I know I said a couple of days ago that I have a lot of meal reports yet to complete from my two weeks in Los Angeles; but here is a quick detour to DC. I took a 36 hour trip there, right after returning to Minnesota from Los Angeles, to do some grant approval work for a government agency. I got there early on a Tuesday evening, spent all of the next day at the agency I was working for and left for the airport from there. This meant I only had dinner available on the Tuesday. I was between two places: Little Serow and Rasika. I picked Rasika for three reasons, only one of which had to do with their own merits: standing in line outside Little Serow in mid-summer DC heat/humidity did not appeal and nor did the thought of being in a day-long panel meeting after eating a searing hot Thai meal; also, given my constant cribbing about the quality of Indian food in the US, it seemed foolish to pass up an opportunity to eat at what a number of people say is one of the best Indian restaurants in the country, if not the best. (See here for some of that constant cribbing.) Continue reading
Ledaig 15, 43%
This is the old Ledaig 15 at 43% (probably chillfiltered and maybe even coloured, though it’s not particularly tanned in appearance). I don’t think there’s been an updated version of this since Tobermory/Ledaig’s lineups got rebooted/upgraded with higher abv’s and more bespoke presentation some years ago—as to why that is, I’m not sure; there is a Tobermory 15, after all.
Anyway, this review is again going up simultaneously with that of Michael K. and Jordan D. (links to come in the morning once all the posts are up and I’m awake) and they will certainly have far more useful information. I can tell you that Michael’s incredibly conventional sample label says this was bottled in 2001 and that it’s probably actually 19 years old once you factor the distillery’s closures in.
Continue reading
Sushi Sushi (Beverly Hills)
I have a large number of meal reports left from my Los Angeles trip which ended two weeks ago, a number of them of sushi lunches. So as to not give you mercury poisoning from too many sushi meal reports in a row, I’m going to space them out. Here first is a brief account of a lunch omakase at Sushi Sushi in Beverly Hills.
Sushi Sushi is located right off Robertson on Beverly Drive. While there are some who praise it highly, it’s not really in the upper echelons of Los Angeles’ sushi scene; but we can’t afford to eat only at that level. As it happens, we liked our meal fine but it had the unexpected effect of making us appreciate all the more our more expensive omakase at Sushi Tsujita. Continue reading
Clynelish 18, 1996 (Signatory for TWE)
Behold the handiwork of Sku, that magnificent bastard. When we met for lunch in Los Angeles, he handed over the box of samples he had for me and said, “After all the grief you gave me last time, I made a real effort with the labels this time”. Of course, when I got home I discovered that while he had indeed made clear labels, he’d put some of them at the base of the bottles and some over the lids; and others (like last week’s Laphroaig 16) over older labels that were still visible. A true artist, I expect his work will soon be featured at MOMA.
Like the aforementioned Laphroaig 16, this Clynelish was also bottled by Signatory for The Whisky Exchange. An 18 yo, this is also from a sherry cask. Let’s see if this is as good as that Laphroaig. Continue reading
Travail (Robbinsdale, MN)
Towards the end of my recent dinner at Travail, while waiting for the next course in what had long before begun to feel like an interminable meal, I began to idly try to come up with versions of book titles to describe the meal so far. Here are the best I could manage: A Series of Unfortunate Courses and A Supposedly Fun Meal I’ll Never Eat Again. No, I really did not enjoy my meal. Yes, I actively disliked it. Before I get into the details of the meal and the very basic reasons for my lack of enjoyment of it, a little bit of background on and description of the restaurant for those who don’t follow these things. Continue reading
Kilchoman 5, 2008 (for K&L)
This is one of K&L’s exclusive bottlings of Kilchoman and therefore THE GREATEST WHISKY FROM THE GREATEST DISTILLERY EVER! Well, I don’t know what Driscoll actually said about it as I don’t really read him regularly anymore—you can let me know if I’m very far off the mark.
Michael K., the depraved bastard who writes Diving for Pearls, proposed a bottle split of this some time ago. I’d completely forgotten about it till I got to Los Angeles and then he accused me of trying to renege on the deal and it got kind of ugly. Anyway, as recompense I had to agree to simul-review this, and I believe Jordan of Chemistry of the Cocktail is also doing one. So, after reading this you should go to their blogs and see exactly how they got it wrong. I’ll provide the links once I have them. As always, we won’t see each others’ reviews till they go up.
Blueberry-Plum Jam
I have this terrible fear that I missed peach and apricot season entirely while in Los Angeles. Missed from the point of view of jam making, that is. At least the local co-op had only very sad looking peaches and apricots when I went in late last week. What they did have though were attractive Dapple Dandy pluots/plums and blueberries. And so, here is a recipe for an improvised blueberry-plum jam.
As I’ve said before, one of the great attractions of making your own jam is that you can create chimerical combinations that you don’t usually see in stores. As it turns out, this is a combination that seems to have occurred to many jam makers—the web is lousy with recipes (and far more attractive photographs than mine).
Laphroaig 16, 1998 (Signatory for TWE)
Let’s keep the Laphroaig thing going and let’s keep the timely review thing going too. This was bottled by Signatory for the Whisky Exchange—one of three selections in Signatory’s signature decanters, with green labels on this occasion. The other two were a 33 yo Glenlivet and a 18 yo Clynelish. All are still available.
I got samples of the Clynelish and Laphroaig from Sku in L.A (as you probably guessed by looking at the quality of the label). I figured if I liked them I might consider ordering them but the steep shipping price from the Whisky Exchange—especially for these Signatory decanters—is a hard obstacle to overcome. On the other hand, this is a Laphroaig from a sherry cask, and a high quality sherried Laphroaig is, for me, an even harder proposition to turn down. Well, let’s see if this is going to cause me to make any difficult decisions.
Continue reading
Laphroaig Cairdeas 2015, 200th Anniversary
Here’s a timely review for a change. I got word while I was in Los Angeles that the 2015 Cairdeas was already in Minnesota. The first thing I did upon getting back last week was to go and secure some bottles for myself.
As you probably know, the Cairdeas is Laphroaig’s bottling for Feis Ile, the annual Islay festival. It’s a different whisky each year (see here and here for my reviews of the 2013 and 2014 releases, which were from port and amontillado sherry casks respectively). This year saw a return to bourbon cask basics with an 11 yo whisky, made in small pot stills from floor malted barley from the distillery itself, and matured in their No. 1 warehouse down by the sea—all this information is from the back of the tube; well, the age isn’t on there but I’ve seen a number of references to that online. As 2015 is the bicentenary of this great distillery, the intent apparently was to produce a version of Laphroaig that looked back to the older style of whisky once produced here. As to whether they have succeeded in doing this is not something I will be able to judge as I have not had too much of that older Laphroaig (though I do very much encourage anyone who wants to help me educate myself to get in touch).
Coming Soon…
Before I get to the usual long list of potential whisky reviews for the month let me first thank all those who responded to my poll about relative interest in the whisky and food content on the blog. With more than 125 responses in a week, I received far more feedback than I thought I would (perhaps even achieving statistical significance given the number of unique visitors each day). In fact, I must admit that when I first set up the poll I did not set it to display the actual number of votes cast (in total or for each option) as I had thought that number might be embarrassingly low (that fear, embarrassing in itself, was proven unfounded within a few hours). While this was not in any way a goal of the poll, it has had the unexpected effect of indicating that I do in fact have a readership beyond the few who comment from time to time. And this is is nice to know.
Mortlach 19, 1991 (Signatory)
Now that my number of open bottles is down below 40 I’ve begun to finally open a bunch of not particularly exciting bottles that I purchased some years ago in my great hoarding period and put away for no good reason. This Mortlach from Signatory’s UCF line was one of those. I opened it a few months ago for one of my local group’s tastings and while it did not set anyone’s hair on fire, almost everyone liked it. I’ve been drinking it regularly since then and here now are some formal notes.
Mortlach 19, 1991 (46%; Signatory Unchilfiltered Collection; sherry butt 7710; from my own bottle)
Nose: A little metallic; raisins, a bit of orange peel and a bit of dusty wood. Not a whole lot of interest. A little more expressive with a few drops of water but still not particularly interesting.
Isaan Station Again (Los Angeles, July 2015)
I ate at Isaan Station twice on our last trip to Los Angeles. On neither occasion was I accompanied by the missus and kids and I was thus resolved that we would go back together on this trip (it also helps that Isaan Station is in Koreatown and not Thai Town). While they do not have the dish that the boys are guaranteed to eat (chicken/pork satays) I knew they (and the missus) would love their wondrous grilled chicken and/or any of the other grilled meats; and that the missus would, at a minimum, also love whichever earthy, spicy soup we got. So it proved to be.
Continue reading
Highland Park 19, 1990 (Signatory)
I purchased this cask strength Highland Park 19, 1990 from Signatory a long while ago with the express purpose of comparing it with this marvelous OB 19 distilled four years previous. I finally opened it last year but I still haven’t gotten around to the head to head comparison. This is because I only just remembered that that was why I’d purchased it. Isn’t getting older so much fun?
That’s all I have by way of introduction, I’m afraid.
Highland Park 19, 1990 (56.5%; Signatory; sherry butt 15696; from my own bottle)
Nose: It’s a bit tight but with my nose deep in the glass there are dark sherry notes to be found: raisins, orange peel, toffee edging into fudge territory. Some leathery oak as well. Something farmy/leafy too (and is that a whiff of peat?). Water should open it up nicely. With more time the sweeter notes mix with savoury and there’s a mild inkiness too. The apricot that emerges late on the palate shows up on the nose too along with some maple syrup. With a few drops of water the sweeter fruit are emphasized and there’s a light dusting of cocoa powder. Continue reading
Dim Sum at China Red (Los Angeles, July 2015)
China Red is a relatively recent addition to the top-end of the dim sum scene in the San Gabriel Valley—which is, of course, the best, from top to bottom, in the United States. It opened less than two years ago and gained a strong reputation very strongly. And, unlike another recent opening, Shi Hai, it has managed to hold on to that reputation. We didn’t eat there on our last few trips because a) I am always a little leery about new, hyped places; b) it’s in Arcadia, which is on the far end of the San Gabriel Valley from our home base in Koreatown; and c) relatedly, it’s hard to justify driving out that far when Sea Harbour, Elite, Lunasia and King Hua are all so much closer. It’s for this reason that we didn’t end up eating dim sum on this trip with Sku and his family as originally planned (we ended up at a different place with them, on which more later)—he was loth to drive the extra 10-15 minutes to Arcadia. We, however, were already going to be in the SGV in the middle of the week, last week, and so decided to cut across to Arcadia and finally check China Red out. Continue reading
Russell’s Reserve 10
For the benefit of those who know even less about bourbon than I do: Russell’s Reserve is a Wild Turkey product, named for their master distiller, Jimmy Russell. The series was first launched in 1999, I believe. I call it a series because there have been and are a number of different releases from Wild Turkey with the Russell’s Reserve name on them. In addition to this 10 yo bourbon, there’s a 6 yo rye available now, for instance; and there has also been a single barrel release of the bourbon (plus store exclusive versions). And, I believe there have been other bottle and label designs as well (and possibly other strengths as well). Those who know more about the ins and outs of the series/name should kindly write in below.
Anyway, as always, please take this bourbon review with an extra pinch of salt. Bourbon is a side-interest for me; while I do enjoy it, I very much approach it with the biases and filters of a single malt drinker.
Requesting Feedback
A request for my regular readers: if you would take a moment of your time to select the option below that best describes your feelings about the split whisky/food focus of the blog, I’d highly appreciate it. To be clear, I’m not looking to change what I do on the blog on the basis of this feedback. I’m just curious about whether, and/or to what extent, I have separate readerships for the whisky and food posts; and to what extent, if at all, either readership also enjoys, is indifferent to, or wishes there was less of the other content.
Thanks very much!
And do feel free to leave comments below if you like.
Teaninich 39, 1973 (Malts of Scotland)
I began the week with a very old Tomintoul. Let’s close it out as well with a very old whisky, albeit not quite as old. Like Tomintoul, Teaninich is not a storied distillery, which explains why this one was also quite reasonably priced on release. Of course, since this was bottled by the boutique Malts of Scotland it cost almost as much at 39 years old as that 45 year old from the far less-heralded Chester Whisky. It’s not just the marketers at the corporations that own distilleries that indulge in premiumization, you see.
Teaninich is a Diageo distillery. It’s not seen much official output: a few releases in the Rare Malts series, one Manager’s Choice and Manager’s Dram outing each and one Flora & Fauna and that’s it (as per Whiskybase anyway). Most of its output apparently goes into Johnnie Walker, and given how thirsty that blend monster is, not a whole lot of it even appears from the indies. Well, let’s see what this one is like. Continue reading