Apr. 28: Drammers Toronto......
Hello Toronto Drammers!
Our next Drammers Toronto tasting of rare whiskey, mezcal and other spirits is coming up on April 28th at 7pm, and a big thank you to Richard for hosting us. We have assembled a great lineup for us to taste at the event, which you can read more about below.
We hope you can join us! As usual, we'll order in some light food (likely pizza) to try to make sure nobody is drinking on an empty stomach, and as always we highly recommend that everyone arrange a ride home.
Cheers,
Charlie, Dave and Drammers Club
BOTTLES WE’LL BE TASTING AT THE EVENT:
Kilchoman Drammers Single Barrel - STR cask finish single malt. This is an appropriate place to start given that our Toronto chapter emerged after hanging out with Dave on Islay in Scotland (where Kilchoman is made!). As you would expect from (most) Islay whiskies, this single barrel our club selected is plenty peaty and plenty smoky. It was finished in an STR cask, which stands for "shaved, toasted and recharred" -- essentially a fancy way of saying they rejuvenated a barrel that had already been used several times by shaving a small layer of wood out from the inside of the barrel to get to active wood, and usually this is done using ex-red wine casks. Bottled as always at cask strength of 53.4% abv.
Loch Lomond's Glengarry 12yo. Our newest Drammers pick single barrel just arrived, a 12yo single malt Scotch from the Highlands distillery Loch Lomond. Distilled in 2010, bottled in 2023, unpeated, matured in a 1st fill Bordeaux red wine barrel -- the barrel yielded 281 bottles. 55.0% abv. Of course non-chill filtered and no color added. Cask #21/546-6.
Stauning Danish Whisky - 2 Drammers-Exclusive Single Barrels. Our latest picks to arrive are these two special single barrels from Stauning Danish Whisky -- a double oaked floor malted rye, and a peated single malt whisky, both selected by a majority vote of our members during a special online tasting event and distillery tour of Stauning. We're extremely proud to say that our barrels are the very first single barrels Stauning released in the United States. Both bottled at cask strength of around 57% abv.
Frey Ranch 4 Grain Bourbon. This farmer husband-and-wife team are taking bourbon to the next level -- all the whisky they make uses grains they grow themselves on their generations-old farm just outside Reno, Nevada. Initially conceived as a way to show off the quality of their grains, it has taken on a life of its own, and this is the first single barrel they have allowed outside of the Nevada and California markets (it was selected by our members as a Drammers exclusive bottling).
Copper & Kings Brandy - Finished in a Tequila Cask. This barrel pick recently arrived from Copper & Kings distillery in Louisville, Kentucky. They specialize in American brandy and here we've got a single barrel of their grape brandy aged in a tequila cask, bottled at cask strength of 62.5% abv. It’ll be fun to compare this to the grape brandy finished bourbon from Starlight! It is available exclusively to members of our club.
Rezpiral - Simeon Ramirez Mezcal Ensamble of Mexicano Agaves. We had the pleasure of selecting a batch a few years ago that Simeon did with his father Apolonio, that time from a tobasiche agave, which was dominated by vegetal and mineral notes. That pick was a big hit, so we selected a new batch that just arrived -- a mix of 4 varietals of the Mexicano agave, it has a dominant lemon-lime custardy-sorbet flavor, backfilled with vanilla. Yum. 50.8% abv.
Rezpiral - Tobasiche Mezcal by Simeon and Apolonio Ramirez. We picked this batch of mezcal from Simeon three years ago, a batch of the tobasiche agave that Simeon made with his father Apolonio (our newest batch is made by Simeon by himeself). This earlier batch is very nearly sold out, which is both why we selected a new batch from him, and we our bringing out some of our last bottles of our earlier batch for one last hurrah. 50.9% abv, yummy stuff.