Which bottle did you just buy and why?

@RianC it was one of my favorites.... "400 years old, and I cannot die....". But yea, May have impressed me more 30 years ago

@RianC haha you are right about the whisky and the film!!

I had a bottle of this although a different cask a few years ago and loved it. Something very savoury and drying in there with all the lovely sherry notes.

Got a bottle of cask 217 on the go at the moment and it’s equally as good so hopefully yours is a good one also. It seems they consistently make this well.

@Timp - Excellent to hear, thanks! I'll get you a sample to you, if you like? You know, for consistency gauging

@RikS - Yeah me too! Loved it as a kid but what's going on with Lambert's, and especially Connery's accent?! Clancy Brown's Kurgan is still a hoot though and a bit less scary than he was to a 7 year old!

@RianC haha your on, as long as your happy to have one from mine!

I picked up a bottle of Knob Creek Rye 100 proof and Baker’s 7 Year SiB. I really like the Beam profile so I figured “why not?”. No, I have no self-control.

@OdysseusUnbound I like Baker's very much, but I also think that it is the least like all of their other bourbons, and that they do some things differently there, like the choice of the strain of yeast. It's been about 10 years since I've had a sip of Baker's. I'm due.

Picked up an Evan Williams Single Barrel because they were out of my go-to Rebel Yell 100 apparently due to a systems issue that didn't allow them to dispatch orders. Never had it so let's see!

@casualtorture all the ones of those I've had have been very nice. If it's tight at first, just give it some time to relax. At USA prices Evan Williams Single Barrel is really a best buy in the bourbon world, in my book. That is one for the mellow moods. Not in the same vein with Booker's.

@Victor On Wine Searcher OGD 114 is listed as the same price as Evan Williams. It is certainly the best bourbon buy I have found, of the ones I have tasted and enjoyed. I have not tasted Evan Williams enough to recall it.

I just poured a glass and mellow is the perfect word for it. Smooth if I dare to use that word. More so than other things at 43%.

But yes $29 seems like a steal for a 5+ yo single barrel in today's market.

@Nozinan OGD 114 is $5 more in my market, worth it I would say, but they were out. As is often the case.

@casualtorture that pricing is possible only because Heaven Hill is such a large producer, and, among the large US producers, the most price competitive. Sure $ 29 for what is usually 8-10 yo bourbon is a steal nowadays, as was $ 22 for that same label 10 years ago.

My lovely wife came home with a bottle of Benromach 15 for me for our wedding anniversary yesterday.

Cracked it open tonight and very pleased that it’s similar to the last bottle I had a few years ago.

Very happy with her choice.

Cheers.

@Timp she also seems happy with her choice

SUPER excited to see DHL today!

The Sponge (Angus MacRaild) Pillaged a 16yo Ballechin aged in a 2nd fill Sauternes barrique for a whisky group I'm in. And the art is adorable.

@RikS Haha. For the moment!

@casualtorture Nice looking bottles. Impressed with my sponge offerings. Expensive but worth it tbh. Be interested to hear what these are like when you crack one.

@Timp Did you get the 15 year old for 15 years of blissful marriage?

Can a distillery improve on their core range from the first release? Stagg Jr was a prime example of a whisk(e)y / bourbon which got better with each subsequent release. I recently purchases a Kilkerran 16 and a Kilkerran 12, with the assistance of a fellow connosr member. A reviewer recently did a review of each batch:

whiskynotes.be/2021/glengyle/…

Looking forward see how the 12 and the 16 measure up. Specifically, how the 12 compares to an early intial release.

@fiddich1980 Hard to know if Stagg Jr releases are currently better than when they first came out because it's impossible to get one.... :(

I blame one of my Connosr friends who alerted me to the fact that Craft Cellars in Calgary had this at a 29% discount.

The M&H Apex series is a cask strength series from my favourite Israeli distillery (I've only tasted from 2). They have a number of innovative or experimental expressions. You can read more about the distillery here:

connosr.com/milk-and-honey-israel-the-next…

Not all the releases are available everywhere. I tried to snap some up at the distillery (through family) when I read about them but they were not even offered. They have had 9 different Apex CS releases including rum cask, various wine and fortified wine casks, peat, etc... Two that really caught my eye were the Dead Sea cask (matured below sea level (lowest land area on earth)) and the Pomegranate wine cask. I have never seen the Dead Sea cask available anywhere at a price I was willing to pay, but I found the Pomegranate cask reasonably priced in the US last year and had it shipped to a friend in California in a fit of FOMO. But it may be years before I see it.

This one was about $170 Canadian but after the discount it came in at $120 plus 5% tax. I saved shipping by having a nephew pick it up. I will likely get it brought over in May.

This one has a different ABV, so it must be a different batch and therefore a completely justifiable purchase. Plus I have been doing a little overtime...

@Nozinan pomegranate wine cask...Yummm!

There is more to life than whisky... ...but ideally, with whisky

@RikS - I rarely smoke cigars but they look very inviting ...

@RianC I'm not an expert either. However, I stopped smoking when my daughter was born a few years back... but miss my 'afternoon in the garden chill with a dram and a smoke 'ritual' - so this is the replacement alternative (and there's an equally complicated and intriguing world out there with regards to cigars, as with whisky, so it's quite fun and a never-ending learning opportunity too).

@RikS I have a couple of friends who enjoy a good stogie with their drams. I just about shat when I found out what they are paying for some them. The price of 2 or 3 of their favourite cigars gets close to the price of a decent bottle of whisky.

@BlueNote yeah, the Cost / Time Enjoyment ratio is much better for whisky. A nice £75 bottle of whisky is one I'll easily sip on a year (!). A £30 cigar is out in an hour...

@RikS I've always felt that same way about most wines being poor value for money in comparison to whiski. A decent bottle of wine at a restaurant often costs as much as many decent bottles of whiski, but yields only 4 drinks, compared to 17+ drinks, and is gone in 2 hours. Even the best values in wine, something decent and inexpensive bought at a wine/liquor store and consumed at home still cost about as much as the better value products in whiski-- and they are more difficult to store and have poor shelf lives.

I've sampled many wines in my 68.9 years and there have been a few that were spectacular, to be sure. But, as a group, wines' thinness of texture has never appealed to me, and wine tannins are easily and often overdone for my taste. Overall I find wines to be expensive for what they deliver and always a crap shoot with respect to quality. The odds are maybe 1 in 8 that I will sample a new wine and say, "This is great!"

@Victor As I get a bit older and fussier (more selective?), I'm finding that sherry is more to my liking than most other wines. Dry sherries have far more interesting complexity than a "mass market" red wine. Am I becoming even snobbier? Maybe. But I agree with your assessment that wine is not a great value, even under the best of circumstances.

@Victor i am happy to read this, cause I was wondering if I'm the only person that takes such a utilitarian approach to enjoyment, but I'm happy to see that you are also an equal pragmatist / hedonist.