We ate quite well in the nine weeks that we spent in Italy and Ireland this summer. But by the end we were missing a number of the cuisines we eat regularly here in Minnesota. Accordingly, after getting back a few weeks ago we’ve been hitting up some of our favourite spots for those cuisines. I’ve already posted a report on our lunch at Homi—where we fed our yearning for Mexican food. Here now is a report of the first Thai meal we’ve eaten since the beginning of the summer. You might think, based on my earlier reports, that just as we went to Homi for our Mexican fix, we would go to either On’s Kitchen or Bangkok Thai Deli for our first Thai fix in months. But in fact we chose to go to Krungthep Thai in St. Paul’s North End (at the intersection of Maryland and Rice). Continue reading
Tobermory 17, 2004
After a week of Kilkerrans that began well (here and here) and ended not as well, here is a week of reviews themed not on distillery but on cask type. This week’s reviews will all be of sherry cask-matured whiskies, and for a secondary filter they’re all from distilleries located on different islands. First up is a Tobermory.
I have a checkered relationship with Tobermory. I’ve not enjoyed very much of the spirit bottled as Tobermory (the name for the unpeated whisky made at the distillery). On the other hand, I’ve liked a lot of the Ledaig I’ve had (the name for the peated whisky made at the distillery). In particular, I’ve liked a lot of the heavily sherried Ledaig I’ve had. Well, this Tobermory is from a single oloroso cask. Is that a good sign? Let’s see. Continue reading
Magnino (San Gimignano, June 2023)
Okay, back to Italy. So far, I have chronicled our meals in the first three cities we visited: Naples, Rome and Florence. From Florence we headed to the small towns of Tuscany. We rented a car from the airport and drove it to an agriturismo just outside San Gimignano, where we spent five nights (I highly recommend the very reasonably-priced Podere Le Grotte). From there we visited a different Tuscan town every day. We’d have a light breakfast in, head out for the day and then come back in the early evening and eat dinner in (cooked by me with ingredients we bought while out). Unsurprisingly, San Gimignano was our port of call on our first day. We did the short drive pretty much right after dropping our bags off, with our eyes first on a late lunch. Not that I’d done so very much research for the places we ate at in the big cities, but I’d really done no research for the Tuscan towns. Our selection process on this first visit to San Gimignano (we went back one more time) was therefore based on three factors: 1) was it close to where we entered the town? 2) was the kitchen open; 2) was the interior air-conditioned? At the intersection of positive answers to all these questions was a place named Magnino, and it was there we ate. And a good meal it was too. Continue reading
Kilkerran 15, 2004 (for Denmark)
Kilkerran week has gone very well so far. It started on Monday with Batch 6 of the Heavily Peated, which was in line with the high quality of Batch 4 and Batch 5. It continued on Wednesday with one of the 15 yo casks released in 2019 to mark the distillery’s 15th anniversary. That was the bourbon cask released in the UK. Here now is another of those commemorative 15 yo casks. This one was released in the Danish market and has a somewhat unusual composition. The spirit in it spent 10 years in a port pipe before being put into a refill bourbon hogshead for another five. (There were three of these port–>refill bourbon casks, by the way: another one went to Germany and the third to Italy.) Normally, in the case of double-matured malts you see the first maturation in bourbon casks before the spirit hits the cask that held the much heavier spirit. Well, if the results are good I guess it doesn’t really matter in what order the maturation happened. Let’s see if that is indeed the case here. Continue reading
Tenant X (Minneapolis)
Since getting back to Minnesota a couple of weeks ago, after a summer away, we have been slowly getting back to our favourite restaurants in the Twin Cities metro. I’ve already posted a report on our lunch at our favourite Mexican restaurant in the Cities: Homi in St. Paul. Here now is a report on dinner at one of our favourite fine dining restaurants in the Cities, Tenant. We ate dinner there a week ago Tuesday. It was our second meal there this year and our tenth overall. We particularly look forward to eating at Tenant in the summer—especially on account of one genre of dish that reliably shows up in the summer, and only in the summer. And so as our stay in Ireland came to an end, this was the first reservation I made. I am very pleased to say that the meal did not disappoint us at all. Continue reading
Kilkerran 15, 2004 (for the UK)
This week of reviews of Kilkerran (the name of the whisky distilled at the Glengyle distillery in Campbeltown) began on Monday with Batch 6 of their Heavily Peated series. I rather liked that one (as I had Batch 5 and Batch 4 before it). The releases in the Heavily Peated series are, of course, all NAS. The other Kilkerrans I am reviewing this week both have age statements; And, if not for the 16 yo—which I reviewed earlier this year—at 15 years of age, both would handily be the oldest Kilkerrans I’ve yet reviewed. Both are part of a batch of single casks of various types that were bottled in 2019 to commemorate the distillery’s 15th anniversary. Most of these were bottled for specific markets. (One even came to the US; I shudder to think of how much would have been asked for it, given the premium we have to pay for anything the importer, Pacific Edge, brings in.) This one, a single refill bourbon hogshead was for the UK market. Let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Passion 4 Food, Twice (Dublin, Summer 2023)
I’m a couple of days behind with my restaurant reports. I was supposed to post my first Ireland restaurant report and another Italy report over the weekend and did neither. And so instead of the promised Twin Cities report, here is my first report from Ireland. It’s a good thing I don’t write this blog for a living and also that nobody really gives a shit when I post anything. Anyway, our travels this summer took us from Italy to Ireland. I’m far from done with my meal reports from Italy but figured I’d mix some Irish content in to switch things up a bit. And what could be more Irish than a Persian/Kurdish restaurant? No better way to begin the Irish reports, I say. It’s also an appropriate way to begin the Irish reports because Passion 4 Food was the location of both the first and last meal we ate out on our six-week Irish sojourn. Which is not to say we ate those meals at the same restaurant. Continue reading
Kilkerran Heavily Peated, Batch 6
Let’s start September with a week of Campbeltown whiskies, specifically with three Kilkerrans. First up is Batch 6 of their Heavily Peated series, which is now up to Batch 8. I was unenthused by Batch 1 but then was surprised by how much I liked both Batch 4 and Batch 5, both of which had a lovely mix of smoke and fruit and salt. I’m hoping Batch 6 will continue down that road. It has a different composition than all the earlier release. Batches 1 and 2 had a lot of sherry in the mix, being a vatting of 55% bourbon and 45% sherry casks. Batches 3 and 4 dropped the sherry component to 20% and Batch 5 took it down a notch lower still, being comprised of 85% bourbon cask and 15% sherry cask spirit. With Batch 6 the sherry component ticked up a bit again, but only to 25%. I’m hoping it will be in line with Batch 4 and 5. Alas, all non-core range Kilkerran is now heavily allocated and not easy to find and Batch 6 is in any case long gone. So this review has very low use value. Why change now? Continue reading
Coming Soon…
After most of the summer away, I have been back at home in Minnesota for almost two weeks now. I’m still not back on track on my usual routines, however, and this has been showing on the blog as well with the uncertain posting schedules of the summer still persisting. Even this standard monthly look ahead post is almost half a day late. I had to root around in my sample stashes for a good while to make sure I had enough to review. Good news: I just about do. And I even have one week of reviews done from before I left for the summer (I ended up reviewing more Irish whiskeys in August than I’d expected I would and so there’s a small surplus). By the end of my next week I should be back in my usual tasting/reviewing groove (I haven’t taken notes on anything since I got back) and so you can expect the usual three whisky/booze reviews per week. Restaurant reports will be a mix of Italy, Ireland and the Twin Cities. I’m going to try to accelerate the pace of posting those reports so as to become completely current by the end of September. Oh yes, cooking/recipe posts: those will still be on hiatus on the blog (probably through at least the end of the year); if you’re interested though, I’m once again posting cooking Reels on Instagram. Continue reading
Jack Ryan 11, “Haddington”
One last whiskey review for the month, and one last Irish whiskey review for the month (and probably for a good while). This is yet another Irish whiskey that I had not heard of before I purchased a miniature. And this is yet another case of my lack of knowledge not being due to the whiskey being obscure. Like Monday’s Lambay, Jack Ryan whiskeys, it turns out, are available in the US as well. So you probably don’t need me to tell you that there is no Tom Clancy connection to the label. Jack Ryan’s are a concern that bill themselves as “whiskey finishers”. By which they mean that they purchase spirit and age and mature it in their own casks. Many (most?) of their releases do appear to be finishes in a conventional sense: i.e they involve a final step of maturation in a cask type other than the one in which the rest of the maturation took place. And sometimes there’s more than two types of casks involved. They currently have a 5 yo released named Raglan’s Road that starts out in bourbon casks, continues in madeira casks and finishes up in imperial stout casks. You might say that’s a very busy life for a 5 yo but then you’d be a boring stick-in-the-mud like me. The release I am reviewing today is positively old-fashioned by comparison, being both 11 years old and only having passed through two types of casks: bourbon and then Guyana rum. It’s the second release in a series called the “Generations Trilogy”, all single malt whiskeys. The first was a 10 yo; this is 11 years old; and the one that came after was 12 years old. The 11 yo bears the additional appellation, “Haddington”. This is a reference to Haddington Road in Dublin, home to the Ryan’s Beggars Bush pub. So it’s a whiskey with a lot of information attached to it. But is it any good? Let’s see. Continue reading
Homi, August 2023 (St. Paul, MN)
Hey, it’s a Twin Cities restaurant report! We were in Europe for nine weeks this summer, first in Italy on vacation and then in Ireland on work. We ate well in both countries, particularly in Italy and I’m not complaining about our time away. But when you’re gone for nine weeks, there are things you take for granted at home that you are invariably going to miss and hanker for. And for us, when going to most parts of Europe from the US, at the top of that list food-wise are most Asian cuisines and also Mexican cuisine. Now, as it happens, we found surprisingly good Sichuan food in Dublin—and also better dim sum than is available in the Twin Cities. Unsurprising, though, is that Mexican food in Ireland does not have the best reputation. This was drilled into our heads by every American we met who’d eaten at some Mexican restaurant or the other in Dublin, and after a few repetitions we decided not to put that to the test. So when we got back to Minnesota last week the thing we really wanted to go out to eat was Mexican food. And what better place to go than Homi on University Avenue in St. Paul? Continue reading
Lambay Single Malt, Single Cask Strength
I’ve been back in Minnesota for almost a week now, but let’s do another couple of Irish whiskeys to close out the month. Here is another from a producer that I had not heard of before I bought a miniature at the Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin. I don’t mean to suggest that this indicates obscurity: indeed, Lambay is available in the US. It’s just that I know very little about the Irish whiskey scene, which seems to have expanded quite a bit in the last 10 years or so. As per their website, Lambay Whiskey launched in 2018. Lambay is not a distillery. All their whiskeys are sourced—where from is not mentioned, and nor have I seen a reference to age. The spirit is triple-distilled (always?), and then matured in bourbon casks before a final finish in cognac casks. Why cognac? The company is a collaboration between an Irish concern and Camus, the well-known cognac producer. Once in the cognac casks, the whiskey finishes maturing on Lambay Island (hence the name), just off the coast of Dublin. Their website lists some five regular releases. Of these, the Single Malt, Single Cask Strength is bottled not just at cask strength but from a single cask in each release. You would think this would make it easy to identify the release my miniature is from but there have been at least two casks bottled at 56.5%: casks 4613 and 2545. So it’s from one of those (or maybe another)—the label on the miniature does not list the bottling date or batch number. Anyway, let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Writers’ Tears, Cask Strength
My week of Writers’ Tears reviews comes to an end with what is, I think, the third in their trio of core releases: the Cask Strength. (See here for my review of the Copper Pot and here for my review of the Double Oak.) Like the other Writers’ Tears releases, the Cask Strength is a blend of Single Pot Still and Single Malt Irish whiskey. There’s no grain whiskey component: only barley. Of course the presence of the pot still component, not to mention the triple distillation, makes it different from your average Scottish single malt whisky. Like the Copper Pot, this is matured in bourbon barrels, but I’m not sure if there is any other relationship between them. By which I mean that I do not know if the Cask Strength is the cask strength version of the Copper Pot or even if the whiskeys that go into the two comes from the same sources. I do know that the Cask Strength costs far more than the Copper Pot. The current release was at 150 euros at Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin. This review is not of the current release, however. That one is at 54.8% abv. This one is at 53%. A number of prior releases have been at 53%, most recently in 2019. All three of the miniatures I reviewed this week came out of the attractive book packaging—I don’t know if that helps narrow things down. At any rate, here are my notes. Continue reading
La Divina Pizza (Florence, June 2023)
Here, finally, is my last report from Florence. We are now close to the end of June, travel-wise. As you may recall, we actually spent most of our last full day in Florence in Pisa. We picked up sandwiches from the Mercato Sant’Ambrogio that morning and took them with us for a casual picnic lunch. Dinner after we got back was casual as well: we picked up pizza from La Divina on Borgo Allegri. Why didn’t we eat in? Well, it was hot, we were tired and La Divina being located only about 50 feet from our door meant the pizza took only a slightly longer trip to our dining table than it would have to a table outside the restaurant. How was it? Read on. Continue reading
Writers’ Tears, Double Oak
This week I am reviewing three different releases from Walsh Whiskey’s Writers’ Tears label. The week got off to a decent start yesterday with the Copper Pot, their entry-level blend. Today I have for you a review of the Double Oak, which joined their core range a few years ago. It is so-called because it is a blend of spirit matured in American oak and French oak casks. What the proportion of the two in the blend is, I don’t know (I am assuming that it’s not all double-matured in the two cask types). Like in the Copper Pot, the spirit that goes into this is triple-distilled and is a blend of single pot still and single malt Irish whiskey. It gets a step-up in abv from the Copper Pot, being bottled at 46%. As with the Copper Pot, there is no indication of age. It’s probably safe to assume we’re not dealing with an abundance of age here. Okay, let’s see what it’s like.
Writers’ Tears, Double Oak (46%; from a miniature)
Nose: Orange peel, vanilla, polished oak. On the second sniff there’s some apricot and the vanilla moves in the direction of butterscotch. Not much change with time. A drop or two of water and there’s more citrus at first and then a metallic note. Continue reading
Writers’ Tears, Copper Pot
After exactly six weeks in Ireland—five of those in Dublin—we are headed back to Minnesota tomorrow. Regardless, I am going close the month out with an extended run of reviews of Irish whiskeys. Last week I reviewed a threesome from three different producers. Two were entry-level blends (The Irishman: The Harvest and the West Cork distillery’s Black Cask); and one was a peated single malt (W.D. O’Connell’s Bill Phil). This week’s whiskeys are all from the same producer. Walsh Whisky are the ones who put out the Irishman series. That series has quite a few releases in it at this point and the same is true of their better-known line, Writers’ Tears. I’ll be reviewing three from that line this week: the Copper Pot, which is their entry-level blend, bottled at 40%; the Double Oak, which steps up a bit in price and abv at 46%; and finally the Cask Strength, which is priced as a premium whiskey. First up, the Copper Pot. This is a blend of single pot still and single malt Irish whiskey, all of it distilled from barley. It’s all triple-distilled and unpeated and the maturation is in “flame charred” bourbon casks. No word on the likely age of the pot still and single malt constituents. Draw your own conclusions. Continue reading
Mercato Sant’Ambrogio (Florence, June 2023)
We spent most of our last full day in Florence not in Florence but in Pisa. It’s a fairly quick train ride and we decided to use up on one of our days in Florence on that visit and keep our upcoming days in the Tuscan countryside a little more relaxed. A good decision, on the whole, even if it meant punting on a few museum visits in Florence. Truth be told, with the kids, there’s a limit to how much museuming we can do on a trip anyway, and the previous day negotiating the crowds at the Uffizi and the Accademia had pretty much exhausted the adults’ energies and patience as well.
What was definitely a good decision was picking up a picnic lunch before departure for Pisa at the Mercato Sant’Ambrogio. Continue reading