Mar. 3: Drammers Raleigh/Durham...
Hello Raleigh Drammers!
We're delighted to invite you to join for our next rare whisky and spirits tasting, which is coming up on February 28th at 7pm! We've pulled together a really fun lineup -- we'll end up tasting 8 expressions in total, which you can read about below. And as usual we'll order in some light food (likely pizza) which is included, to make sure nobody's drinking on an empty stomach. As always, getting a ride is strongly encouraged. We hope you can join us!
As usual, anyone who has been to one of our events is welcome to invite friends to join, which you can do through this link.
Cheers,
Charlie, Mike, Andrew and Drammers Club
BOTTLE LINEUP FOR THE EVENT:
Kaiyo Japanese Whisky, Mizunara Cask Matured (2 different Single Casks). If this was a Hollywood log line, you might call this Yamazaki meets Jefferson's Ocean, with a touch of juniper! These two single barrels could not be more different -- one tastes like sugar cookies, the other I would have guessed was an aged gin if I'd tasted it blind. They are really distilled in Japan btw -- they only don't say 'Japanese Whisky" on the label because they are partially aged at sea, Jefferson's style (so, if you take the Scottish approach that it has to be fully aged on land, then were Japan to have enforcable laws identical to the Scotch industry, you wouldn't be able to call it "Japanese Whisky". We'll get into all that at the tasting -- for now suffice it to say that they're damn tasty. They’re both unchillfiltered and bottled at cask strength of 56% abv.
New Riff - 2 Expressions (Bourbon & Rye). The story of how New Riff distillery grew out of the success of the Party Source liquor shop is extraordinary, and we'll get into that at the tasting, where we'll try a single barrel expression of their bourbon and their rye, both released exclusively at the Premier Drams whiskey festival in Washington DC last year at Jack Rose Saloon, which we were proud to attend. The bourbon comes in at 56.8% abv, the rye at 53.05% abv.
Still 630 - X-35 Experimental Collection (3 expressions). Our friends at Still 630 distill whisky, gin, rum and just about everything else you can think of right there in St. Louis, a stone-throw away from the famous arch. They have a really cool experimental series that they release quarterly in 200ml bottles, and we love to pick them up every time we're in town. Here we've got a set of three experimental agave bottlings, most importantly they're much-celebrated "Smoked Mushroom" expression (X-35), their Oak Smoked agave expression X-34 and their 3 month aged reposado agave expression. These can only be picked up at the distillery itself in St. Louis, so this will be a fun chance to try them. We'll be tasting all three at this event, all bottled at 50% abv.
Westland Mezcal Finish. We'll keep the agave party going with this fun new single barrel from our friends at Westland in Seattle. It's their trademark single malt finished in a mezcal cask, selected by our friends at Jack Rose Saloon, and which they've named "Fruit of the Earth", cask #2543. Aged for 7 years. 58.1% abv.