Mar. 20: Drammers Charlotte...
Hello Charlotte Drammers!
We hope everyone's well! Our next Drammers Charlotte tasting will be this Sunday, March 20th at 6pm, and a big thank you to Perry and Marisa for hosting us again (712 Shawnee Drive, Charlotte, NC, 28209). As always, anyone who has been to one of our events is welcome to join and to invite friends to join as well (links below). We'll be coming in from our event in Louisville the night before, so for our lineup, we're setting aside two slots for bourbons we'll pick up in Louisville, so those will be a surprise. As for the other 6 bottles in our tasting lineup, here's what we've got so far:
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.
Glenmorangie Highland Single Malt - The Lighthouse 12yo (Distillery Exclusive). Glenmorangie just opened a new highly secretive experimental distillery up in the Highlands of Scotland — 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, so unless you happened to be there 2 weeks ago, you're unlikely to come across it. Happily, we went out there for the opening of the distillery 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 (also a 12yo release, but using more sherry casks). 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.
Reina Sanchez Madrecuishe Mezcal from Rezpiral. We had the pleasure of visiting Reina, widely recognized as one of the greatest mezcal producers, and one of only a small handful of women recognized as such, during our recent group trip to Oaxaca this past October. We'll have some great photos and stories to share from her palenque. This is as good as it gets for mezcal, and one of our two newest Drammers exclusive batches. 46.6% abv
That's our lineup! And knowing us, we might end up adding a bottle, ha. We hope you can join us! We'll provide some food as well (likely pizza).
Cheers,
Charlie, Perry and Drammers Club