Mark's blog

For those who don't already know, WhiskyFest is a great show put on by John Hansel and Malt Advocate Magazine. They hold 3 shows every year in Chicago, San Francisco and New York.

The focus is squarely on our favorite brown spirit and the products represented are predominantly whiskies. Brandy,  Vodka, liquers and Rum make appearances but are in the extreme minority.

For us, it's a whisky wonderland.

Every one of these shows has its own personality and character. Some of that comes from the format, some from the attendees and a health chunk comes from the sponsors. People like John Hansel and Riannon Walsh work very hard to keep these three forces in alignment and aimed in the right direction.

WhiskyFest is very much an industy showcase. The major players and minor importers are on the same footing here. Everyone has the same space to work with, but that doesn't imply that the presentations are at all equal.

Once again proving that no sacrifice is too great, I boldly ventured on to the Jameson Bartenders Ball last night. Oh... what I won't do for my readers :)

This event is hosted By Jameson 3 times a year here in Northern California and last night was the last one for the year.  It's a heck of a party and nothing like what I expected.  I was imagining something with the lights up, music mellow and insiders chatting about products, promotions and other aspects of the spirits industry. This was just a wet tshirt contest short of spring break.

The drink menu was extensive: Jameson neat, Jameson on the rocks, Jameson and soda, Jameson and ginger ale, Jameson and cola, Jameson and American Honey or American Honey. All of the open bars were stocked with cases of Jameson and it was flowing freely.

Life has a way of pushing things around. Mine has been a roller coaster for the last couple of months and pushed writing off the cliff of available time. Now that Baycon 2008 is behind us and my release schedule at work is starting to gain sanity I can get back to writing of our adventures in the land of whiskey.

Bear with me, thar be great tales a comin!

There's a very interesting law being worked on in Sacramento:

This bill would also permit an out-of-state distilled spirits importer, out-of-state beer manufacturer, beer manufacturer, distilled spirits manufacturer, rectifier, beer and wine importer, distilled spirits importer, beer and wine wholesaler, or distilled spirits wholesaler to provide entertainment, food, and beverages to invited guests, as specified.

The current law limits these activities to local companies. Out of state (or out of country) companies are very limited in the ways that they can provide product for events. Product launches and promotions are very limited by the CA ABC. With this change we would be able to open up the market for sponsored parties and tastings to a much wider base.

I'm so happy St' Patrick's day is here again. The one day a year I can convince a large number of my coworkers to join me in some good Irish cheer. Every year I celebrate at the office by making a large pot of coffee, bringing in some whipping (or whipped) cream and a bottle of Irish Whiskey. I have a feeling that Guinness might make an appearance as well.

This year, in honor of Bushmills 400th anniversary, I wll be making them with Bushmills Original Irish Whiskey. I was considering going with Bushmills Black Bush or Bushmills Malt 10 but settled on the Bushmills Original for economic reasons.Not the least of which is that I can get a full liter of Original for less than a 750ml of the other two. Also just to sweeten the deal a little bit more, I'll bring in the Carolan's Irish Cream. I normally stock Bailey's Irish Cream but I'm out at the moment and the Carolan's was a very good deal at Christmas.

Bushmills has given me a couple dozen Black Bush / 400th Anniversary key chains to give to you my lucky readers. I'll have a picture of them here tonight, they're quite nice.

This is part of the 400th anniversary celebration and a reminder to go vote for the Bushmills Twin city in America.

Use the form here to send me your mailing address and I will get it out to you right away. I only ask that you pay the shipping. ($1.50 US)

Use the paypal button for US delivery:

UPDATE: I've decided to catch up with the rest of the world and start using a 100 point scale. We probably will never rate anything below 30 points (because we're not planning on rating anything that doubles as an industrial floor cleaner) but the conversions to the old ratings will be easy enough.

• Bushmills Original - 50
• Jameson Original - 50
• Crown Royal - 50
• Crown Royal Special Reserve - 55
• Midleton 2007 - 85
• Bushmills 21 - 87

I think this works, considering I also placed Bushmills 1608 at an 88

Original Story:

The other night, Mike, Travis and I got together to do some serious tasting. Before we began we had four new bottles to open. We tasted Bushmills 10, Bushmills 21, Midleton 2007, The Balvenie Doublewood, and Scapa 14.

This is hard work. There are so many great flavors there to try and quantify, codify and categorize them is very difficult. But that is what we do and we try to do it well.

One of my idle daydreams is to take possession of and restart a silent distillery. The two news stories here and here point to good news for the Scotch industry but bad news for me and my idle daydreams.

Soaring demand for Scotch whisky around the world has prompted another major distiller to announce expansion plans, this time on Speyside.

Chivas Brothers yesterday said it was reopening its mothballed Braeval Distillery and extending its Glenlivet production plant.

Diageo is also adding capacity like crazy:

Work started recently on the £40million plant at Roseisle in Moray - part of a total £100million investment in whisky by Diageo.

as is everyone else in the industry:

Ah... The next batch is out, now I need to know where to find them. The prices are a bit steep for most of us but these bourbons are special. I really respect Buffalo Trace for sharing their developments with the rest of us. I look forward to trying these new experiments. I'm very curious about the actual effect of the wine woods since Macallan has taken a clear stance that the wood is more important than the sherry in sherry finishing.

The core Buffalo Trace products are good, and extremely well executed, but I haven't been blown away by Eagle Rare, Blanton's or Buffalo Trace. I like them all and we'll be getting some reviews / notes up on all three of these soon but I'm still looking for the mind-blowing bourbons from these people that I keep hearing about.

Old Forester 2007 Birthday Bourbon and Pappy Van Winkle 15 or 20 are bourbons that stand out to me as mind blowing. It may just be my particular taste that marks these as the stand-outs but I think they take bourbon to a new level.

When we had the opportunity to pour the Bushmills 1608 at our fund raiser we where thrilled on multiple levels. Not only did we get to share one of the finest Irish whiskeys with people who would truly appreciate it, but we were able to do so before the official Release. We only pulled it out for the very savvy or the very curious. Even with its limited exposure, and our lack of emphasis on its presence, the 1608 created a buzz of excitement every time we pulled it out.  

My regular job requires me to travel from time to time. I find myself in Texas this week. Funny thing about Texas, they love Canadian whiskey.

When I spoke with John Hall at Forty Creek, he told us of his Small Batch Reserve. I managed to get a couple of bottles in from Toronto by way of Vancouver. He also told us that the only markets for this 6000 bottle run were Ontario and Texas. Since I'm here, I'm trying to get some.

Last night, I went to two different local liquor stores. Somehow I ended up in a dry city surrounded by dry cities and we barely made it before they stop selling at 9pm. I was surprised to see the extent to which Crown Royal is promoted here. They've got two 50ml bottles in a little purple baggie on huge endcap displays of 1.75L bottles.  One place skipped the Special Reserve and only carried regular Crown, Cask No.16 and Crown Royal XR.  I've also heard that Crown Royal outsells Jack Daniel's here.

There were a lot of firsts last night. Last night was the first time the CADHC had a Whiskey Bros. Whiskey Tasting at their event. This was also the first time we had done an event like this one and our first time out with the point cards. The first time I'd served whiskey in the same room with a camel was also the first time we had done a party at Long Branch Farms.

Best though, it was the first time many of our guests had tried the whiskeys we brought.

Mike spoke about our selection process for this suite, and I can honestly say that we were on the right track, but the audience was a bit of a surprise. We had assembled a list that was heavy on Bourbons and fairly common bottles, and adding in more Scotch as it became possible via donations. As it happens,this crowd was very much into the single malts. We had quite a few people that were interested in the high end stuff, more than I imagined.

Some had never tried premium single malts, others had some experience but wanted to learn more. Diageo provided us with a flavor map that helped us explain the regions and traditional flavors of Scotland better.

The days are ticking away and we're busily putting all the pieces in place for our first big event of the year. We've gotten some amazing donations that have ballooned the whiskey list from the originally intended 30 up to an incredible 50!

I'm thrilled to announce the arrival of Eagle Rare, Blanton's, Sazerac Rye, and Buffalo Trace from our friends at Buffalo Trace. This is a batch of bourbons that we wouldn't have been able to serve without their support. Skyy Spirits ensured that there would be no shortage of single malt variety with their donation. Malt Advocate has sent us a box of the first issue of 2008 to give away, and they have also helped getting me in touch with the right people to make this event possible. Diageo has promised to help as well, but Steve Beal has been ill, our best wishes go to him for a speedy recovery.

John Hansell had an interesting opportunity to taste some of the 1500 experiments happening at Buffalo Trace. Some wild and exciting ideas are flowing over there.

In the comments on his blog, someone has come up with a similar idea to one of my favorite thought experiments; smoke from non-peat sources. This came to me while I was grilling whiskey chicken with apple chips. The flavor combination was wonderful and got me thinking about how other smoke sources would work when halting malt.

Mike and I have talked about our future in this business, and we keep coming back to the desire to create our own whiskey. I think about maturation in the micro-climate of the Half Moon Bay coast which should give the slow temperature transitions more like Scotland than Tennesee. Many distilleries are using different wine casks, we're right next to Napa and have a wealth of varieties to use for maturation.

We always ring in the new year at home. We have a large number of friends and family join us at our home to party together. There are lost of holiday cocktails to choose from. This year I whipped-up (quite literally) a bunch of Irish Coffees and egg nog. This batch of Irish Coffees was particularly good so I thought I would publish the details of their construction.

Ingredients:
• 2oz (6cl) Jameson Irish Whiskey or Bushmills Black
• 4oz (12cl)  Peet's Coffee Holiday Blend Coffee
• 1tbsp (1.5cl) dark brown sugar
• approx 3oz (9cl) hand whipped cream (prepared as described below)

I prepared the whipped cream by whisking 8 oz (24cl) heavy whipping cream, 2oz (6cl) powdered sugar and 1tsp (.5cl) vanilla extract to soft peaks. The drinks were assembled by mixing the sugar and whiskey together, wile it was still in motion, pour in the coffee and top off with the whipping cream. We used standard 10-12oz coffee mugs and when the drink was ready, the cream was filling it to the top.