This is the fifth release of Lagavulin from The Whisky Exchange’s Elements of Islay series. These are 500 ml bottles with periodic table of element style names that refer to the distilleries (though you’re supposed to be coy and not take the identities for granted). The early entries in the line came out together at a steady clip some years ago (and I purchased most of them) but I lost sight of them in there somewhere. I reviewed the Lg1 and the Lg2 relatively early in the life of the blog but I never saw any sign of the Lg3 or the Lg4. Given how much I liked those early entries in the series when I had a chance to grab a 2 oz sample from a bottle split I went for it. This has received a heady score from Serge Valentin on Whiskyfun and so I’ve particularly been looking forward to it. Having started the week with an outstanding peated malt from Islay it’ll be nice to end it with another one as well. Then again Serge liked the recent official 8 yo quite a lot more than I did... Continue reading
Monthly Archives: October 2016
Pork Pickle
I’d said that I wasn’t sure if I’d have any recipes this month either (I last posted one in mid-August) on account of the backlog of restaurant write-ups I need to put up. But then earlier this week I improvised this pork pickle and it came out so well that I couldn’t resist throwing a quick recipe up. It is extremely easy (though not extremely healthy) and if the notion of pork pickle seems odd—we’re not talking Western-style pickled meats here, but an Indian-style pickle/achaar with pork in place of a vegetable—just think of it as confit of pork shoulder with Indian spices. It’s very rich and a little goes a long way. But you can eat it with rice and dal, with chapatis or parathas, and you can even make sandwiches with it. It’s delicious and versatile and, as I already said, it’s very easy to make. The toughest part is to resist eating it on the first or second day as it “matures”. Continue reading
Booker’s Small Batch Bourbon
So far my reviews of Beam’s extensive line of bourbons have not extended past two expressions of Old Grand-Dad (the 80 proof and 114 proof versions). Booker’s is at the other end of their product line in terms of status. Along with Knob Creek, Baker’s and Basil Hayden’s it is part of Beam’s “small batch” collection. And where Old Grand-Dad is made from Beam’s high rye mashbill—shared by Basil Hayden’s—Booker’s is made from a mash bill that is only 13% rye. It’s a high octane bourbon though, bottled at barrel strength (though not from single barrels), and regularly comes out in the early-mid 60s abv-wise. It is said to be routinely 6-8 years old. Until recently the year of distillation could be easily derived from the batch code on the bottle. My sample, for example, comes from the CO5-A-12 batch, which apparently means it was put in barrels in 2005 (I guess the entire batch is always from the same vintage). The newer batch codes are apparently harder to decipher but that’s neither here nor there. Booker’s probably has the strongest reputation of all of Beam’s high-end bourbons among bourbon aficionados, and its high strength in particular often seems to me to be part of its appeal—it’s not unusual to come across bourbon drinkers who never seem to add any water to their implausibly strong bourbons (whether Booker’s or George T. Stagg). I’m afraid that’s not going to be the case with this review. Continue reading
Tongue in Cheek (St. Paul)
Tongue in Cheek opened in 2014 in a part of St. Paul that apparently has a checkered past. It has received decent reviews from the professionals (see this enthusiastic writeup from Rick Nelson in the Star Tribune) and was also recommended to me in the comments on my review of Grand Cafe, where I asked for recommendations for more places doing interesting things under the radar. I put it on my list then and in mid-August we met two friends for dinner there on a weeknight. And I’m sorry to say that I had mixed feelings about it (and they were shared by the rest of the table, I think). It’s not that it was a bad meal (though some things were not good); it’s more that too many things suffered from excess of one kind or the other: too many elements in some plates, too much superfluous technique for its own sake, too many on-trend things on one menu, too much of an effort to be inventive for its own sake. There’s talent in the kitchen but it’s trying too hard, I thought. On the evidence of the better dishes at our meal this would be a better restaurant if it just calmed down and kept things a little simpler. Continue reading
Ardbeg 27, 1973-2000, 240 btls (Douglas Laing)
This is the first of three reviews of Ardbegs from the early 1970s that will be showing up on the blog in the next few weeks. Very few things in whisky geekdom are fetishized more than 1970s Ardbeg and, in particular, early 1970s Ardbeg. I’ve not had very many of these but I’m sorry to say that the few I have tried have all mostly lived up to the general hype (sorry because I’m temperamentally drawn to being contrary). Those, however, have all been official releases—see, for example, my reviews of the two US releases of the legendary Provenance series (here and here). These three, however, are independent releases. They were all bottled by Douglas Laing for their Old Malt Cask series—they were bottled in the early 2000s well before the split in the company. Two were distilled in 1972 and one in 1973; all were bourbon casks. Cask numbers were not listed and so these are identified by the number of bottles in the outturn. I got one ounce of each in a bottle split and on a per ounce basis these might add up to the most expensive whisky I’ve purchased. As such I’m really hoping not to be disappointed by them! Let’s see. First up, a 27 yo distilled in 1973. Continue reading
Coming Soon…
Here is a snapshot of September on the blog and a quick look ahead to October.
With no recipe posts made in September, almost all of the top 10 most-read posts were spirits-related. The most read was my review of the Astor Huard Calvados—but that was probably due to the vicious behaviour in the comments by a well-known blogger who’s known for flying off the handle at the slightest provocation (you could almost hear him sniffing as he typed). Of the other brandy reviews only the Pellehaut 17 sneaked into the top 10. The Highland Park 10, the Michel Couvreur 12 for K&L, the Longrow 11 Red, the Macallan 10 Fine Oak, the Glenfarclas 35, 1968 and the Bowmore Feis Ile 2012 were the most read whisky reviews (in that order). The only restaurant review in the top 10 was that of Homi, the excellent Mexican place in St. Paul. The only non-review post of any kind to feature was the piece on Glendronach’s single cask shenanigans, a piece whose afterlife seems as endless as whisky geeks’ willingness to buy Glendronach’s “single casks”. Continue reading