X-Radiation

On Wednesday, Oct 14th, High West Distillery master distiller David Perkins presented a tasting of High West Rye Whiskey at a special dinner pairing hosted by David Driscoll, the Spirtis Buyer for K & L Wines, at Alembic in San Francisco. The cost for the dinner was $100 + tax, inclusive.

David Perkins is a chemist who worked for several bio-tech firms in the Bay Area before packing up to follow his dream of producing fine American whiskey. Between each course and pairing David gave a presentation that included the history of distillation, a bit of chemistry and some wonderfully opinionated  stories about his personal inspiration. The team at Alembic provided several small platings designed to pair with each rye whiskey David presented.

The first course was a delicious crispy ocean trout served over turnips, gnocchi, tart apple and carmelized onion dashi paired with High West Rendezvous Rye. Rendezvous Rye is a vatting of at least two different rye whiskies and carries no age statement. It’s smooth and spicy.

The second course was tamarind glazed sweetbreads with cranberry beans, endive and horseradish paired with High West 16 year old Rye. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the sweetbreads. Good sweetbreads can be really good but anything less than excellence reminds one just a little too much of the offal from which they originate. This was a bold but successful move by Alembic. The High West 16 year old Rye complimented the minerality of the dish with the signature spice and christmas cake notes I’ve come to expect from High West but with a smoother more rounded flavor profile than the Rendezvous Rye.

The third course was a foie gras terrine with a bit of caramel corn, cashews, huckleberry and asian pear served with a pour of High West 21 year old Rye. This was probably the least successful paring of the evening. The 21 year old rye is a delicious drink, even smoother than the 16 year old, with a rich mouth feel and even more spice. For some reason the foie gras just didn’t set the rye off like it should have. Perhaps the coating of fat from the terrine got in the way of my palate. The terrine itself was lackluster.

Desert was a brioche served family style at the table paired with the peach infused Vodka 7000. High West Distillery sits at 7000 feet above sea level, hence the moniker. While fruit infused vodka is not my usual cup of tea it did pair well with the brioche. The family style serving of a single slice of brioche ensured that each diner got only one bite.

Once dinner service concluded, David Perkins shared a few surprise distillates. I sampled some rye new make he calls White Dog and an experimental new make distilled from oatmeal that he poured at 110 proof. The oatmeal new make was deliciously complex and I’m looking forward to tasting how it ages in the barrel. Another surprise from High West is the upcoming “Bourye” whiskey, a vatting of bourbon and rye whiskies with a unique flavor profile that rolls over the mouth in three chapters. The initial taste is like a rich bourbon with notes of corn and sweetness which subsides after a moment into the characteristic High West spicy rye flavor followed by a dry woody finish that lingers on the tongue. It’s an excellent beverage.

I learned a few things, drank some fine whiskey and ate some good food in good company. David Driscoll and David Perkins were great hosts.

The Hamilton Whisky Society hosted a small whisky tasting at Chez Xray. My friends J-Girl and G-Man were kind enough to create a meal of roast chicken, seared pork, cous-cous and greens that paired exceptionally well with the whisky. There was plenty of chocolate for desert. We capped the evening with Joya de Nicaragua Antano 1970’s and Perdomo ESV  91’s.

When Robin Coupar visited the Hamilton Whisky Society this summer to present The Glenrothes tasting he invited myself and my buddy Michael to join The Glenrothes Kindred Spirits.  Today we received a very cool package in the mail with The Glenrothes Kindred Spirits Tasting kit.  I’m just counting down the days to WhiskyFest S.F. on October 16th! Among other things, I’m looking forward to vintage samples of The Glenrothes from 1975, 1979, 1985, and 1991 as well as the Select Reserve.

Here are some picture of the kit that Michael took:

On Thursday, Oct. 1st the Hamilton Whisky Society convened it’s weekly tasting. We had our library and several guest bottles visiting for the evening but everyone was excited to try the new Whyte & Mackay The Thirteen blend which I’d won from Richard Paterson’s poetry contest. It does not seem like W&M has much, if any, distribution in California so it’s a rarity on the Western shores of the United States of America. In fact, most members of the Society had never heard of it before. This was our first exposure to the Whyte & Mackay brand and we felt fortunate to try this blend.

The Hamilton Whisky Society usually focuses on single malt whiskies from Scotland so it’s not often that we get exposure to blended whisky and it was a real eye opener. This was a much richer blend than what I’ve experienced from other brands. The Thirteen is rich and smooth. Lots of sherry and cinnamon on the nose. The palate conveys a complexity I’ve missed in other blends. The  sherry and spice from the nose plays across the tongue and reveals layers of  nutmeg, allspice, cloves and a slight woodiness.

We tasted The Thirteen side by side with The Dalmore Cigar Malt.  The Cigar Malt  has more fruit and less spice than The Thirteen but they share enough of the sherry and spice to draw a pretty straight line between some of the components in the Cigar Malt to The Thirteen. This side by side tasting clearly identifies The Dalmore influence on The Thirteen.

I’m looking forward to trying other blends from Whyte & Mackay as well as malts from The Dalmore, Jura and anything else Richard Paterson has up his nose… um, I mean sleeve.

Last month I entered a poem in a contest on Richard Paterson’s facebook page. Richard is the Master Blender for Whyte & Mackay, The Dalmore and Jura whiskies. He’s known as “The Nose”. He has a blog called The Master Blender and you can follow him on twitter at http://twitter.com/the_nose.

The idea was to write a poem in thirteen lines about whisky and Whyte & Mackay (rhymes with “eye”) to celebrate the release Whyte & Mackay’s The Thriteen blended whisky. Voting was open to the public. Here’s my winning entry:

An Ode to Whyte & Mackay

Raining down on Scottish plains
growing malted barley grains.
Harvest and sprout then dry and grind.
Mash it in tun then ferment in kind.
Distill it twice (in Lowlands times three)
low wines middle cut; foreshots debris.
Casked and matured the new make awaits
one among many possible fates.
Bottled in vat or bottled in blend,
Bottled as O.B. or in the end
bought by the cask and sold by a friend.
But only the finest juice in supply
will make it’s way into Whyte & Mackay.

The bottle is going into the library at the Hamilton Whisky Society.

Read more for the other poems.

(more…)

I met Ed Kohl last year at a Signatory tasting hosted by Travero’s in Santa Rosa. He’s got a really great presentation, a winning personality and a deep knowledge and appreciation of whisky. Signatory tastings  present expressions of great single malts in ways that the consumer would otherwise never taste. We invited Ed to join us the following week at The Hamilton Whisky Society for a casual get together. We had a wonderful time with some great drinks including a Highland Park 25 OB, Signatory Highland Park 24yo 1977, Signatory Caol Ila 13yo 1990, Signatory Caol Ila 6yo cask strength, Signatory Tamnavulin 24yo 1978 and Signatory Clynelish 29yo 1974. The Clynelish is a sublime whisky. The 6yo Caol Ila is a favorite of mine, all fire and peat with just a little hint of grains and cereal showing through from it’s young age.

Ed was kind enough to gift us with a brand new Signatory expression from Blair Athol, a distillery that is new to me. It’s a wonderful light and fruity whisky with hints of citrus and stone fruit. I recall apricots but I’m going to go back and taste it again at this weeks meeting. This bottle was fresh off the boat and we were fortunate to taste it as a preview before it hits the shelves. Notice the bottling date of 8/5/2009. That’s just about 1.5 months prior to our tasting. Thanks Ed!

In July of 2009 the Hamilton Whisky Society was fortunate to host Robin Coupar from The Glenrothes. He brought an excellent presentation on the history of The Glenrothes and Berry Bros. and Rudd as well as a deep knowledge and appreciation of whisky. It was a smashing evening. The group favorite was The Glenrothes 1975. The Glenrothes 1973 was very interesting with perhaps a note of anise on the back end. The Glenrothes 1985 and The Glenrothes 1991 are excellent and classic expressions of this fine Speyside malt. The Signatory bottle was delicious but uncharacteristically smoky for The Glenrothes which is why I so often enjoy independent bottlings of my favorite whiskies.

Here are representative pictures of the whiskies we enjoyed:

Last night I had a chance to try out that corn juice beverage. Yup. Tastes like corn. Sweet corn, with maybe a hint of salt. Not bad really.

The Chinese Mountain Dew label looks way cooler than the English language version. Something abut the shape just totally works. On a similar topic, I love Japanese “genki drinks” and had sort of hoped there would be a Chinese version of these vitamin fortified turtle blood and caffiene laden bombs but so far I’ve had no luck finding any super powerful Chinese energy drinks. One convenience store did have a couple of warm bottles of Lipovitan-D but I can get that state side.  Anybody got ideas on this? I was hoping to bring some samples back to the lab.

This corn drink I saw in a supermarket near the hotel looks interesting. I really liked the corn flavored kit-cat from Japan so I’m really wondering what this corn drink tastes like. It only came in large 1 litre bottles. If there was a small one I would check it out for sure. I wonder if there’s any of that fake margarine flavor in there?