Oct. 2: Drammers Charlotte!......
Fellow Drammers!
We're excited for our next Drammers Charlotte event, which will take place on Saturday October 2nd at 7pm. We're fresh off trips to Scotland and the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, so we've got an even bigger lineup than usual. Check it out:
Lagavulin 2020 Feis Ile Bottling. In a normal year, people can only get this bottle if they travel to Islay in May for the big annual "Feis Ile" festival, and camp out overnight for one of the mere 6,000 bottles that are released (keep in mind that over 10,000 people come to Islay for the fest). But with covid making the fest virtual in 2020 and 2021, we were able to scoop up a bottle just a few weeks ago by being among the first tourists to come to the Island after they reopened! This is bottle 1,924, aged 20 years., a blend of refill and PX hogheads (Colin Gordon selected them when he was the Distillery Manager there before changing jobs to be the distillery manager at Ardbeg a few months ago, and we had the pleasure of visiting with him for 30 minutes while we were out there (there's a video of it up on our website). 54% abv
Paul John 2019 Christmas Limited Edition. Each year this distillery, which is located in Goa, India, releases a special "Christmas" edition, which (as you would expect) tends to lean heavily into their trademark Christmas cake style, with lots of tropical fruits. Each edition (which started in 2018) featured a slightly different finish, this time in a PX sherry cask. It's been a while since we've opened one of these up, very much looking forward to revisiting it. 46% abv.
Bardstown Bourbon Co. - Ferrand Collaboration Series. Next up we've got two new releases from Bardstown Bourbon Company. First is the latest release in their collaboration series, released just a few days ago to coincide with the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. It is a bourbon finished in cognac barrels, and since it's named Ferrand, we can be pretty sure that means Maison Ferrand cognac is the collaborator here. I tried to pick this up at the distillery during the festival and it was sold out, but luckily they had gotten a few more in when I circled back a few days ago. 55% abv.
Bardstown Bourbon Co. - Distilley Exclusive Collection - Triple Stave Finish. The next one is more rare and expressly only available at the distillery, one per person. It too was released to coincide with the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. It is a blend of straight whiskies finished with oak staves. We tasted this at our event in Las Vegas a few days ago, and it is remarkably sweet. 54.% abv.
Square 6 - High Rye Bourbon. Everyone knows about the mega producer Heaven Hill, but not everyone knows that a few years ago, they built a fully-functioning distillery at the Evan Williams experience on Main Street in downtown Louisville. Unlike the main Heaven Hill facility, which (like all the majors) produces whiskey on a column still, this new distillery uses a pot still, and this is their very first release of whiskey made entirely at that new distillery. You can only get it at the gift shop at the Evan Williams Experience. 47.5% abv.
Barrell Whiskey Private Release - Pear Brandy Cask Finish. We wanted to include at least one Drammers pick, though technically this was the runner up pick (by a slim majority, our club selected the amaro cask variation of this at our event). Our Charlotte chapter actually played a key role in this -- we were asked to narrow it down from 6 to 2 expressions, and our Charlotte chapter rose to the task. In any case, even though we didn't select it as our barrel pick, I particularly loved this one, and when I heard they were breaking up the cask, we reached out and they agreed to sell us half of it. 56.9% abv.
Mlody Ziemniak (2020 Limited Ed.). Whisky enthusiasts tend to be respectful of all other spirits categories except one -- vodka. But these bottles might change your mind. The logic goes that by definition, the spirit needs to be tasteless and odorless, so what's there to be proud of? The culprit here is that vodka is by definition distilled up to at least 96% alcohol, thereby eliminating a lot of the potential flavors. But what if you took the same distillate, and only distilled it once, stopping at 60% abv? And what if Poland's most prestigious craft vodka distillery made a point to do it in a special limited edition series to highlight flavor differences among potato varietals? That's exactly what Chopin did, and we were so blown away by the results, we flew to the distillery in Poland to do an event live with the founder, where our US members tried samples and voted to pick an exclusive batch for our club. That batch hasn't arrived yet, but in the meantime we've secured the very limited 2020 special edition, released under their "Mlody Ziemniak" (or "young potato") line. These bottles can only be found in Poland currently, and in our opinion, they're a game changer.
That's a hell of a lineup if we do say so ourselves! We hope you can join us, as usual we'll have pizza on hand.
Cheers!
Perry, Charlie and Drammers Club
FORMAT: In person tasting
WHEN: Saturday, October 2nd, at 7pm
WHERE: Perry's House (712 Shawnee Drive, 28209)
COST: $40/person for Drammers Members / $50/person for Drammers Observers