So, what are you drinking now?

@JayRain yes, but we use a split screen setup. On one side is the poker app which allows up to 10 players in a closed network (not open to just anyone on the Internet). On the other side, we have a zoom session going so we can see each other’s poker faces and talk trash.

It’s Friday, so Jerry Thomas Manhattan’s - hot tub edition! Rittenhouse BiB, sweet vermouth, orange liqueur, bitters and an orange peel garnish.

It’s Saturday night! Starting off with a Vieux Carre cocktail before diving into the bottles below (and more)...

@bwmccoy, our friend @Nozinan will be smiling when he sees the M & H in your lineup.

@paddockjudge yes, @bwmccoy I would love to hear more about that whisky. It’s one of many of their expressions I will not be able to try...

Yesterday I presented a tasting to an extended-family group of 9 at my sister's house. The main theme was Irish and French Whisk(e)y. Poured:

1) Miller Genuine Draft non-pasteurized beer

2) Tej, 11% ABV Ethiopian-style honey wine, made for me by one of my basketball-playing buddies. This was a big surprise. It was GOOD. Balanced. EVERYONE liked it

3) Old Pulteney Navigator

4) Glenfarclas 15 yo

5) Aberlour A'bunadh Batch # 54

6) Standard Brenne Single Malt, Cognac Finish

7) Brenne 10 yo Single Malt

8) Armorik Double Maturation

9) Bastille 1789 French Blended Whisky, new bottle. A good batch, it turned out

10) Standard Jameson, decent bottle

11) Standard Tullamore D.E.W., which got a more enthusiastic reception than I expected

12) Powers Gold Blended Irish

13) John L. Sullivan Blended Irish

14) Jameson Gold Reserve

15) Tullamore D.E.W. Phoenix Special Edition, 55% ABV Blended Irish

16) Powers Johns Lane 12 yo

17) Standard Redbreast 12 yo

18) Redbreast 12 yo Cask Strength

19) Redbreast 12 yo Lustau Edition

20) Douglas of Drumlanrig 14 yo Caol Ila, which was enthusiastically received by the few peat heads present

21) Lagavulin 12 yo Cask Strength, 2010 Release, a new bottle; also enthusiastically received by the few peat heads

22) Jelinek 10 yo Czech Slivovitz

23) Don Julio 1942, requested by the husband of my niece. This was enthusiastically received by those open to tequila

24) a blanco Sotol whose name escapes me

25) El Jimador Reposado

26) Casa Noble Reposado

Tastes and opinions within this group ranging in age from 22 to 77 were all over the map. Most universally liked was the Tej. Amazing. That stuff had been sitting in my refrigerator unopened for 7 months. I dreaded what it might taste like. It turned out to be the Belle of the Ball

@Victor, you never know what a new experience will bring. I suspect your friend will be flattered.

@paddockjudge just so, which is why I am always interested in the new experiences.

@Victor - another amazing lineup! Well done, sir!

Last night, my wife and I had @jordytropp and his wife along with another couple over for dinner and drams. Everybody brought a few bottles to share over the course of the evening.

First up was an original bottling of Glen Grant 18 year that the other couple brought over for us to open and try for the first time together. This may have been the biggest surprise of the night, at least for me. What a perfectly balanced example of barley and ex-bourbon. I was surprised that this was only 43% ABV. What a beautiful and elegant whisky!

@paddockjudge and @Nozinan - Next up, we opened up the Milk and Honey (Israel) Elements Sherry single malt whisky. 46% ABV. Unfortunately, there was a rubber note on the nose and the palate (at least it wasn't sulphur). While not undrinkable, it was disappointing. The good news is that after adding water and sitting in the glass for a few minutes, the rubber note decreased significantly and the whisky became very creamy and much more enjoyable. It will be interesting to see now that the bottle is open if the rubber note will decrease over time.

Next up was a 4 year (Sep. 2014) Balcones single malt that @jordytropp brought over SMWS 140.3 "Nik nak woody whack" from an ex-bourbon 1st-fill barrel. 59.1% ABV. Spicy and sweet with notes of bread, wood resin, liquorice, paprika and lemon.

With dinner (Grilled / smoked bottom roast, grilled prawns and twice-baked potatoes), a Washington State 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon from Red Mountain AVA.

After dinner, had a dram of another Balcones single malt courtesy of @jordytropp. SMWS 104.1 "Cornography" is a 3 year (April 2015) from a 2nd-fill ex-blue corn whiskey barrique cask. 63.6% ABV. Notes of spices, herbs, wood shavings and fruits. The ex-blue corn whiskey cask adds a really cool dimension. This was my favorite of the two Balcones', but they were both really good!

Royal Brackla SMWS 55.53 (12 year - Aug. 2006) "The Old Curiosity Shop" - Refill ex-bourbon hogshead - 59.3% ABV. For me, this was the most unremarkable whisky of the evening. It just didn't stand up compared to the others.

The other couple also brought over a recent purchase from the Society. Glenrothes SMWS 30.109 "Strangely soothing", 12 year (June 2007) from a 1st-fill Spanish oak ex-sherry butt. 64.9% ABV. Notes of Cadbury milk chocolate, toasted almonds and fruit cake. Wish I would have purchased a bottle of this one!

Bunnahabhain SMWS 10.162 (9 year - Oct. 2008) "Big wave sofa". After 7 years in a refill ex-bourbon hogshead transferred to a first fill oloroso hogshead - 61.4% ABV. This unpeated Bunnahabhain displays a lot of wonderful sherry notes; more so than I would expect for only a 2 year finish.

The other couple also brought over a Talisker 18. I haven't had this in a very long time. It lived up to my memory and expectation. What a treat!

Another treat, courtesy of @jordytropp, was Highland Park 18. This is, in my opinion, the best Highland Park by far.

The other couple also brought over a 12 year (Sep. 2007) Caol Ila. SMWS 53.320 "Raiders of the flossed ark" from an ex-bourbon refill hogshead. 58.2% ABV. This was one of the Society's Feis Ile bottlings for 2020. Another great Society Caol Ila. So glad I have an unopened bottle of this one in my cabinet.

Another treat, thanks to @jordytropp, was Octomore 6.3! I've never met an Octomore that I didn't like and this did nothing to change that. This 5 year old comes in at a whopping 258ppm, but is surprisingly light and floral, especially at 64% ABV. This 2009 expression is 100% Islay barley from the Lorgba field on the Octomore farm.

Finished up the night with Bunnahabhain SMWS 10.190 (6 year - Oct. 2013) "Make moine a devil!" from a second-fill ex-Oloroso Sherry butt - 61.1% ABV. Heavily peated and sherry; two of my favorite things. This is another Society bottling for Feis Ile 2020.

What a great night with great friends! Thanks to @jordytropp, his wife and the other couple for all of the great whisky, food, dessert and conversation.

@bwmccoy, stellar lineup, thanks for sharing.

Encouraged by a fellow instagram user I've been enjoying some hot toddies over the weekend. The first set was made using Jack Daniel's Single Barrel barrel proof.

@bwmccoy I think epic would be appropriate to describe your evening.

@bwmccoy thanks for hosting! We had a great time. Company, food, whisky -- were all wonderful.

@bwmccoy Very cool and smart thinking

Last night (Sunday), Jerry Thomas Manhattan.

Tonight, my wife attended a virtual Old Forester tasting with the local chapter of Women Who Whiskey. Of course, I tasted along, but was off camera since I'm not a woman who whiskey's. :-)

Per the local account rep, Old Forester uses the same mashbill for all of their whiskies; 72% corn, 18% rye and 10% malted barley. Also, at least the first 3 are considered small batch which I learned tonight means 100 barrels or less.

First up was the 1870 Original Batch, 45% ABV. Notes of shortbread, orange, honeysuckle, clove and nutmeg. This was my 4th favorite of the 5.

2. 1897 Bottled in Bond, 50% ABV. Notes of oak, dried fruit, black pepper, spices and brown sugar. This was richer and bolder than the previous one. This was my second favorite.

3. 1910 Old Fine Whiskey, 46.5% ABV. This is double matured. The second barrel is heavily (alligator) charred. Notes of apricot, caramel, buttercream, vanilla and brown sugar. This was my least favorite.

4. 1920 Prohibition Style, 57.5% ABV. Notes of graham cracker, green apple, cocoa nib, peppercorns and cedar. This was my 3rd favorite.

5. Saving the best for last; 2019 Birthday Bourbon, 52.5% ABV. This is 11 years old; distilled May 15th, 2008. 120 barrels; 13,000 bottles. This was my favorite, but no way would I pay the $1,300 per bottle price that I found on-line. Notes of oak, blackcurrant, maple and caramel. Absolutely stunning!

At the end of the tasting, we had an old fashioned cocktail made with an entry-level Old Forester by the local restaurant where we picked up the tasting kit. I'm not an old fashioned fan. This was fine but did nothing to change my opinion of this cocktail.

After all of this, my wife and I were in the mood for another drink, so I made Jerry Thomas Manhattan's. Now that's a cocktail! :-)

For someone who is not a bourbon fan, this was a fun tasting and there was only one that I didn't care for; the 1910.

@bwmccoy - could you not have just put on a dress?!

Never had any OF but that BiB sounds nice. I'll keep my eyes peeled ...

@bwmccoy great fun at a great tasting. Most of those you tried I haven't had yet.

Having a lot of whiskey mates in the world now has jacked up the prices of the premium items. Too many people chasing too few bottles. Old Forester Birthday Bourbon has gone the way of BTAC and Pappy Van Winkle with scarcity and astronomical secondary market prices. Up until about 2014 if you wanted some you could actually find and get some Old Forester Birthday Bourbon for about $ 80 to $ 100.

My first Old Forester Birthday Bourbon was from a bottle then owned by @dbk. In 2011 my sister and I visited him in Hamilton, Ontario en route to Collingwood, Ontario. For whatever reasons he did not care for his nearly full bottle of Old Forester Birthday Bourbon and gave it to us. We liked it fine. On our trip back we had too many bottles to bring back across the US border, so we drank 1/3 of the Old Forester and then gave the still 60% full bottle to some restauranteurs in Collingwood. I believe that they sold it by the drink from their bar.

I own one unopened bottle of Old Forester Birthday Bourbon which @Maddie gave to me as a gift. It's the 2014 release, I believe.

For those who do not know, Old Forester is a brand owned by Brown-Forman, the Jack Daniel's people. It is one of two large standard bourbon brands which they own, along with Woodford Reserve. Brown-Forman also owns Early Times, which makes, variably, some bourbons and some partially re-used oak whiskeys. Early Times (non-bourbon) Whiskey is a top 5 seller in the US whiskey market. I do NOT recommend sipping Early Times. I noticed that Brown-Forman does not even list Early Times on the 'Brands' page of its website. This despite the fact that Early Times Whiskey has been a top 5 seller in the US, and Cooper's Craft, a brand one never sees, which they also own, IS listed. I guess that Early Times Whiskey goes a long way in paying the bills for Brown-Forman, the same way that Fireball Cinnamon Whisky does for the Sazerac Company.

@Victor Just a little extra: George Garvin Brown call Old Forester “Straight Bourbon Whisky,” (not whiskEy) paying homage to his Scottish roots.

@TracerBullet yes, that's right. Old Forester, along with Maker's Mark, George Dickel, Catoctin Creek, and some others, is one of the US brands spelling the word 'whisky'. There is no US law about how to spell the word. Producers are free to choose to use either the Irish or Scottish spellings.

@Victor - That birthday bourbon was / is a very nice gift indeed! The local rep told us last night that out of the 13,000 bottles, our state received less than 30 total and they all went to Total Wine (chain liquor store). In order to be eligible for the lottery to purchase, you must be a member of Total Wine’s rewards club and spend a minimum of $5,000 / year. No word on what Total Wine charged for the bottle. Crazy!

Last night I continued my series of tastings introducing my novice whisky friend to the wide world of whisky. He had had very little experience with barley-malt whiskies, so that's where we continued our program. Mild to moderate flavour profile malt whiskies were the main part of tonight's program, with the objective being to give him a lot of experience of the typical stuff out there on the shelves

A preliminary taste fine-tuning exercise was conducted looking to see what flavours and scents, if any, could be found by contrasting 5 vodkas. The idea here is that when you have built up your tasting muscles looking for vodka needle in haystack flavours, then mild Speyside malts will seem bursting with flavour when you next put them into your glass! The vodkas sampled were: 1) Grey Goose, France, from wheat, 2) Tito's, Texas, US, from corn, 3) Sobieski, Poland, from rye, 4) Luksusowa, Poland, from potatoes, and 5) Barr Hill, Vermont, US, from honey. As expected flavours were slight, but differences were obvious. And yes, that "tasteless and odourless" spirit from Vermont most definitely both smelled and tasted like honey!

My friend had NEVER tasted a brandy, so I pulled out the only open bottle of brandy I have in the house, 6) E & J X.O. Brandy (Gallo). He liked it quite a lot

...and some of that 7) Tej Ethiopian-style honey wine, 11% ABV, which had been a hit 2 days earlier at my sister's house. Yes, my friend liked that a lot, just like everybody else had

On to the OB Scottish malts, in the Born to be Mild tour:

8) Aberlour 10

9) Glengoyne 10

10) Glenmorangie Original (10) from a typical batch

11) Glenmorangie Original, from a bad batch, and from a bottle left with me by a friend who had brought it to a tasting 6 years ago. The batch variation contrast was obvious to my friend. This was the whole point

12) Glenmorangie Nectar d'Or Sauternes Finished malt

13) Balvenie 10 Founders Reserve

14) Balvenie 15 Single Barrel

15) Glenrothes Select

16) Cardhu 12

17) Glenfiddich 15 DE 51% ABV. Yes, he liked it. Yes he was disappointed that there isn't any of it around for sale now

18) Glenfiddich 18

So, yes, he was getting the Born to be Mild Speyside/Highland whisky idea very thoroughly by now

A punctuation with 19) Filliers 8 yo Oude Jenefer, from Belgium. This stuff is so great! Everyone should know about it

Finally getting away from the Mild,

20) Springbank 10 yo (OB)

21) Glendronach Cask Strength Batch # 7 (Thank you, @Nozinan!), and...

22) Aberlour A'bunadh, Batch # 54, from a newly opened bottle

The idea was to give my friend the experience of quite a few whiskies new to him. There is no substitute for experience

I’m drinking the last dram of my Blanton’s Original. This is a pleasant bourbon, no doubt, but the frenzy it creates among taters is a bit ridiculous. There’s no way I’d pay $150-$200 or whatever this goes for on the secondary market.

Post-dinner dram is Forty Creek Founder’s Reserve. This one is better than expected. I’m not sure how many batches of this stuff FC made, but I’m not getting any of the ethanol/cheap vodka aromas or flavours others have mentioned when reviewing this whisky. There’s lots of caramel, pecan, and chocolate in the glass. Not a whole lot more, but it’s pleasant enough thus far (about 1/4 of the way through the bottle). If I had to rate it now, I’d probably score it 86/100 or 87/100.

@OdysseusUnbound I gave up on FC special releases several years ago. I'm glad you like it. My favourite special release was the Heart of Gold from 2013. My second bottle is shaping up as well as the first.

@Nozinan Shaping up - good one

More Irish Whiskey Cocktails. This time an Irish Lady, which is really just a whiskey sour with some Cointreau...

Last night was our first “fall storm”; meaning it was rainy and breezy, so I was in the mood for smoke, but with some wine influence. Inchmoan SMWS 135.14 (13 year - Mar. 2005) "Tripping the light fantastic" - After maturing in an ex-bourbon hogshead, transfered to a first-fill charred red wine barrique - 55.4% ABV. That really hit the spot and was tasting exceptionally good last night. I was planning on having a different dram afterwards, but this one was so good, I didn’t.

Last night, Port Askaig 10th Anniversary 10 year Cask Strength 55.85% ABV. Bottle is about half empty. It’s starting to develop a dry ash note that I haven’t noticed before now. Normally, I associate “wet ash” with Caol Ila. Even though I really like this whisky, up to now, it didn’t drink like a Caol Ila, so the dry ash note is a promising sign.

Tonight, my older son and his wife came over for dinner and drams.

Glen Grant 18 year

Balvenie 21 Year Old Port Wood Finish

Milk & Honey (Israel) Whisky Distillery Elements Sherry Cask. Good news; the rubber note when I first opened the bottle is gone from the nose and reduced considerably on the palate. Water still helps this one, but it is getting better.

Kaiyo Whisky Japanese Mizunara Oak - 43%ABV. Decided to keep it, open it up and try it. I will provide more details when I can sit down and study it, but in my opinion, it is better than the one Connosr review about this whisky. Not a great whisky, but not as bad as I feared.

Talisker 18 Year

Octomore 6.3 Islay Barley. 5 year. 256 ppm.

The past week at work was the longest month of my life. I made a steak dinner, and my wife and I shared some Argentinian Malbec.

Afterwards I had:

• Forty Creek Founder’s Reserve: as long as I don’t linger with this one, it’s pretty good. But it falls apart after 30 minutes or more in the glass.
• Arran Robert Burns: this whisky has been a pleasant surprise. It perfectly showcases Arran’s house style. Apples, honey, floral, vanilla, it has an almost Irish feel to it.
• Aberlour A’Bunadh Batch 57: this was a gift from a friend. He had exactly one dram and decided he didn’t like it. It still feels very “tight and closed” if that makes sense. Very oak-heavy and tannic. Water improves it a bit. I’ll have to give this bottle some air time....