Mar. 6: Drammers Washington DC......
Hello DC Drammers!
We’ve finalized the bottle lineup for our next Drammers DC event, which will take place this Sunday, March 6th, starting at 6:30pm! And again a big thank you to Joe Van Name for hosting! As always, anyone who has been to one of our events is welcome to invite friends to join as well. We’ve got some exciting bottles that we’ve secured for this event, checkout our lineup for this event:
Glenmorangie Highland Single Malt - The Lighthouse 12yo (Distillery Exclusive). Glenmorangie just opened a new highly secretive experimental distillery — they ran the first distillation on it just two weeks ago! In honor of its opening, they released a special bottling only available at the distillery itself in the Highlands of Scotland. Happily, we went out there for the opening and picked up a bottle for us to try in Boston (bottle #985 of 4782). It’s a 12yo blend of of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks, arguably making it a more nuanced version of their popular Lasanta release. 48% abv.
Rabbit Hole - Starlino - Distillery Exclusive. Rye finished in a vermouth cask. Not many folks have tried it (we have a Drammers exclusive single barrel of FEW bourbon aged in vermouth, but not a rye). This experimental release was only available in 375ml bottles if you visited the distillery gift shop, which of course we did when we were in town a couple weeks ago. 52.8% abv.
High Country American Single Malt by High West. This is an interesting one -- it's about to be released nationwide, we're told, though we haven't seen it start to land anywhere. We picked it up at the distillery in January 2020, just a few weeks before the pandemic, and it's a significant milestone for the distillery in part because it's made entirely in house (most of what they release is either sourced, like American Prairie, or a blend of whiskey they sourced and made themselves, like Double Rye. This is lot 19L04, 44% abv. Interestingly, we understand that they tweaked the release a bit between when we picked up this bottle and the release that is available now in stores.
Glen Scotia 8yo Unpeated Campbeltown Single Malt Scotch, Single Barrel #740: (Drammers Exclusive). So excited about both of our single barrels, 2 of only 4 private barrels they've allowed out (in the US at least) in the last few years. And the timing is particularly good because Glen Scotia was just named a month ago as Distillery of the Year by the Scotch Whisky Association! We’ve got a fun event coming up with their master distiller Iain McAllister in February, but in the meantime we’ll get a sneak peak of these tonight! 56.1% abv (cask strength)
Glen Scotia 10yo Peated Campbeltown Single Malt Scotch, Drammers Exclusive Single Barrel. 55.6% abv. (see above)
Paul John – Drammers Exclusive Peated Single Cask #5882. Our 37th barrel pick was selected by our US members (our Mumbai members also picked a cask), and was unusual because it was one of the few barrels they’ve released from their famous underground warehouse (which is not surprisingly fairly small). We toured it as part of our online event last year when we selected the barrel. This cask of 100% peated single malt barley was also in a 2nd fill cask, whereas almost all of Paul John’s barrels are aged in first-fill casks. 56.5% abv.
Sazerac Rye - Warsaw Chapter Pick. Our first private barrel pick from the Sazerac company, this one made of course at the legendary Buffalo Trace distillery. It uses the base 6yo rye, same recipe as goes into their normal release, but this is a single barrel that our members in Warsaw, Poland selected. Bright confectionary sugar notes on the front end (much more pronounced than their usual release), and if you let it sit for awhile, it gives way to orange marmalade notes that we don’t usually associate with Sazerac Rye. Of course, we would have had it barreled at cask strength if we’d been given the chance, but Sazerac only allows people to bottle at 45% abv, which is what we’ve got here. This barrel sold out quickly, but we set aside a few bottles for tastings like this one.
Dakabend 4yo Oaxacan Rum. Produced by the makers of Mezcal Tosba, which is available in the US alongside an unaged Dakabend rum, made from pure cane sugar (as opposed to the more common molasses -- so this arguably more in the "rhum agricole" vein of rums, though the 4 years of barrel aging has rounded the palate our enormously. As an experiment they aged 3 barrels of it 4 years ago, which we stumbled upon when we visited their distillery in October of 2020, and they were kind enough to sell us one. These are the only bottles of this to ever leave their distillery in the Sierra Norte mountains, and even if they start making more now, their won't be any for at least 4 years. Hard to get much rarer than that. 49% abv.
That’s our lineup! We hope you can join us. We’ll have food on hand as usual (likely pizza).
Cheers,
Drammers Club
WHEN: Sunday, March 6th, 6:30pm
WHERE: Friendship Lodge, 701 24th St NW
FORMAT: In person tasting
PRICE: $40/person for Drammers Members / $50/person for Drammers Observers