Aug. 15: Drammers Portland...
Hello Portland Drammers!
You’re invited to join our next rare whiskey & spirits tasting in Portland on Thursday, Aug. 15th at 7pm. A big thank you to John and Maryam Farinola for hosting (address: 2505 SW Hillcrest Drive 97202) We’ve got a great lineup for you. We’ll be tasting 8 expressions in total, which will include:
3 Expressions of Bourbon, Rye and “American Whiskey” from Premier Drams. These are hot off the presses — the owner of the legendary whiskey bar Jack Rose Saloon in DC has launched this new bottling line of 7yo bourbon, rye and rye aged in a used barrel, hence “American Whiskey”. We are fortunate to call Bill a good friend — Drammers Club has hosted numerous events with him over the years and we’re very proud to say he carries many of the Drammers barrel picks behind the bar. Now, we’re thrilled to announce that we split 3 single barrels with him that will only be available at The Jack Rose Saloon and to Drammers Club members at www.DRINQY.com/drammers. Ok, so what is this exactly? Bill’s not allowed to say who distilled it, though we think it’s pretty obvious (not many brands command $219/bottle at 7yo, so that’s a big hint). There are some reviews out there that are pretty blunt about where they think it was distilled. One review at District Drams notes: “Bill Thomas has a famously good relationship with Willett […] the long and short of it is this is supposedly contract distilled Willett aged at Castle and Key.” That’s certainly the consensus view. All bottled at cask strength, 50% to 53% abv.
Single Cask Nation - Inchgower 11yo Sherry Finish. Our friends at Single Cask Nation were recently acquired by Artisan Spirits, the same parent company that owns Scotch Malt Whisky Society, which happens to coincide with when a single barrel we selected from them has arrived. It’s distilled at the Inchgower distillery (owned by Diageo, who almost never releases single casks of it), and it was finished for 26 whopping months in a sherry cask. It’s a Drammers Club-exclusive pick, and it’s widely been called one of the top 10 best releases ever from SCN, which is truly saying something. It’s a sherry belter for sure. 56.3% abv
Duncan Taylor - 2 Different Octave Picks - 13yo Aultmore and 7yo Brackla. Keeping the independent bottling party going, we’ll try two releases from another of our favorite independent bottlers — Duncan Taylor, both in their “Octave” line (which features Scotch finished in 50 gallon barrels that used to hold sherry). Indy bottlings are a great way to try whisky from distilleries you rarely get a chance to try, which is certainly the case here. While Bacardi owns Aultmore and Brackla distilleries and releases them in the US, they are not widely known, and you very rarely see single barrels from them, especially Brackla. We selected these two casks for the club because we thought the Octave/sherry finish worked particularly well on them. Both bottled at cask strength in the low 52%ish range abv.
Spirits of French Lick Bourbon - The Maddie Gladden Single Barrel. We recently selected half a barrel of this delightful bourbon from a distillery we have long admired in Indiana — Spirits of French Lick Distillery, led by Head Distiller Alan Bishop. They make all their whiskey in house (this is not MGP juice) and we selected this barrel with the idea of doing an online event with Alan and the distillery — and then a couple weeks later he announced he is leaving to start his own distillery! We are excited to see what he does next, but it will be a while before that comes of age, making this one of the last single barrels to leave under his stewardship there. We think you’re going to love it.
Compass Box - Drammers Exclusive “Single Marrying Cask”. A single cask program is tricky when your brand is all about blends, but it can be done — creating a blend and then recasking it, in this case in an ex-Cameronbridge (single grain Scotch) cask. We recently learned that Compass Box had decided to shut down the Single Marrying Cask program, and they were nice enough to let us select one last cask before they shut down the program, we’re told for good. This is a variant of their flagship “Glasgow Blend” series, which is why we wanted to pair it with their more premium “Metropolis” release in the Extinct Blends Quartet, as it too is credited as taking inspiration from the city of Glasgow, whose preferred blending profile was a little more robust in the early 1900s, featuring a wee bit of peat in the mix. We get huge cocoa nuts on this — think Cocoa Puffs, right out of the box without milk. Exclusive to Drammers Club at $55/bottle.
We hope you can join us! We’ll order in light food (likely pizza) as usual to try to make sure nobody is drinking on an empty stomach, and as always, we strongly recommend that you arrange a ride home. Please let us know if you have any questions.
Cheers,
Charlie, John and Drammers Club