The Alcohol Thread

Speaking of Bourbons, my sommelier gave me a bottle of W.H.H. (William Henry Harrison) Bourbon, Indiana's first and only distillery.

It is awesome, great flavors, very complex and very smooth. Highly recommend it in place of Pappy Van Winkle price range.

 

Picked up a bottle of Bulleit yesterday, and really enjoyed it. I am more of a Scotch drinker normally, but I have started to drink more and more Bourbon and Canadian Whiskey lateky. Speaking of which, can somebody recommend a good Canadian whiskey? Preferably something with a distinct oak flavour(scent?).

 

This doesn't have a very heavy oak flavor, but Crown Royal is my favorite Canadian Whiskey. It's very smooth and very easy to drink either neat, maybe a couple cubes, or with mixers. It's pretty versatile. I've been yelled at for mixing it as a lot of people say it's too good to mix, but who cares, it's not that much more expensive than the cheaper stuff to "waste" it by mixing it. I don't drink enough for it to matter. Their XR is pretty expensive, but very good. For that price, I'm pretty much buying a very very good Scotch Whisky though instead. The XR is much heavier on the oak, but still very very smooth. Avoid the Royal Reserve as it's more expensive for no reason. It's supposedly just special selected casks of the regular stuff. I can't tell the difference except in the wallet.

I have not tried Crown Royal Black yet, but it's made in charred oak, so it might be up your alley. Once I finish my current bottle I'm going to pick one up to try. I've heard it's a bit stronger than the regular but a lot less smooth. We'll see.

Regular Crown is my go to whiskey when I'm not drinking scotch.

 

I went to buy some Bulleit last night but the owner of the store recommended Old Weller, he said it is stronger, cheaper and smoother. I'm not really a fan of it but I guess I'll drink it, since the bottle is just going to sit here.

 

Edit: Oops wrong thread.

I like Guinness and Ard Begh (sp?) whilst I'm here

 

Cheers, I'll give it a try if I find it.

I doubt it is widely available outside of Sweden, but I haved tried several beers from the Nynäshamn brewery and they have all been excellent, especially Bedarö Bitter. If you ever see them, give them a try.

Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri

 

Kind of upset I'm not in Halifax to go give this a try. A local microbrew/gastropub there is one of my favourite places to go. They do a mean double and triple IPA and its always fun to talk to the brewmaster and see what he is concocting next.

He's been doing some fall stuff (so I just read on the website) with some double-smoked Baltic porters, some wet hop beers and some sort of orange saison (which I don;t really know much about).

 

That reminds me, I gave Smokehead a shot and it was a pretty good scotch.
The Peat Monster on the other hand, tastes like shit.

 

I've only had Knob Creek once, and I don't really remember much about it other than that I wasn't too impressed. I may have to do a side by side blind bourbon taste test one night.

On a separate note, I did try Bookers for the first time the other night. Yum.

 

Never had the Master's Collection, but Woodford Reserve is one of my favorites. I'll have to get my hands on some, and pick the perfect cigar to go with it.

 

I had a bottle of 3 week old Pliny the Elder last week. Let me tell, you, if you are a fan of hoppy, bitter beers, there is just about nothing better. Apparantly, some beer snobs won't drink the Elder if it's more than a week old though, due to the fear of a loss of hop potency.

 

Since the beer thread died I figured I would post here. I had a beer that was outstanding a month or so ago. It is called Old Engine Oil. I would highly recommend it to those of you that like a beer with a strong distinct flavor.

 

So I picked up a six-pack of Palm amber ale. It's everything an amber ale should be: Belgian, full of flavour, and it's just malty enough to be sweet but stays away from being disgustingly, cloyingly sweet.



Hell, the name is even mildly suggestive.

I also had a bottle of Valley Floor shiraz the other week. Holy tits. It's made by Langmeil from the Barossa valley. If you like shirazes, or just big, bold, dry red wines in general, find it. It blew my fucking world.

 

My uncle poured me a glass of this at Christmas:



The color is super light, even for Scotch, but the flavor is all there. Very peaty with nice hints of honey, and it's apparently insanely priced. Something like $35 or $40 a liter for a single malt? Sold. If you can find it, check it out.

 

For new years I tried DeuS Brut des Flandres, really not a bad beer as you wouldn't think it's 11.5% alcohol, but at same time it's quite pricey, about $20 for a 750mL (25ish oz) bottle. Slight aroma of champagne, and very sweet, like champagne, but definitely something that would be perfect for that sort of occasion, and that's it, really.

 

Its warm and humid in Melbourne , so I'm enjoying a few of these

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.tastebeer.com.au/beer/114" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.tastebeer.com.au/beer/114</a>


Its a better atlernative to most of the ordinary Australian beers, even though this beer is brewed in Australia under licence from the Carlsberg brewery in Denmark.

Thats why they sell it for $50 a case (24 bottles)

 

I currently have this sitting in my living room:


It was actually made for Christmas 2009 and we're still sick of Carlsberg. Most people who visit suggest that we send a picture to them to try and get sponsorship but if anything, we'd only get more Carlsberg, so we haven't.

You should give Rogers a try. It's made by the Little Creatures brewery over in Perth and is delicious. I don't want to get into a debate but it is in my opinion the best Australian beer. I recently bought a carton for $55 but I think it may have been a special price, I normally only buy six-packs. Little Creatures pilsner is good too but a bit more expensive.

 

This stuff is Brazil's native booze of choice and it is pure devil juice.



Cachaça is fermented sugar cane and tastes less like rum than you'd think... it's more like tequila's funky cousin with less taste. The bottle pictures was middle-priced in grocery stores (they sell tons of booze in the average corner store) at the equivalent of $15 US for a liter. We got a bottle at a beach town that was $4 a liter. The preferred drink is a whole lime cut up and put in a glass with sugar and ice with cachaça poured up to the rim. Worst hangovers of my life.

 

Sister bought me a case of Sam Adams winter Lager for fixing her crappy computer. Not a bad beer, very dark for a lager, but middle of the road, as expected.