Mar. 17: Drammers Las Vegas.......
Hello Vegas Drammers!
We're on for our next Drammers Las Vegas event this Thursday -- St. Patrick's Day! Between that and March Madness, it took us a little longer to nail down a venue, but we're all set now. We've got a fun lineup for you. 5 of the bottles in the lineup are described below, and we figured we'd open it up to requests for the other 2 of 3. Any suggestions? Want some Irish, or want us to grab a recent local store pick? More bourbon? (we're a little heavy on single malts, though I also have some Westward single malt special releases from our LA event a couple days we could work in. But we'll at least have these...
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 ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks, arguably making it a more nuanced version of their popular Lasanta release. 48% abv.
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 GlenScotia 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)
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.
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.
We'll add 2 or 3 based on responses. In any case, we hope you can join us! We're guessing it may be a slightly smaller crew this week given the late notice, but we'll have fun regardless. We’ll meet up at the Palace Station Casino. As always, anyone who has been to one of our events is welcome to invite friends to join.
Cheers,
Charlie, Bob and Drammers Club