So, what are you drinking now?

Tonight, I co-presented a virtual Scotch Malt Whisky Society tasting for the Seattle Whiskey Collective.

Clynelish SMWS 26.151 (26 year - October 1993) "Fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers". Refill ex-bourbon barrel - 47.3% ABV. An absolutely beautiful whisky.

BenRiach SMWS 12.49 (10 year - March 2010) "Is this the way to Amarillo?". After 9 years in an ex-bourbon barrel, transferred to an ex-Tempest Old Fashioned IPA cask - 60.0% ABV. I was concerned when I saw this was finished in an ex-beer cask. However, I'm not sure I would have detected any beer-related notes, if I had tasted this blind. A lot of citrus and floral notes.

Glenlossie SMWS 46.100 (27 year - November 1992) "Heart of Gold". After 25 years in an ex-bourbon hogshead, transferred to a 1st-fill Spanish oak ex-Pedro Ximenez hogshead - 53.2% ABV. Stunning! Easily my favorite of the night.

Finished with a peated Glenturret SMWS 16.46 (6 year - July 2013) "Cooking on a rusty grill". Re-charred hogshead - 64.9% ABV. This is a sweet, meaty peat; Texas BBQ brisket

Wow all those comments about open bottles make me giggle. I feel I have far too many open with about 15 ha!

@RianC - me too! My normal is about 15 open bottles. I panic at 20.

@RianC @bwmccoy help me to understand, please. Are you concerned that if you have more than 15-20 bottle open at a time that they will be adversely affected by air, and thus diminish in quality? Or is it for some other reason?

I place a very high value upon the freedom of having variety available to me, depending on my mood and frame of mind when I go to taste a drink. Smaller numbers of bottles available seems confining to me. My current 100+ bottles open and scores of smaller sample bottles seems like a number which is cumbersome with respect to storage and potentially negative long-term air effects. I don't know how long it will take, but I'd like to get my open bottle number down to 40 or 50.

@RianC

I appreciate the supportive words. It's quite fascinating that family can really turn on one another quite easily. All I can say is, if my brother invites me to go fishing on a lake and hands me a rosary for good luck, I will politely decline his offer.

@Victor - for me, I usually only have approximately 40 bottles total in my cabinet and some of those are “special”, so 15 open is a large percentage of what I own. Please know that if (when) you visit the McCoy Whisky Bar, the number of open bottles will go up!

5 years ago today, I was on Islay. In honor of my visit to Kilchoman on that day, having a dram of Kilchoman Machir Bay Cask Strength Festive Season Edition (Santa hats on sheep). 58.6% ABV.

@Victor - My main concern is pretty much as you say - so, yes, I do worry that were I to open more, I would struggle to finish them (especially if they aren't amazing or lend themselves to quick guzzling e.g. Springbank 15) and that they might deteriorate. I also have issues with storing them. I don't mind having unopened bottles stashed away but I like to look at what I have available and I barely have enough room for what I have open as it is.

I also quite enjoy really getting to know a bottle and spending 'lots of quality time together ' ha! Ideally, I'd like a bottle hanging round no more than six months, a year tops. Currently, I have several open over a year now and it bugs me. Lastly, I'm not a rich man by any means (understatement of the year, ha!) but realise I have a (relative) wealth of whisky at my disposal. Keeping a low no. of bottles open keeps me humble and helps me appreciate what I have. I feel if I opened more I'd become blasé, greedy and less appreciative generally of whisky.

I often remind myself of how malt was revered in Asia and it's humbling to remind myself that, in the eyes of many, I have effectively won the whisky lottery!

@RianC I see the "catch" here, depth vs. breadth of experience. We would like to get both a deep and broad experience of all things whiski, but, being human, we are able to focus on only one thing at a time, and must always choose whether to narrow our focus to a single thing, or to obtain repeated, smaller experiences of several or many things. I have already posted two discussion topics on this issue. Enjoy Whisky, or Learn More About It poses the question in general. Just yesterday I also posted Familiarity, which addresses depth of whiski experience directly.

There is no way to avoid having to choose at each given moment whether we are doubling down on our experience of something with which we are already familiar, or choosing to expand our experience of something either entirely unexperienced previously, or just lightly experienced.

About finishing off your bottles, you are missing out on some of the most profound and interesting experiences with whiski by polishing off all of your bottles within a year. Many whiskis change profoundly, and quite often for the better when they have been open for around 2 years. You want to change your B-minus bottle of Bullett 95 Rye into an A-minus bottle? Just drink 100 ml out of the bottle and leave it in the back of your cabinet for 2 years.

@bwmccoy the question remains, why only 40 bottles total in your cabinet? Is this a "love the one you're with" kind of thing? Pure devotion to the experience of each and every bottle?

Some of us, e.g. I myself, and @Nock, hate to ever finish off a bottle, because we love to have samples of each bottle for later comparison to other similar and dissimilar whiskis in order to make fine distinctions and comparisons in batches and bottles. For someone like my good friend @Nock you don't get to deeply know the intricacies and fine nuances of, say, Ardbeg Corryveckan, you get to know the intricacies and fine nuances of every single bottling date of Ardbeg Corryvreckan.

Last night's festivities, another round of US/North American whiskis:

1) Old Weller Antique 107, 53.5% ABV, 2008 bottling w 7 year age statement

2) WhistlePig 10 yo Rye, 50% ABV

3) Willett 2 yo Family Estate Rye, 54.05% ABV, from a batch

4) Willett 4 yo Family Estate Rye, 55% ABV, Single Barrel # 2612

5) Eagle Rare 17 yo Bourbon, Spring 2015 release, 45% ABV. Whoda thunk that the "weak sister" of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection would become quite a rare and very valuable bottle? Tastes very good, and a good example of a long-aged standard rye-containing bourbon

6) Sazerac 18 yo Rye, Fall 2011 Release, 45% ABV. I was in just the right mood to fully appreciate this one last night

7) Thomas H. Handy Sazerac Straight Rye Whiskey, 2010 release, 63.45% ABV. It remains true that if I could own only one regular release whiski from anywhere in the world I would choose Thomas Handy Rye. My second choice would be Ardbeg Uigeadail. Third would be Amrut Intermediate Sherry Matured Single Malt (yes, @Nozinan, I am putting out the thought that Amrut Intermediate Sherry will soon resume being a 'regular release' whisky).

The seasons change. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in malt whisky taste profiles that I wonder whether I will ever be able to love the American whiskeys again. I am able. Fully able

@Victor - The reason my cabinet hovers in the 40 bottle range is partly financial, but also it is where my wife starts to draw the line. As you know, my wife is very supportive of my hobby as well as my involvement with the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. The only time she ever says anything is when my cabinet starts to get over the 40 bottle range. It's the 'don't you have enough" conversation. This is not a negative against my wife; it's just what it is. Since she is so supportive up to that point, I don't feel the need to push it. Happy wife, happy whisky life. :-) Also, if I bought a lot of the same whisky, i.e., Ardbeg Corryvrekan for example, then I would love to compare the various batches against one another like you and @Nock like to do. As you know, most of the bottles that I purchase are from the Society, which being single cask, make comparing cask to cask less important, at least to me, because I know they are going to be different. I like the variety and the differences that single cask bottlings provide. If I had more budget and was allowed to purchase more bottles, I'm sure that I would purchase more standard bottlings, i.e. Corryvrekan, and would love to compare batch to batch.

Last night, I made a new to me cocktail. The Vecchio Moda; 2oz Fast Penny Spirits Amaricano Bianca Amaro, 1oz Rye (Rittenhouse BiB), 1/2oz simple syrup, 2 dashes orange bitters and 2 dashes aromatic bitters with a dehydrated orange and a Luxardo Maraschino cherry garnish. The Fast Penny Spirits Amaricano Bianca Amaro is the lighter version of their Amaricano Amaro that I use for my Black Manahattan. The difference between the two is the Amaricano Amaro is made with burnt sugar which provides the darker color. The cocktail tasted very good, but was a little too sweet for me.

A couple of challenging whiskies and in my opinion, complex whiskies that require patience and thought.

First up up anCnoc 2002, sweet & sour, spicy, yeasty/hoppy, vanilla, orange zest and new leather. It gets better and more cohesive with water

Second, Springbank 18 (2013 bottling), briny, green olives, sweet Sherrie kippers, velum books and old leather. I think adding water would diminish nuances.

Tonight, while playing on-line poker with my brother-in-law and friends;

Bushmills SMWS 51.15 (16 year - May 2002) "Boiled sweets and cut flowers" - First-fill barrel - 56.4%

Westland Distillery (Seattle, WA) Cask # 2631 Single cask release, cask strength (6 year 6 months-Distilled 2014) - 1st Fill Oloroso Hogshead - 57.9% ABV

@bwmccoy oh, yes it is such a blessing to be living with a woman who also loves whiski! I had that happy experience for 33 years. And we do have to make compromises to live with a partner.

So, let me ask you a theoretical question: if you were a single guy with your current finances how many bottles total would you likely have in your cabinet? And how many of those bottles would likely be open?

@Victor I thought I would refer this discussion to the appropriate thread, but to my shock and surprise I could not find one on collection size.

Nature abhors a vacuum. If you ease limitations you will grow your collection. When I had a single cabinet and it was filling up, I had to slow down my purchases. My wife's solution was to buy another cabinet. Then all hell broke loose. Now as my collection has outgrown my storage capacity I have added a sattelite site in my office and now that is full. It does not end.

@Nozinan your multiplication of cabinetry furniture parallels my sister's experience. I kid her all the time about having to buy new furniture, so that she can continue to keep expanding her spirits collection. Julie's question echoes in my mind: "What are we going to do with all this whiski?" Well, we do HOPE to drink it all, don't we? But we also KNOW that if the number of bottles never goes down, that we will not drink it all.

Springbank 10. Just so so easy to drink for a malt with such character and level of complexity. I cant work out if I prefer this bottle with water or not. If I were to describe this malt in one word it would be 'juicy'.

With all this talk of OGD BiB, I decided to pour a small measure tonight while my wife and I watched an episode of Sisyphus. It has been almost a year since my last pour, and it remains high quality.

@Victor - I’m having trouble putting a number on how many bottles I would own under the scenario you described, but I’m sure it would be much more than what I have now. There a many times that an interesting bottle catches my attention, but then I have take into account justifying it to my wife. If that “checks and balances” wasn’t in place, that would be another bottle in the cabinet.

Last night, my wife and I had a couple Jerry Thomas Manhattan’s before dinner made with Rittenhouse BiB.

Yesterday (Saturday), my wife and I had a couple of Black Manhattan’s made with Maker’s Mark 46) before dinner.

After dinner, Ben Nevis 6 year (Dec. 2013). Full maturation in a 1st Fill Amontillado Gorda. 67.6% ABV. Single Cask Nation bottling.

Tonight I had:

• Arran Port Cask: this is a sample from an older bottling (review forthcoming). I’m trying hard to work my way through samples. I’ve probably had this one in my cabinet for 3 or 4 years. Oops.
• Glengoyne 18: I’m down to the last 1/4 of the bottle. Glengoyne has earned a spot on my “distilleries that impress me” list. Despite being bottled at a lower proof than the Arran, this Glengoyne is richer, more complex, and (dare I say it?) just a better all-around whisky.

@OdysseusUnbound, Glengoyne Distillery bottles some fine malts. They also bottle malts with sulfur notes. Did you detect any sulfur in your bottle of 18 YO? I enjoy drinking Glengoyne, but I would enjoy it much more without the sulfur note.

@paddockjudge my bottle of 18 had no sulphur. A friend of mine swore off Glengoyne 21 as she said 3/3 bottles she owned in the last 5 years had varying degrees of sulphur taint. Honestly, given the price difference I’d probably stick to the 10 year old. I was shocked at how good it was, considering the “entry-level” pricing. Comparing it to other Scottish malts in the $60-$68 price range in Ontario, I don’t think Glengoyne 10 really has any competitors.

@OdysseusUnbound My currently open bottle of Glengoyne 21 has zero sulphur. It’s brilliant.

@MRick A quick glance over at Serge's reviews reveal that he hasn't found sulphur in the batches he's reviewed either. In fact, the most recent GG21 he reviewed got his best score. I suppose that's the thing with any sherried malt; you're rolling the dice where sulphur is concerned.

@OdysseusUnbound not with Amrut Intermediate Sherry. (Just sayin).

I’m currently sipping a cocktail I found on Martha Stewart’s website (please don’t judge me).

• 1 oz bourbon (I’m using JB Devil’s Cut)
• 1 oz Pernod
• 3 dashes Angostura bitters
• club soda
• lemon twist

Martha’s recipe called for 0.5 oz of each spirit, but I thought it needed doubling. I might try 1.5 oz bourbon and 0.5 oz Pernod next time. I like the anise flavour, but it’s out of balance and dominating this drink.

@OdysseusUnbound No judging! Always on the lookout for a new cocktail!

Yesterday (Sunday), my wife and I had a couple of Jerry Thomas Manhattan’s made with Rittenhouse rye BiB.

Tonight, the next to the last dram of a peated Speyside; Allt-A-Bhainne SMWS 108.14 (7 year - Nov 2011) "An enjoyable curiosity" - 2nd-fill ex-bourbon barrel - 66.2% ABV with a few drops of water added.

Followed by the next to last dram of Kilchoman Machir Bay Cask Strength Festive Season Edition (Santa hats on sheep). 58.6% ABV.

Last night, finished 3 single cask Starward samples.

First was cask # 3330. This was fully matured in an American Oak fresh red wine barrique from the Barossa Valley, Australia. Aged 3 years. Distilled May 2017 and bottled June 2020. 240 bottles. 55.6% ABV. Nose: vanilla, cinnamon and berries. Palate: vanilla and nutmeg with a tannic finish. This was a very nice, berry forward whisky, but wasn't winey. It was the lightest of the 3, but very enjoyable.

Next was a left over from a virtual tasting that I attended a few weeks ago. This cask was bottled for the River City Whisky Society (RCWS) in Sacramento, California. It was matured in an American Oak ex-Shiraz 300L hogshead for 2 years before being finished for 1 year in an American Oak ex-Shiraz cask that had been charred after maturing the wine, but before maturing the whisky. 55% ABV. It had a red-wine note at first before a distinctive Oloroso-like nutty note took over. This was excellent, but I saved the best for last.

Cask #10091 was first aged in a fresh red wine barrique from the Barossa Valley before finishing it in a charred French Oak barrel. Aged 3 years. Distilled May 2017 and bottled June 2020. 240 bottles. 55.3% ABV. Nose: nutmeg, pine and blackcurrants. Palate: red fruit, nutmeg and cedar with spice, dried fruit and tobacco in the finish. Love the French Oak influence.

I like Starward's whisky, but I doubt I would purchase any of their standard range. However, their single cask bottlings are very interesting and worth exploring.

@bwmccoy I guess there will be a celebration of life when the Machir Bay CS finally dies?