whiskey

I must test your uncle's theory.

Highland Park is a lower middle class, largely Hispanic neighborhood in LA. I don't think the distillery is there.

Same for Pittsburgh, although without the hispanic.

lol i used to live by highland park in Rochester and it was beautiful!

I went to a big repeal day party here in DC - pretty much all the best bartenders in the area, plus Dale DeGroff & Jeffrey Morgenthaler. It was great.

wow highland park is great - very drinkable neat, I don't think I'm gonna have this on ice at all

Van Winkle 12 y.o.

Oh my goodness, it is wonderful.

holding a bourbon tasting tonight w/friends iirc. van winkle 12 is one of the ones i'm strongly considering bringing to it.

I am a big fan of Van Winkle

Its solidly my favorite, in a really, really competitive division of booze.

i have still never had it!

This Weller Special Reserve is astoundingly good for the price! going to try to use it to convert a bunch of Maker's Mark loving heathens into people that pay appropriate $$ for alcohol this evening.

This thread makes me sad because almost none of these fine beverages is available in Pennsylvania, and when stuff does turn up it is scandalously expensive. Liquor store had Sazerac which is acceptable but not great for close on 60 bucks.

need to bribe someone to make a run down to west virginia

Liquor store had Sazerac which is acceptable but not great for close on 60 bucks.

wow really? It's much cheaper in NYC (not too often I get to say that!) .... actually that $60 price seems completely wrong, was it maybe the Sazerac 18 year?

has anyone had Ezra Brooks (or "Ezra B." as it says on the bottle)? looked interesting but I wanted something a little less expensive. ended up getting Elijah Craig 12 year which I'm liking, seems pretty good for the price.

Van Winkle is also my all time fave although George T. Stagg and Bookers are not far behind.

yeah or was it a really giant bottle? that seems insane for sazerac!

is van winkle similar in taste/finish to stagg? bc if so must try asap.

PA state liquor is nuts, they had regular sazerac and some kind of fancy sazerac next to each other on the shelf and priced the same.

The Van Winkle 12 we're talking about is "lot b" right? That stuff is delicious. Anyone ever try the super aged (20 or 23 year) Pappy Van Winkle? I'm really curious about it, but it's super pricey and I heard that aging bourbon that long doesn't necessarily do it any favors. Heard it begins to take on a strong char or oak taste rather than a traditional bourbon flavor.

Also would love to try the George T. Stagg, but that's running like $100 a bottle at the only liquor store I've seen it.

Also Weller's Special Reserve is indeed a great thing to introduce to a Maker's Mark fan, as it is my understanding that Makers is kind of a cheap substitute for Wellers in the same way Jack Daniels is a cheap substitute for Dickel. Cheap, of course, doesn't refer to the price but to how it's made. Though some say Van Winkle gave Makers the original Weller recipe, which they allegedly follow. http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-makers-anyone.html

finished 1/2 a bottle of Rebel Yell last night at a friend's birthday party.

The Van Winkle 12 we're talking about is "lot b" right? That stuff is delicious. Anyone ever try the super aged (20 or 23 year) Pappy Van Winkle? I'm really curious about it, but it's super pricey and I heard that aging bourbon that long doesn't necessarily do it any favors. Heard it begins to take on a strong char or oak taste rather than a traditional bourbon flavor.

The older Pappy Van Winkles are good! Suggest trying it at a bar before springing for a bottle, though. Really a bummer that they're not bottle at cask strength, or at least as a higher proof. At that age range I'm a huge fan of the Willett bourbons and ryes, esp. the 16-year malt bomb bottled last year.

For Christmas, my girlfriend got me a bottle of William LaRue Weller, barrel proof at 125.3, part of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. I finally got around to opening it the other day and this shit is really really great. Lots of heat, yet smooth, sweet and a bit woody. Trying to make it last a while by doing no more than 1 pour of it in any given session.

Otherwise I've been on a bit of a rye kick lately, going with Wild Turkey Rye and Rittenhouse, which are both good values. In terms of Bourbon, turns out the Old Grand Dad BIB is a really good value rye bourbon. Also recently tried some Eagle Rare single barrel, 10 year 90 proof which I wasn't blown away by, but will definitely need to taste again.

evan williams is kind of an amazing deal!
bulleit is up to 29.95 for 750ml here. :(

my friend went to Japan over christmas and brought me back a small bottle of 10 year single malt - nikko I think it's called? haven't tried it because, as usual, it is wrapped in exquisite japanese packaging and I don't want to ruin it

I picked up some Four Roses and it's pretty good. very...smokey? doesn't go well with ice but very good neat

so when was the last time you had a dickel in your mouth?

The '99 Evan Williams Single Barrel is a fav for sure and good value at about $30. And the regular stuff is pretty good too and at half the price of Beam white label, so yeah... amazing deal there.

Didn't detect smoke on the 4 roses I had, maybe some char on the single barrel, but I haven't tried all of their expressions. Anyway, yeah, you want their 80 proof version neat for sure. Most whiskies at that proof won't stand up to ice cubes.

Old Rip Van Winkle 10/90 is like my favorite pour right now.

oy vey, tza. i think it's 19.99 down here at tj's. my father-in-law was digging it when he stayed here for xmas

oh god maybe i should move again.

my sc friend's dad owns a liquor store and she sold me some at cost which ended up being like 21.95 but there was really no good way to try to stock up and bring it back w/ me.

had Rittenhouse last night at the bbq joint. Great value for sure. I think the next bottle I buy will be Booker's, unless something else at the shop jumps out at me.

All the friggin Irish coffee I had after midnight last night was probably a bad idea.

i cannot find rittenhouse around here for the life of me; it's annoying

you know what, after perusing their online catalog, i think i'm gonna take a long-ish walk this afternoon to try a new liquor store as apparently i can get both rittenhouse & weller 12 yr there for under $20 apiece.

ended up getting the weller Antique cuz it was just two dollars more than the 12 year. and the rittenhouse, which was $15. amazing deal.

wow what store?
liquor here is $$$$ but i guess that's good cause it makes me drink less.

BQE Wine & Liquors on Meeker & Humboldt!

is it too early to start drinking y/n

y imo

oh that place was great! so cheap!
xpost

it's almost 4pm here!!!!

and i have two brand new bottles of whiskey!!

wait til 5

FINE.

it's five o'clock somewhere.

x-post

It's a little before 3:00 here, I can start drinking rum so you don't look so bad.

if i had a plate of eggs in front of me, it would be perfectly acceptable to drink a bloody mary or some bullshit so why can't i just start sippin whiskey. i just wanna taste the weller tbh, and hope i like it.

initial impressions of the old weller antique 107 are mixed and not entirely favorable. extremely sweet up front with a vague medicinal taste to the otherwise nice & slow finish. maybe it'll grow on me.

also you can really smell the booze in this thing.

i had the weller 90 recently and was def not crazy about it

received a bottle of http://www.sixthseal.com/archive/November2005/shine_on_georgia_moon_corn_whiskey.jpg for Christmas.

will not be drinking