk(e)ys, including Midleton Very Rare, Bushmills (Black Bush because they didn't get in the bottle they wanted on time), Walsh Distillery's The Irishman Founder's Reserve, Glengyle (Kilkerran) Cadenhead bottling NAS at 55.5% ABV sort of a random bottle from the distillery, Auchentoshan 2009-2018 55.6% ABV distillery only, Aberlour 16 yo 47.3% ABV Single Cask # 18537 '2nd fill bourbon', Glendronach 25 yo 53.6% (1993-2018) SC # 41640, Highland Park OB 18yo 46%, Highland Park 12 yo (an IB I think, smokier than typical HP12). Of these I found the Kilkerran and the Single Cask Aberlour the most interesting. At the end of this class we were told, "Feel free to take the whisky glasses with you" and they gave out boxes. I took home a dozen glasses, and they wouldn't have cared if I had taken home a dozen more. I think that they are Bourbon Trail glasses, tapered at the mouth.

After one tasting was coming to an end the Barfly bar supply people who also had a table in the room said, "Just take whatever you want that is left over." We left with about $300+ of swizzle spoons, grates, measuring cups, and other professional grade bar tools.

@paddockjudge, you would have loved this one: all three of us signed up to hear @Maddie's favourite spirits writer Jason Wilson (book Boozehound) talk. We tasted 9 beverages, mostly obscure Armagnacs and Cognacs, a 35 yo Calvados, a pear brandy, etc. Extremely interesting stuff the value of which was way above the course price. By the end of it MAD had charmed Jason into agreeing to drive down to her house in Baltimore from Philadelphia for future tastings.

Tales is a great place for going with friends in a "we're just going to explore and see what comes" sort of attitude. NOLA is wonderfully decadent, and the July humid heat forces extreme casualness. @talexander, this would be great for you and Pam.

I go mostly because my wife and sister want to go...but I do not suffer too much. Nope, not feeling any pain at all.

@Victor I would LOVE to go to Tales of the Cocktail. And I do love NOLA - I've visited the city 4 times, three before Katrina and one time after (I did some relief work there a year after the hurricane). I know the city very very well, and love it and would LOVE to take Pam one day, we've talked about it often!

@talexander @Victor @paddockjudge @pam - could this be the seedling of an EPIC ADVENTURE?

@Victor what a fantastic trip, thank you for the recap - NOLA is on our bucket list and have to go.

@Nozinan, I do hope that this seeds an epic adventure.

@talexander, excellent to hear. I am not at all surprised that you love hanging out in New Orleans. I thought that it would be your kind of place. It is so easy for me to imagine you and Pam together with us at Tales.

@archivist, I hope to see you there one day.

The odds are very high that we will be attending Tales of the Cocktail in future years.

" . . . "Feel free to take the whisky glasses with you" and they gave out boxes. I took home a dozen glasses, and they wouldn't have cared if I had taken home a dozen more."

Never let @Victor see your glass collection . . .

A Port Askaig 100 - this keeps getting better and better. Palatable neat as well now, which it certainly wasn't at first. Lemony, leathery, sooty, sea shore. Lovely!

We just returned from our mini-vacation in Sonoma County - visited several wine tasting rooms, and toured two whiskey/gin distilleries [Spirit Works, in Sebastopol; Alley 6 in Healdsburg]. Will write more about those two visits another time. Glorious time, with lots of cold beer, chilled wine, and some easy drinking whiskies -- but the hot, 90+ degree weather while we stayed in a log cabin with no air-conditioning was getting old. Tonight we came home to a steady 52-degrees with fog, fog, and more fog. Can't imagine drinking anything but a Laphroaig 10 tonight.

Finally! My B-I-L is here with his family from China, probably a permanent move to Canada, but most of last week he was in New Brunswick looking for a home.

Tonight we got a chance to sit down and I introduced him to Scotch. We played a game of catch and release with Glenlivet 12, then Chivas Regal 12 (a bottling from the 70s or 80s), then JW Green and Highland Park 12.

That seemed to be a pretty good progression, and then I threw him a curve... Amrut single (bourbon) cask at 60%. Yes, it was a challenge, but with the Ashok Manoeuvre, a few drops of water and time in the glass, this rapidly disappearing liquid (only 1/4 of this bottle left) was a great finale. We finished this pour.

He's still here for a few more days (though I'm on call for 2 of them) and I hope to take him through a flight of Wiser's and Forty Creek as well as some bourbons before he leaves town.

I'm currently sipping a mystery sample provided by @Nozinan and it's fantastic. This is the first truly blind tasting I've ever done. It's really neat to suss out aromas and flavours without any pre-conceived notions as to what's supposed to be in there. I've got my notes written down and I'm willing to send @Nozinan a screenshot, just to ensure full transparency. Or maybe I'll just post it here.

@OdysseusUnbound I trust you. I'm glad you like it. Now, if only I could remember what it was.

Once you're ready to post a review, I'll let you know what you tasted.

@Nozinan I think there should be a thread for blind tastings only. That way blind samples can be better accounted for with the taster stating a guess on the sample and the supplier of the sample revealing what the sample is.

@fiddich1980 That's not a bad idea. I did get a PM guess and then disclosed the whisky's identity.

As to the Lambertus sample I gave you, that one could never really be "blind", as it has to contain toxicity warnings...

@Nozinan Honestly, the Lambertus was worthwhile. I consider it an exercise in trying to understand why a whisky can be so bad or so good. Moreover, I can appreciated the skills and talents that going into making good distillation. The talk about Head and Tail(Feints)of a distillation I've never really taken seriously, until Lambertus.

I was going through my whiskies and I came across a Cardhu 12 Year Old. I remember I bought it because it came with this attractive leather carrying case. I poured a glass and was pleasantly surprised. I know Cardhu does not get high marks usually but I could drink this on a weekly basis.

Tonight I continued my BIL's whisky journey.

Started with Macallan 12, then I gave him a taste of Teeling Poitin followed by Redbreast 12 YO CS (2015), and finally Aberlour A'Bunadh batch 49.

Tomorrow I'm on call...maybe Friday...

I’m sipping some Redbreast Lustau Edition, and I’m sad to report that air exposure is NOT this whiskey’s friend. I’m down to the last 1/3 of the bottle and it’s going a bit flat is that makes sense. It feels like it’s losing some of the richness that I found in it (and to a much greater degree in the RB 12 CS) before.

Had a difficult afternoon dealing with TIFF related business (none of which was TIFF's fault, just nonsense from third parties) so I'm going full-ghetto with a cheap-ass rye and ginger (Canadian Club, Fever Tree ginger ale, lime wedge and a dash of self-pity). Cheers!

@talexander Not AP 30?

@Nozinan I cast the line, and you took the bait.

@talexander And I reeled YOU in...

I did an interesting back to back today: Laphroaig Triple Wood followed by Ardbeg Uigeadail. Not a fair comparison as Oogie sells for 2 X the price of Triple Wood here, but it was interesting nonetheless. Both are excellent whiskies, but Uigeadail is my preference here. And I’m a “Team Laphroaig” guy. Ultimately, I was the REAL winner in this contest.

Funny that you mention the Triple Wood. I loved it; then Ralphy said it was from "off casks,", and , as a newbie, I spent my money elsewhere. This is the bottle I have been thinking of buying this weekend, after some more experience.

In the meantime, I'm having Machir Bay. Who would have thunk that ripe banana and peat would go so well together? Kilchoman has their act together. Loch Gorm is great as well. 100% Islay seems to be getting very mixed responses.

Has anyone tried the Port-matured variation that's just appearing on some shelves?I'm tempted....

@Jonathan I should add that the Oogie is only 10$ more than the Triple Wood here. Dollars to donuts, the whisky is 10 bucks more for a higher abv and the Ardbeg house style peat. I already have a recent Corry and also an Oogie open, but we are in the middle of s storm leading to flash floods. I'm on a peat/sweet hunt and might have to spend that 69$ for the Laphroaig 3xWood once II can drive safely.. It would be nice to prrove Ralphy wrong.

The sun is setting in Nashville and also on this bottle of Blantons that will be empty by the end of the night sadly. Such a honey/berry bomb. Replacement will be hard to find.