Edradour 12, 2010, Super Tuscan Cask (for Spec’s)

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This has been a mult-themed week. All Edradours. All single casks bottled for Spec’s in Texas. All wine casks of one kind or the other. The week got off to a rocky start on Monday with a 10 yo chardonnay cask that had just a bit too much sulphur in it. Wednesday’s 12 yo moscatel cask presented a course correction. Let’s see if we can remain on a positive trajectory with the last cask, which is also a 12 yo distilled in 2010 (and a fairly proximate cask number). I’m a bit nervous as it’s a red wine cask. I don’t have the best history with red wine cask whiskies: I really did not like the last red wine-bothered whisky I reviewed (this Talisker handfill). Let’s give it a go.

Edradour 12, 2010, Super Tuscan Cask (54.6%; cask 93; for Spec’s; from a bottle split) 

Nose: The nutty, beany notes are trying, they’re trying hard, but they’re mostly covered up by the wine. The good news is there’s no eau de cologne, just some red fruit (cherry) and a touch of orange peel. As it sits, some of the nutty/beany complex emerges. With more time still there are softer, sweeter notes of cream and butterscotch. Water brings out more of the citrus—and it’s brighter now; some plum in there too now. Continue reading →

Edradour 12, 2010, Moscatel Cask (for Spec’s)

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This week I’m reviewing single casks of Edradour that were recently bottled for Spec’s in Texas; the further twist is that they’re all wine casks of one kind or the other. The series didn’t get off to the best start on Monday. That 10 yo Chardonnay cask had a little too much sulphur in it even for a non-sulphur-phobe like me. Water rescued it but, on the whole, it was underwhelming. Today’s cask, two years older and filled a year prior, is a moscatel cask. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a moscatel cask Edradour or Ballechin before. Let’s hope it gets the week back on track.

Edradour 12, 2010, Moscatel Cask (53.1%; for Spec’s; cask 88; from a bottle split)

Nose: Starts out nutty, beany and yeasty, just like the chardonnay cask. Some roasted malt on the second sniff and then a big wave of citrus (lime peel) and chalk. Spicier here too with time even as some sweeter fruit is teased—let’s see if water brings it out. No, not really; in fact, it washes it out. Continue reading →

India Market/Spice Bazaar (Lake Elmo, MN)

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[Note: this post has been updated with more information about changes to the store.]

It’s been a while since my last look at an immigrant market in the Twin Cities metro. Eight months, in fact. My last market report from the area was of the Desi Brothers store in Bloomington back in March. I have for you today a look at India Market/Spice Bazaar in Lake Elmo. Spice Bazaar is the old name and is still the name on the signage. But apparently the store is now under new ownership and the name is about to change officially to India Market. This report, however, is based on a visit there in May of this year (right after our lunch at El Itacate, as it happens). I took lots of pictures with plans to soon post a look at this large store, but the end of my spring term and our impending summer travels put paid to those plans. And then it got lost in the flood and backlog of posts from said summer travels. I’m told that as of a few weeks ago there had been no major changes to the actual layout of the store. But please know that there’s a possibility that the store now looks different than it does in the truly excessive slideshow that follows. Even if it does, however, you should still get a good sense of what to expect there. Continue reading →

Edradour 10, 2011, Chardonnay Cask (for Spec’s)

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Okay, having done a week of blended malts/whiskies from Compass Box (here, here and here), let’s do a week of single malts. This week’s whiskies are all from Edradour, they were all bottled for Spec’s in Texas, and they’re all wine casks of one kind or the other. Edradour—the tiny highlands distillery owned by Signatory—have a history of wine cask releases; both for the mainline malt, and for the peated variant, Ballechin. The base spirit is an idiosyncratic one and it’s probably fair to say that Edradour in general is more a cult distillery than a crowd-pleaser, and also that the cult is not very large. I myself have historically preferred the heavily peated stylings of the Ballechin variant to mainline Edradour—just as I prefer the heavily peated Ledaig to that distillery’s also idiosyncratic mainline malt, Tobermory. And whether it’s Ledaig/Tobermory or Ballechin/Edradour, I generally prefer sherry casks to ex-bourbon. Well, none of this week’s casks of Edradour for Spec’s are sherry casks. First up, is a chardonnay cask. It was bottled at an eye-watering strength; which is, I suppose, another hallmark of the distillery’s single cask program. Anyway, let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading →

Compass Box, The Circle No. 2

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I am at the end of my week of Compass Box reviews and you’ll be relieved to hear that I’m not closing it out with another release from seven years ago. The last review of the week is of a release from just last year and it was not made as protest against whisky industry regulations. It seems to have some connection to a international bartender conversation called the Circle. This is the Circle No. 2, which implies—if you’re good with the detective work like me—that there was another release before that. And for all we know there may have been one after as well. It’s also different from the Enlightenment and Three Year Old Deluxe in that it’s got a lot more parts to it. While the Enlightenment had malt from four distilleries in it, and the Three Year Old Deluxe had malt from only two distilleries in it, this has malt from five distilleries, as well as a not-inconsiderable portion of blended whisky. About half of it is bourbon cask Glen Elgin and another 17% or so is bourbon cask Speyburn. The remaining 33% is made up of first-fill sherry hogshead Ardmore (2.2%), first-fill sherry butt Teaninich (13.5%), a little bit of wine cask Linkwood (2.3%) and that parcel of blended Scotch, said to be “primarily first-fill sherry butt” (14.3%) . I got all this from Compass Box’s fact sheet, which also tells me that I might know the person who composed this whisky. Let’s hope I like it. Continue reading →

Compass Box, Three Year Old Deluxe

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Here is the second Compass Box review of the week. The first was of the Enlightenment, which was released in April 2016 as a response to EU and UK regulations that forbid whisky producers from disclosing the ages of constituent whiskies in their blends/vattings (at least I think that’s what they were responding to—it’s been a while and I confess I didn’t follow the drama very closely even then). Today’s review is of the so-called Three Year Old Deluxe which was released a few months later in August 2016 and was marketed as yet another salvo against the arbitrariness of those regulations. Here, the whiskymakers told us, they had composed a whisky that comprised only 1% of a 3 yo single malt from a highlands distillery (“near the village of Brora”; i.e Clynelish) and 90% of “considerably older” whisky from the same distillery; the remaining 9% came from a distillery on Skye (i.e Talisker). Of course, by the regulations the only age that can be disclosed is that of the youngest whisky in the vatting, making it a 3 yo and isn’t that silly? Continue reading →

Oro (Minneapolis)

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People plugged into the Twin Cities restaurant scene probably know the Oro origin story well but here’s a short version for the rest of you. Chef Gustavo Romero and his partner Kate Romero opened Nixta, a tortilleria, during the pandemic in 2020. He is a veteran of San Francisco’s fine dining world and she a veteran of the Twin Cities fine dining world (with stops at Surly’s Brewer’s Table and Travail). Nixta did brisk business with takeout meals during the height of the pandemic and beyond and this year they purchased the adjoining space and developed it into a standalone restaurant: Oro. It started out as a counter-service restaurant but is now a formal dine-in restaurant with a liquor license and cocktails and everything. It’s also probably the best Mexican restaurant in the Twin Cities metro. Or so we thought after our first dinner there this past weekend. Continue reading →

Compass Box, Enlightenment

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For the first full week of November let’s do a series of reviews of releases from the boutique indie bottler, Compass Box. As you doubtless know, unlike most Scotch whisky indies, Compass Box does not release casks of whiskies from distilleries but their own blends of one kind or the other: vatted malts (or whatever they’re officially called now), blends of malt and grain, all grain whisky: they’ve released them all. They are very popular with the whisky geek corner of the market. I have previously aired my skepticism about aspects of Compass Box’s presentation and appeal to this part of the market. In short, I’ve speculated that their bespoke presentation and facility with the language of whisky geekdom is a large part of their success. The whiskies themselves have often seemed to me to be adjacent to the presentation of them. That said, I’ve liked a number of their releases even as I’ve wondered about the fuss. Enlightenment, released in 2016, was one of their releases about which a fair bit of fuss was made. Continue reading →

Ardbeg 5, “Wee Beastie”, 2020 Release

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I started the week (and ended October) with a young, heavily peated whisky from Islay. I now end the week (and begin November) with a young, heavily peated whisky from Islay. The 2023 Cairdeas does not, of course, carry an age statement but it’s probably still at least a few years older than this Ardbeg. This is the five-year old, dubbed “Wee Beastie” that joined the distillery’s core lineup in 2020. This sample, indeed, comes from that original release. It is a vatting of spirit matured in both ex-bourbon and ex-oloroso sherry casks—I don’t know about the proportions—and the distillery’s website pronounces it the “rawest, smokiest Ardbeg ever”. I don’t know that that first adjective really gets me very excited but I am famous for the openness of my mind: if the whisky is good, I won’t care what they say about it. I do appreciate that they put the 5 yo age statement on the bottles, but not enough to forgive the owners all the rest of the tomfoolery they’ve gotten up to in the last decade or so. Okay, let’s get to it. Continue reading →

Coming Soon…

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October was a very busy month on the blog. By which I mean not that I did very much posting than I usually do but that traffic was up considerably. More people stopped by than in any month since January. The most popular post by page views (it may not be by gnashing of teeth) was my list of my favourite Twin Cities restaurant dishes. Food dominated the rest of the top 10 read posts as well, with five restaurants (Pho Tempo, Bukhara, 112 Eatery, Trattoria Monti, Bar La Grassa), a grocery store (Ha Tien), a recipe (for beans) and my original ranking of Indian restaurants in the Twin Cities metro in the list. The lone non-food entry was not a whisky review but a post about a poem (I guess this poem is on an exam list again somewhere in India). Just outside the top 10 was my post about Loch Lomond’s loose grasp of history—and just beyond that was the first booze review to make a showing: the Darroze 50. I won’t be surprised if the review of the 2023 Laphroaig Cairdeas, published at the end of October, makes it onto the November list. Continue reading →

Sushi at Gouie (New York, October 2023)

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Here is the first of a few reports from New York City. The missus and I were there for a whirlwind trip a couple of weekends ago. She is on sabbatical, it was my midterm break and with kind friends willing to supervise the boys in our absence, it was a rare opportunity for the two of us to get away together. We had a packed couple of days, hanging out with friends, visiting museums and, yes, eating. It’s only the eating that I am going to document here. First up, is our first lunch, which featured sushi. Living as we do in the sushi wasteland that is Minnesota, we always look forward to eating sushi when visiting cities with better sushi scenes. That’s not to say we were looking to spend huge amounts of money eating a bromakase meal somewhere. A casual lunch spot with good fish served in the form of lunch special combos was what we were after. Looking around for spots in the general vicinity of where we were going to be that morning and afternoon, I hit upon Gouie at the Market Line, the basement food hall at Essex Market. I made what turned out to be an entirely redundant reservation and we met a friend for lunch there right as they opened. Here’s how it went. Continue reading →

Laphroaig Cairdeas 2023, White Port & Madeira

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My whisky readership has shrunk dramatically in recent years (I base this entirely on the lowered level of engagement with my whisky reviews). And so I almost feel I should apologize to the little that remains of that readership for trying their patience in October. So far this month I’ve posted two weeks of reviews of mezcal, one week of reviews of brandy, and one week of reviews of grain whisky (I am assuming here that my whisky readership is really mostly interested in single malt whisky). Please accept as penance this very timely review of a recent release, one that should be widely available all over the United States: the 2023 release of Laphroaig’s annual Cairdeas, bottled for Feis Ile, the Islay whisky festival. The Cairdeas releases have come to the US every year since 2011 (the series itself is only a few years older than that). The price has slowly edged up (it’s now in the mid $80s in Minnesota, before tax) and this year—for the first time—it’s a 700 ml bottle even in the US. Which means it’s a bit more expensive still per pour. Continue reading →

Cicchetti at Frascoli (Padua, July 2023)

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Back to Italy and to Padua. We’d spent most of our first full day in Padua not in that city but in Venice, taking the train out in the morning and back in the evening. We ate cicchetti for lunch in Venice on that day (and dinner back in Padua at Ai Scarponi). We ate cicchetti again for lunch on our second day which we actually spent entirely in Padua. In the morning we walked in the rain to the Scrovegni Chapel where we took in the famous Giotto frescoes. It’s a pretty regimented experience (make sure to arrive at the time printed on your reservation) but it’s quite something to behold. You’d think that well into our third week in Italy we’d be frescoed out, but no. After the chapel we walked over to Frascoli, a popular bacaro, for lunch. It’s a much larger establishment than Bacaro Risorto, and they serve a larger menu beyond cicchetti. It’s the cicchetti we focused on though. Continue reading →

Rey Campero, Pechuga de Codorniz

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Let’s close out this week of reviews of mezcals from Rey Campero (see here for Monday’s Jabali and here for Wednesday’s Mexicano+Madrecuishe; and here for last Friday’s Tobala) with a somewhat unusual pechuga. Pechuga, as you may know, is a category of mezcal in the traditional production of which a chicken or turkey breast is hung over the still during the final distillation of the spirit, and which also deploys fruits, vegetables and nuts in the distillation process. That’s the traditional version. In recent years, however, many twists on the savoury component used have emerged. None of the three pechugas I’ve previously reviewed have involved chicken or turkey breasts. I’ve reviewed a Del Maguey that used Iberico ham, a Quiquiriqui that used cacao beans, and a Cinco Sentidos that used mole poblano! This Rey Campero pechuga is relatively staid by comparison as it involves a bird, even if it is quail. Also used in the distillation were grilled pineapple, grilled banana and grilled corn cobs. The unusual part is that it is only double-distilled whereas most pechugas are triple-distilled. It was produced in February 2022 and rested in glass for three months. Oh yes, the maguey used was Espadin, which is apparently the norm with pechuga. Okay, let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading →

King Sitric (Howth, Summer 2023)

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Back to Ireland, but not quite to Dublin. I’d said I might have a report from the fine dining end of things in Dublin this week but I seem to have misplaced the notes I took on the dishes at that meal. So while I scramble to find them, here is a quick look instead at a seafood lunch in Howth, a lovely seaside town, just about a 30 minute train ride from the center of Dublin.

We had been planning to go to Howth pretty much every weekend since we arrived in Dublin, but between a busy schedule and bad weather it didn’t end up happening till almost the very end of our stay. But we did make it out there on a lovely sunny Sunday in August and it was a lovely day. We spent the morning walking one of the longer trails along the cliffs of Howth, and when we descended to the town, we were ready for lunch. That lunch was at King Sitric. Continue reading →

Rey Campero, Mexicano + Madrecuishe

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Here is my second Rey Campero review of the week and the third overall (see here for last Friday’s review of the Tobala, and here for Monday’s review of the Jabali). This mezcal is made from a 50-50 mix of two different kinds of maguey: the Mexicano and the Madrecuishe. Madrecuishe is not the same as the cuishe maguey, in case you’re wondering (as I was before I looked it up). This was distilled in February 2020 and rested in glass for 18 months. That’s quite a bit longer than the five months the Jabali spent in glass (the Tobala’s label did not include that information). I’m not sure how common it is for joven (or mezcal not aged in oak) to be rested in glass for extended periods or where 18 months of resting in glass falls on the range of times common in the industry. If you know more about this, please write in below (or point me to good sources of information on mezcal production processes). In the meantime, here are my notes. Continue reading →

My Favourite Twin Cities Restaurant Dishes

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I didn’t have a Twin Cities restaurant report last week and I don’t have one this week (and there probably won’t be one next week either). I’ve not given up on eating in the Twin Cities. It’s just that we were out of town two weekends ago and with my mother-in-law visiting did not go out to eat this past weekend, and probably won’t this coming weekend either. I do have a Twin Cities restaurant report, however. It’s a post I’ve had on deck for a while, in place of the quarterly “Top Five Twin Cities Dishes” posts I do every three months in years when I’m not out of the country as much as I have been this year. This is a list of my favourite Twin Cities restaurant dishes. There are, of course, far too many to list in a coherent way. And so to make the list manageable, I have constrained it in the following ways: 1) to qualify a dish must be on the restaurant’s menu more or less permanently; and 2) no more than one dish per restaurant. The former takes restaurants with ever-changing menus off the table; the latter means I won’t list 30 dishes from Grand Szechuan. One more thing: I’m not listing categories of dishes in which the distinctions between the better versions available at different restaurants are too fine to be meaningful. For example, there’s no “Favourite Pho” here.

Okay, let’s get to it. And if you are not a fan of some of my selections or have some completely different picks of your own, please let me hear it in the comments. Continue reading →