Monthly Archives: July 2014

Heyday

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Heyday: Interior
Heyday, which opened a few months ago, has been getting a fair bit of buzz. I am generally ambivalent about buzz but when Doug Flicker of Piccolo tweeted about an excellent meal he’d eaten there that was all the recommendation we needed. And sure enough we had a very good dinner there last week.

I’m not too clued into the who’s who of the Twin Cities fine dining scene but it appears there’s a dream team of sorts behind the restaurant. The chef, Jim Christiansen, has worked at La Belle Vie and Sea Change among other area stalwarts and relatively recently staged at Noma in Copenhagen. If, like us, you’re in the minority that is not crazy about La Belle Vie then you’ll be glad to know that the Noma influence seems more pronounced. That is not to say that they serve avant-garde food but that a modernist influence (complete with the molecular gastronomy toolkit) is brought to bear on a strong foundation of classical techniques and flavour combinations. Continue reading →

Tomatin 34, 1976 (The Perfect Dram)

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Tomatin 34, 1976, Perfect Dram
“The Perfect Dram” is a series from the highly-regarded bottler, The Whisky Agency, and most geeks would be willing to describe any Tomatin from 1976 as perfect drams. 1976 is considered to be a special “vintage” for Tomatin. This gives me yet another opportunity to register my skepticism about magical years at distilleries (I didn’t get where I am by being shy about accepting the opportunities to repeat myself that I give myself). Here’s what I said on the occasion of my previous review of a Tomatin from 1976:

[T]hose who make the case for Tomatins from 1976 don’t seem to notice that a disproportionate number of casks are simply available from this year as compared to others in that era–close to 60 bottles from 1976 are listed on Whiskybase, but only 23 from 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977 and 1978 combined (and almost half of those are from 1977).

Continue reading →

Tomatin 25

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Tomatin 25
Lovely photograph, isn’t it? Sometimes when you do sample swaps you receive gleaming jars with meticulously typed labels, sometimes you receive re-purposed miniature bottles with lots of old stickers still attached and just numbers to identify the contents, and you have to scrawl the names on yourself before you lose the key. I don’t particularly care; it’s what’s inside that counts. But I do like to show the picture of the actual sample bottle I’m reviewing and not a glamour shot of a full bottle I never saw. (I believe this sample was from a bottle with the newer rectangular label.)

Anyway, this is a sample of the Tomatin 25 and the actual bottle is not that exciting. Though it’s been discontinued it can still be found in the US for not very much more than $100, which is a very good price. But is it good value? Will it approach in quality the 30 yo at 49.3% (from the 1976 vintage) that I reviewed last year? Let’s see. Continue reading →

Ledaig 7 (The Whisky Exchange)

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Ledaig 7Okay, let’s do one more young Ledaig to bring the run of reviews of peated whiskies to a close. This one, like the 6 yo from Blackadder that I liked so much, is also from a sherry cask. It was bottled by the Whisky Exchange for the 2013 iteration of their annual whisky show. Oddly, they don’t note a vintage. As to whether this means that this was a vatting or that it’s merely in keeping with the “retro label” that this bottle (and others released at the show) sported, I don’t know. And frankly I’m not so very interested to find out.

Ledaig 7 (59.4%; sherry matured; from a sample received in a swap)

Nose: You’re never going to believe it but there’s farmy, organic peat notes in this! No rotting rodents though, just a lot of partially composted leaves. Quite a bit of salt too and some pipe tobacco. It’s not as clearly sherried as the Blackadder 6 yo but there are sweet fruit notes here too: plums, a little bit of orange peel, some raisins. More pastry/baked notes with time. The vegetal peat and the fruit marry surprisingly well with time. With water the citrus comes out in front but there’s still a lot of smoke (with more charred meat now). Continue reading →

Supatra Thai

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Supatra Thai: Grilled ChickenIn my recent post about dim sum in the Twin Cities I complained more generally about the state of Asian cuisines in the area, saying of Thai that “[W]e have two Thai restaurants that are quite good on their day (On’s Kitchen, Bangkok Thai Deli) and a large number that are mediocre at best.” I’ve previously reviewed one of those mediocre restaurants (Krungthep Thai) and here, alas, is a review of another: Supatra Thai. Continue reading →

Ardmore 20, 1992 (The Whisky Agency)

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Ardmore 20, The Whisky Agency for The Auld Alliance
Let us take a break from Ledaig and on this day, the 4th of July, review an Ardmore. Ardmore, as you know, is what the Founding Fathers drank as they signed the Declaration of Independence. It’s a fact.

This Ardmore, from a bourbon barrel, was bottled by the Whisky Agency for the Auld Alliance, a famous whisky bar in Singapore. The last time I was in Singapore I was not yet sufficiently crazy about whisky to be seeking out whisky bars, but if I make it back I certainly will try to go. This is as close as I get for now.

(Please appreciate the lettuce from my garden that forms the backdrop for the highly essential photograph of the sample bottle.)  Continue reading →

Island Distillery / Ledaig 7, 2005 (Exclusive Malts for K&L)

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Ledaig 7, 2005The run of reviews of smoky whiskies is threatening to become a run of reviews of Ledaig. Well, this one from David Stirk’s Exclusive Malts at least doesn’t say Ledaig on the bottle. It says “Island Distillery” but it has all but explicitly been confirmed that this is a Ledaig. This was an exclusive bottling for my old pals at K&L. Let’s see what it does to my fairly positive streak with Ledaig.

Island Distillery/ Ledaig 7, 2005 (57.2%. Exclusive Malts for K&L; from a sample received in a swap)

Nose: Ah yes, the familiar farmy/organic peat. There’s a fair bit of vanilla sweetness with it though along with some salt and lemon and a bit of rubber/vinyl. After a few minutes the vanilla sweetness eases into a creamier, butter-pastry kind of thing, and I’m getting some sort of baked fruit as well (apple maybe?). With even more time (10-15 minutes in) the farmy/organic peat is still there but more muted and in better balance with the other notes. Water pushes back the smoke and accentuates the lemon and the sweetness (stony now as it was on the palate). Continue reading →

Ledaig 6, 2005 (Blackadder)

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Ledaig 6, 2005Hot on the heels of my review of the Ledaig 10, and picking back up the run of reviews of smoky whiskies, here is an even younger Ledaig, this from a single sherry cask and released by the indie outfit, Blackadder. I’ve previously reviewed another Ledaig 6 that I rather liked and I’m interested to see how this one compares.

Ledaig 6, 2005 (64%; Blackadder; sherry cask #9011; from a sample received in a swap)

Nose: The usual Ledaig farmy peat but it’s shot through with orange peel, raisins and dark honey; some caramel too. Rather expressive despite the high (!) strength. After a minute or so there’s quite a lot of salt and there’s an inky quality to the smoke too and just a hint of struck matches. After a while it’s all about the citrus (now joined by some apricot) with some savoury notes (cured pork) and briny smoke playing above. Water wakes the farmy notes back up but only for a flash–after that it’s pretty much as it was neat, with maybe a little more apricot sweetness and a little bit of leather. Continue reading →

Coming Soon…

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The actual first anniversary of my blog was on March 24 (I celebrated appropriately with a review of the Bowmore 12). For the first few months of its life, however, I barely had any readers (I get more pageviews now in less than a week than I did in each of those first few months) and barely anything I wrote was taken much notice of (though I very much appreciate those who’ve followed along from the very beginning). I mean, this piece all but disappeared (compare with the firestorm of response to its follow-up in October; note also the friendly comment by one David Driscoll). It was last summer in fact that my blog began to get a wider readership. Continue reading →