Jun. 17: Drammers Austin......
Hello Austin Drammers!
Our next Austin tasting will be Friday, June 17th starting at 7pm. As usual, we’ve put together a big lineup for you:
Sierra Norte Mexican Whiskey - Green Corn Single Barrel. 52.8% abv
Sierra Norte Mexican Whiskey - Rainbow Corn Single Barrel. 61.2% abv
Sierra Norte Mexican Whiskey - Yellow Corn Single Barrel. 48.3% abv
Sierra Norte made huge waves when their bourbon-style yellow corn whiskey was named by Whiskey Advocate as one of the Top 20 whiskies in the world across all categories, and their master distiller Douglas French has taken that several steps further. Applying what he learned cultivating seed banks in his decades of building the Scorpion Mezcal brand, when he turned his hand to whiskey, he worked to isolate individual corn varietals, planting and refining them over decades to produce separate whiskies distilled using only white corn, or yellow corn, green corn, black corn, purple corn, and more recently red, green and rainbow corn. They’re all made like a bourbon (but in Mexico, so you can’t call it bourbon, which by definition has to be made in the United States). The mashbill is 85% corn, 15% malted barley, distilled on the same small copper pot stills that he uses to make his Scorpion mezcal. When our club visited Oaxaca last October, we picked 3 special single barrels. The first was a mind-altering variant of their award-winning yellow corn whiskey, with huge green pepper/jalapeno notes, very different from his standard release. Next, he let us buy the very first (and to our knowledge still the only) barrel of rainbow corn whiskey that he has ever released. And most precious, he let us buy one of only a few barrels of green corn whiskey that he barreled before abandoning the green corn project (it just wasn’t adapting to the Oaxacan environment, so he had to let it go — making our barrel incredibly rare, as one of only 4 or so barrels he ever produced, and he’s not making any more of it.
We’ll also be tasting a few fun scotches, a fun rye, a “Japanese” whiskey and more:
Lindores Lowland Single Malt Scotch - MCDXCIV. The very first release from our friends at Lindores Abbey whose distillate recently turned 3 years old so that it can legally be called Scotch. This whiskey is not yet available in the United States, but we secured a bottle on our recent trip to Scotland, and even had a big online event with their team a month or so back. It’s a blend of bourbon, sherry and wine barrels and bottled at 46% abv.
Clynelish Single Malt Scotch, 10yo, Single Malts of Scotland, Jack Rose Single Barrel, 1 of 213 bottles (cask ref: 800314, d. 17.05.2011, b.13.07.2021), 60.4% abv
Caol Ila Single Malt Scotch, 13yo, Single Malts of Scotland, Jack Rose Single Barrel, sherry hogshead, 1 of 260 bottles, cask ref 313260, d.04.07.2008, b.14.07.2021), 59.4% abv
Hughes Belle of Bedford Straight Rye Whiskey. Distilled March 2012, bottled October 2021, barrel #3748, bottle #165/198, 55.44% abv. Big dill pickle notes on this, which prompted Jack Rose to name this bottle “Kind of a Big Dill”.
Sensei Imported Blended Whiskey - Mizunara Cask. Until recently, there were few restrictions on what could be called “Japanese” whisky — most importantly, it didn’t need to be distilled in Japan, which was beginning to affect how Japanese whisky was perceived in the market. So they’ve now adopted non-binding guidelines (which among other things require it to be made in Japan), which will likely eventually become law. Watching this all unfold, and how brands are reacting, has been fascinating to watch. Here we’ve got a great example. It doesn’t call itself “Japanese Whiskey”, rather it calls itself imported “Sensei Whiskey” with a very Japanese-looking label, plus it’s aged in a “Mizunara Japanese Oak Cask”. Would this pass muster under the new Japanese whiskey laws? It very well might. Plus it’s getting some good reviews (Wine Enthusiast recently rated it 92 points and a “Best Buy”. So we figured we’d give it a look. 40% abv, and a blended whiskey (so presumably a blend of grain and single malt barley distillates).
That’s our lineup! We hope you can join us. We’ll have food on hand as usual (likely pizza). As always, anyone who has been to one of our events is welcome to invite friends to join.
Cheers,
Charlie, Dan and Drammers Club
LOCATION: 1600 Toomey Road, Austin, 78704