whiskey

xp great minds etc etc

mother's day presents?

infusions a good idea!

four thieves vinegar is perfect for spring

also warding off witches/plague

http://nourishedkitchen.com/four-thieves-vinegar-recipe/

<i>Don't know where you all are from, but in general American spirit tastes tend toward the sweet. Hence our national distrust of bitters, which abound in Europe (there's a good chapter on this in Jason Wilson's "Boozehound"). Not that scotch is bitter, but our tastebuds I think gravitate toward the caramel sweetness of bourbon. Also, made in America, USA USA USA!</i>

uhhh i am not familiar with this bitters hate. and i don't like overly sweet bourbons! i just like bourbon better. and rye. rye is my answer to wanting something a bit dryer.

some day i will learn bbcode and not rely on remembering to "convert simple html to bbcode"

scotch tastes kind of 'thin' compared to bourbon, for me at least

nikka from the barrel is sick (as is ardbeg 10)

Yep. My favourite blend and my favourite malt.

tried the nikka yoichi tonight, it was really nice. yamazaki is another great japanese whisky obviously but whatever you do, never drink 10 year old isawa single malt. literally tastes like an old bike shop.

Fighting Cock 1st impressions: this is good, not as complex as I was perhaps hoping for, but not thin like a lot of what i consider 'bland' bourbons. Would buy again, and at $22/liter it's affordable.

also re: bourbon sweetness. i think it is the sweetness in some bourbons that put me more into the rye train tbh--i find things like makers, beam, turkey, even knob creek, can become a bit cloying after a few drinks.

i find knob especially to be pretty sweet

yamazaki is another great japanese whisky obviously

obv

Buffalo Trace is the best default bargain whiskey, methinks. A bit of space, nice and flavorful.

i find knob especially to be pretty sweet

Posts taken out of context...

heh

Buffalo Trace OTM, big fan

the last 24hrs worth of posts make me wish I could share this wonderful birthday bourbon I got, the stuff is srsly sublime

i think people misinterpreted my "sweet" description of bourbon
i am only talking about tastebuds and physical reactions to certain tastes (taste being a neutral/scientific word here)
how one reacts to a certain taste sensation is to a certain extent up to genetics(although cultural influences cannot be dismissed i guess)

i certainly don't think people who like bourbon are into sickly sweet stuff, rather their tastebuds respond to a different end of the taste(bud) spectrum. and yes, single malt scotches are well beyond my income comfort-zone for the most part which is why i like irish whiskies as they seem to hit a nice "sweet spot" between bourbon and scotch and are affordable.

also i am in no way averse to sweet-tasting alcoholic drinks but i prefer to control the ingredients that go into the drink as opposed to starting out with a base-level sweetness with the main ingredient.

scotch tastes kind of 'thin' compared to bourbon, for me at least

― flagp∞st (dayo), Wednesday, March 14, 2012 6:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the bottling proof of most scotch is one thing that is to blame here

Scotch is best neat or with only a tiny splash of water in most cases, though. If I'm going to drink bourbon straight, I usually throw an ice cube in.

yeah i never put ice in bourbon pretty much (unless it's an old fashioned obv) so i get used to the higher abv

i like both scotch and bourbon but prefer bourbon. And i dont think it has to do with any relative sweetness, because i dont have a sweet tooth at all.

or doesn't have any teeth at all...

Operative word being "relative" sweetness. With bourbon you get hints of caramel. WIth scotch you get hints of, dunno, dirt, I guess. More vegetal vs. spice.

i mean this all comes down to personal palates but i've had sherried scotches (balvenie doublewood, glenfarclas 12) that seem so sweet to me!

I have a bottle of rum barrel-aged scotch stashed at a friend's place that is pretty good but not all that sweet, comparatively

buzza otm, thats why i don't really enjoy drinking something like makers mark str8 up, its got that cloying aftertaste

makers is kind of...not great though

makers is the attempted platonic ideal of "bourbon." no one is going to say it's the best, no one will say it's the worst, no real complaints from serving it, and it meets all definitions of a reasonable product

also available most places and not embarrassing to shout for across a noisy bar

it's also in the $ sweet spot, too. it's not swilly, but it's not something you're gonna get docked for financially. kind of the '90s RHCPs of bar drinks

bottled by anthony kiedis

sealed with a waxy flea kiss

served in a sock.

Triple sock filtered.

tried the bulleit rye 95 - pretty sweet tbh

sweet sweet?

sweet sweet

i often find cognacs a bit sweet

scotch prices in america are alas far more reasonable than those of fancy non-EU liquors here, else i would try more

Has anyone else been following the ongoing Buffalo Trace insanity, not just the Van Winkle stuff but the so-called "Antique Collection" as well? Prices have gone utterly bonkers.

yeah, I think it'll sort itself out in the same way Lagavulin did - it gets talked up in a lot of circles, novices seek it out as collection worthy or a name thing, price makes the former core audience move to other comparable products, prices level back out.

Unfortunate that a product with a 4 to 23 year production cycle is so fundamentally ill equipped to ride out supply/demand cycles.

to be fair to them, whiskey production has ramped up in the last few years since the trend was anticipated, but demand for bourbon in 2012 is still outstripping the supply

I hear that Knob Creek are launching a rye. Has anyone encountered it yet?

Has anyone else been following the ongoing Buffalo Trace insanity, not just the Van Winkle stuff but the so-called "Antique Collection" as well? Prices have gone utterly bonkers.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, April 4, 2012 2:38 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh definitely. spring van winkle allocation was pretty rough, i think at least one store owner straight up lied to me about their allocation. btac thankfully is nowhere near as bad, and the only van winkle worth coveting at this point is the 20 year and the rye.

I want to say it was less than a year ago that I was still able to find the 15 for $50. Now it goes for, what, $200+ dollars?

Do any of you have any good recommendation for any of the single barrel small batch whiskeys being churned out, like the Knob Creek single barrel? Has anyone tried the Woodford Reserve Double Oak?