Whiskey - It's the water of life!

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Picked up some sugar cubes because I wanted an old fashioned and the only resealable bottle in the house is already full of honey syrup. I learned a trick where you muddle the sugar and bitters with seltzer to make the cube better dissolve. Put too much in and overduted it.(:_(
On an interesting note, the tumbler/rocks glass I used has glenncairn crystal lasered into the base. Didn’t know they did anything but the tasting glasses and I have no idea where we got it.
Jackie Puppet said:
It is pretty sweet but I get more of a spice taste from it. I started with Crown Royal but it was getting too expensive for me and it kind of smelled and tasted like drinking a sharpie to me. I hate the aftertaste I get from JD. SoCo is the best cheap whiskey I've been able to find so far.
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Is Southern Comfort even whiskey based? I honestly have no idea. It’s a liqueur as opposed to a proper spirit regardless. I know it historically was, but Sazerac made a point of saying they were going to start using bourbon again after Brown Foreman apparently made it with grain alcohol. Good value whiskeys would probably be Evan Williams Bottled in Bond, Old Grandad (bottled in bond if wherever you are stocks it), or Wild Turkey 101.
 
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Jackie Puppet said:
What are your guys thoughts on Southern Comfort?
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It's pretty bad. It's way too sweet, to cover up the low quality of the "whiskey." One that's even worse is Yukon Jack, in the whole saturated with sugar and almost about to crystallize out into rock candy whiskey drinks.
Takayuki Yagami said:
I honestly have no idea. It’s a liqueur as opposed to a proper spirit regardless.
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Google says "grain-neutral spirit," i.e. basically vodka. But it's colored and flavored to imitate whiskey (poorly). Yukon Jack is apparently actually Canadian whisky, but the sugar obliterates any taste it has other than that.
 
Picked up a bottle of Jameson Stout Edition today. I've had regular Jameson, and the IPA Jameson many times before, but never tried this.

I'll give my assessment of it after I have some.


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Adding a good value (was for me at least) cognac/brandy. Braastad Organic/Bioloquice w/ a weird white label.

Very dissimilar to the smooth but bland Braastad VSOP (blue label). Fruity, orange-y, vanillaish. More bite than normal Braastad, but so is any other VSOP. A matter of taste, but if you're into it, really damn good. Especially for the discount price. Seen it at that in three separate retail chains hete, guess the normal Braastad customers don't like experimentation.

Pricing depends on local taxation obviously, but if sold at the lower end of VSOP, definitely worth it.
 
Tatratea Citrus 32% ABV

It's a Slovakian liqueur made of the usual "secret recipe of herbs" combined with macerated Assam tea and added flavouring, available in various flavours and ABV levels.
The citrus variant is quite good - dark herbal liqueur and strong English breakfast tea balanced with bright, vivid lemon-lime flavours. It's delightful for a lazy, hot summer afternoon and its low strength makes it pretty drinkable, even for a lady who'd refuse a dram of whiskey. I'm not sure if it's available globally.

Delamain Pale & Dry XO

Pale, because the oak casks don't impart much colour on the eaux de vie stored in them; dry, because it has a low sugar content; and finally XO because the average age of the eaux de vie used for making the final blend is 25 years. This is the entry expression of Maison Delamain - they don't make anything younger than this, which is an extra couple miles anyway since the lower limit for XO designation is 10 years of aging.

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I don't know how cognacs usually go, but this is non-coloured.
Nose: faint. Anise, dried figs and dates, a bit of raisins, apricots, a hint of citrus. Floral perfume.
Taste: subtle. Spices, vanilla, peaches. Slightly sour white grapes and pomace.
Finish: peaches and pomace. Quite long-lasting, but very understated. Faint, but it's definitely there for a good 15 minutes.

Very light but isn't thin at all. This would be lovely for a summer afternoon.

A bit of air gets it a bit more lively, but water would ruin it IMO. Taking bigger sips also helps with the subtlety.
Overall it's good and more importantly good value - it's one of the more accessible XOs price- and availability-wise.

Cotswolds Single Malt

English single malt whiskey, and how good it is! Good show, Bongistan!

Established in 2014 by big finance burnout Daniel Szor, Cotswolds Distillery produces gin and whiskey. This is their basic offering, made of locally grown Odyssey barley that's malted at Warminster and fermented for 96 hours, aged in a combination of first-fill bourbon barrels and STR (shaved, toasted, re-charred) ex-red wine casks, bottled at 46% ABV without colouring or chill-filtration. They don't specify the maturation time, but AFAIK it's somewhere around 3-4 years.

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Nose: pears, very strong, I could almost take a bite. Ripe peaches, honey, and vanilla.
Taste: full-bodied and round, very oily. Sweet malt and fruits - apricots, cherries, and sweet oranges. A bit of burned sugar.
Finish: long lasting and fruity with a bit of brown sugar.

A splash of water shifts the balance to sweetness and accentuates the red wine character a bit more.
Remarkably mature, it's easy to drink and easy to recommend.

Paul John Peated Select Cask:

All natural Indian single malt bottled at 55.5% ABV.

I'm not feeling this. Strong alcoholic nose, strong alcohol taste with some sweetness and ash.
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Buy some Laphroaig or Ardbeg instead, or read a different review here.
At least the mini wasn't expensive.
 
Learned a few weeks ago why you use filtered rums for mixing. Used some Appleton Estate 8 year (very good aged Jamacian rum for the price btw) in a daiquiri. Tasted good but the color that came out of the shaker was wildly unappetizing. Lime doesn’t retain its color as well as lemon, and you don’t generally use lemons with rum. Maybe that’s part of why the maitai works so well? Orgeat and the fuckload of crushed ice tempering the weird color. Presentation is important regardless. You taste withyour eyes and nose too. Need to look into getting a bottle of Plantation Pineapple. It’s apparently very good, naturally flavored, and drinks seem to come out golden orange as opposed to the swampy brown I got from the Appleton.
 
Takayuki Yagami said:
Learned a few weeks ago why you use filtered rums for mixing. Used some Appleton Estate 8 year (very good aged Jamacian rum for the price btw) in a daiquiri. Tasted good but the color that came out of the shaker was wildly unappetizing. Lime doesn’t retain its color as well as lemon, and you don’t generally use lemons with rum. Maybe that’s part of why the maitai works so well? Orgeat and the fuckload of crushed ice tempering the weird color. Presentation is important regardless. You taste withyour eyes and nose too. Need to look into getting a bottle of Plantation Pineapple. It’s apparently very good, naturally flavored, and drinks seem to come out golden orange as opposed to the swampy brown I got from the Appleton.
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Another option for a daiquiri is Hamilton Jamaica Gold, its made for the specific reason of not turning 3-4 ingredient drinks into brown liquid. That Plantation Stiggins' is going to bring a bit pineapple to the drink and its worth the purchase.
 
SenorCurditos said:
Another option for a daiquiri is Hamilton Jamaica Gold, its made for the specific reason of not turning 3-4 ingredient drinks into brown liquid. That Plantation Stiggins' is going to bring a bit pineapple to the drink and its worth the purchase.
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I’m currently using Flor de Cana Extra Seco. Have Wray and Nephew Overproof to try when I want to truly hate myself.
 
SenorCurditos said:
adding Wray & Nephew to the base liquor (1 1/2oz. with 1/2oz. of overproof) helps not knock you on your ass but adds to the flavor
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Didn’t do Wray and Nephew tonight, though I’ve subbed a half ounce of it into one back when I used bacardi starting out. In spite of Wray’s reputation it smoothed out the sort of acrid, almost gingery aftertaste I was getting with the Bacardi. Also did something tonight called a regal shake. You put a citrus twist into the shaker tin with your other components and the ice, particularly if you have large chunks like I do now, will pulverize the oils out and disburse them into the drink. I can taste the orange in a really pleasant way which is neat considering how badly orange juice itself will fuck up a drink. Grapefruit is apparently better for daiquiris, but I don’t keep that on hand. Any other clear rums you’d recommend or is Flor de Cana a good choice?
Edit: My reading says you want to do orange or grapefruit for the most part. Getting lime twists is always a bitch and lemon apparently makes some drinks go a bit soapy if you do this.
 
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Started drinking old Jacky Dan to ease my nevers from a few events that happened over the last week for me. I kinda like the burning sensation hard liquor gives me now.
 
More a garnish thing than a whiskey thing, but does anyone have experience with cocktail/brandied/maraschino cherries? The ones you get in American stores are either those shitty bright red ones or have the stems still attached which annoys me. I’m considering Luxardo, Fabbri, or one of the other Italian ones if only because they apparently don’t need to be refrigerated and people swear by them.
 
Luxardo is probably the gold standard for maraschinos, though the coof screwed up the import process for those so bad that stores were looking at alternatives. The Copper & Kings brand was decent, I think.
 
TFT-A9 said:
Luxardo is probably the gold standard for maraschinos, though the coof screwed up the import process for those so bad that stores were looking at alternatives. The Copper & Kings brand was decent, I think.
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Copper and Kings appears to not be available right now, though the Fabbri ones appear to be somewhat more reasonably priced than the Luxardo (over 20 bucks for a jar of the things jesus christ) at 15 bucks. Have you used Jack Rudy cherries at all? That’s what I’ve got in the fridge right now and getting a frame of reference is hard because everyone just defaults to the luxardo ones.

I’m starting to realize how important garnish is because that tiny bit of sweetness from the cherry’s syrup rounds out a manhattan. Also be sure to wash off your citrus. They ship with a bit of wax on them to stop spoilage but it seems to keep the oils from expressing well.
 
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Not familiar with Jack Rudy. Trying to remember what that other brand was... think it was something out of Romania or some such, they were looking at it real hard back when Luxardo imports just got fucked sideways.
 
Any opinion on bitters? I generally do the basic bitch thing of Angostura.
 
AnOminous said:
Any opinion on bitters? I generally do the basic bitch thing of Angostura.
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Angostura's pretty much the default that will work for nearly anything. I could see some of the flavored bitters being interesting but I'd have to get some and play with them a bit - Fee Brothers stuff might be ok, not sure about that one cheap looking brand that shows up at my local stores. Fee Brothers makes the only orgeat they offer.
 
AnOminous said:
Any opinion on bitters? I generally do the basic bitch thing of Angostura.
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I think I recommended Fee Brothers Black Walnut Bitters further up in the thread for use with maple syrup in an old fashioned. Chocolate bitters from Angostura or Fee Brothers, or Bitterman’s Xocolatl Mole Bitters (a bit more expensive but they have a dropper in the bottle so you’re actually controlling how much is in a dash and they’re pretty tasty) if you want to try things with tequila. Some kind of orange bitters is probably more important than either of those, but if you’re sticking to old fashioneds the former two will take you further.
 
Is it double posting if it’s the next day?
Drink that welcomed the long weekend was a maple rum old fashioned. 2 dashes each Angostura and Regan’s Orange Bitters, .25oz maple syrup, 2oz Appleton Estate 8 year, orange peel expressed and garnished. Very smooth. I wonder if I’m missing a bit of the sharper sweetness from the simple syrup I’d normally use or if the orange bitters is tamping down something in the angostura. May also want to get some velvet falernum as a sweetener to lean into the tropical parts of the rum.

Also as a protip, take orange twists from the navel to the stem, not the other way around. Angle changed around that area, peeler skipped, and led to the first time I’ve ever cut myself getting a garnish. Still a good drink though.
 
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