Hard Drinkers, Lets Drink Hard (Spirits, Liquors and Cocktails)
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Made an interesting cocktail. It's like a rock and rye with the spiciest rye you've ever had, but still with 3 other grains on the mashbill. Jigger of a local bourbon (local as in around the corner), tiny dahses of Dashfire Ancient Chinese Secret and of Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas bitters stirred on ice with 2 droppers of habanero shrub. Poured over an ice sphere.
Looks great.
How did you make the sphere?
Do you have a Japanes machine for that? Apparently that's where they come from, no?
I heard that the sphere provides the best cooling with minimum dilution of the drink. -
@gakugeidg I do not have one of the Japanese devices or the sphere would be completely clear. I could have probably made the sphere clearer using hot water, but this is what I used:
http://www.amazon.com/Tovolo-Sphere-Ice-Molds-Set/dp/B007ACTN54/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420823281&sr=8-1&keywords=ice+sphere -
@mclaincausey
Pretty cool still.
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Yep! Actually I misspoke, those Japanese devices are only as clear as the ice you put in them.
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trying to branch out and try some nicer bourbons. love me some noah's mill, was ~meh on the bookers, angels envy was OK. any suggestions?
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Agreed on those two. If you can find any Antique Collection by Buffalo Trace it's all pretty good. George T. Stagg being probably my all-time favorite bourbon.
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Excellent taste
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Has anybody bought a bottle of Ardbeg 10 YO recently? I heard some complaining how bad the had become, but I figure that's all the usual whining of the whiskynerds.
And, for the american users: is the Laphroaig 10 YO Cask Strength still available in your Country?
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trying to branch out and try some nicer bourbons. love me some noah's mill, was ~meh on the bookers, angels envy was OK. any suggestions?
Noah's mill is nice, but I actually love Booker's and Baker's. Might differ from Batch to Batch, but the Booker's I had was one of the finest Bourbons. If you can still get the Elijah Craig 18 YO, it's worth a try. Us Europeans don't have access to some of the nicer Bourbons, unfortunately.
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@Max Power tried the Ardebg 10 a couple of days ago. I could not tell if it had changed or not, seemed like the same drink to me. I must admit that I have a harder time detecting differences within a peated style release compared to a non-peated whisky. Personally I find subtleties of the drink are overpowered by the peat taste.
I see from one of your recent postings in this thread you have a signatory single cask bottling of Mortlach in your hands. Mortlach has been a very under rated distillery. Part of the Diageo family and mainly used for blending purposes. The odd single cask Mortlach release that you could find were always very nice.
This is all about to change. Looks like Diageo realised that Mortlach bottlings were proving very popular. They have released their own official bottlings recently. I tried the "Rare Old" release and really enjoyed it. If you get chance check them out. Slainte!
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Thank you! Luckily I still have a Mortlach of the Flora & Fauna Series before it went insanely expensive. I always loved the Distillery and Diageo seems to give it the credit it deserves (and push the Price even more).
The Thing with Ardbeg (and also Octomore / Bruichladdich) - they benefit from the Peat trend and it's easy to think they put more strength in Marketing and limited ageless bottlings, that sell for high Prices to collectors, instead of focussing on doing reasonably priced middle aged Standard bottlings. I'll give it a try, if a certain Transaction takes place today.
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Max, agree with you fully. I have benefitted from buying recent limited Ardbeg releases, Alligator, Galileo, Ardbog, Rollercoaster etc etc. I drink one bottle myself ( purely for scientific purposes of course! ), keep the remaining bottles for a couple of years before selling them on at a profit. Working like this helps subsidise the cost of the bottle I open and drink. Slainte!
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Trends of late are all about extremes. Extreme bitterness or sourness in beer, extreme peat in Scotch… I enjoy it but that kind of one dimensionality flattens out subtlety for sure.
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Fully agree. I haven't tasted an Octomore or Ardbeg Supernova yet, but as I prefer the 18 YO Laphroaig for its complexity over the young, heavily peated bottlings, I doubt I would like them.
I still haven't gone to collecting and reselling bottles, as I think they're meant to be drunk and not bought for the shelf or to be resold. Hoever, I missed some good bargains because of that (just look at how expensive the old Macallans have become, 18 YO Talisker, Highland Park etc.). I wonder wether we'll ever going to see the benefits of the increasing production of the last years or wether new markets absorb all of it. It just sucks to know what good whiskies are out there and not being able (or willing) to spent that much on those bottles.
End of rant, I think I'm gonna get my Ardbeg now
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Bulleit is good, not tried Woodford.
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Bulleit and all the other MGP made whiskeys gross me out. I really prefer something from an authentic operation. Doesn't have to be a 300 year old Kentucky distillery using on premise spring water but a factory distiller making stuff for a label chafes my sensibilities.
