Oct. 8: Drammers Portland...
Hello Portland Drammers!
We've got a big day coming up this Saturday, October 8th. At Noon, a small group of us will start the process of picking a Drammers-exclusive barrel of Westward whiskey! Then at 8pm, everyone will be invited to join for a tasting featuring an array of rare bourbons, ryes and scotch whiskies, and a huge thank you to John and Maryam Farinola for generously agreeing to host us again (2505 SW Hillcrest Drive 97202). If you want to join in the barrel pick process, here's how it's going to work:
This Saturday, October 8th at Noon, we're going to meet at the Westward warehouse where they age their barrels to start the first of two rounds to select a barrel of their whiskey! Everyone in the Portland chapter is eligible to participate, and everyone can vote on our final selection of the barrel, but first we need to narrow it down to a couple choices. Their head distiller Miles Munroe has picked out some especially exciting and unusual barrels for us to choose from (and that's saying something!). But here's the catch - they only have room for 8ish people at the barrel warehouse for the first round, so we're going to pick names out of a hat. If you want to participate, please email us by end of day this Tuesday, then we'll pick names on Wednesday. That barrel pick committee will taste through a broader selection of options, and will narrow it down to a couple of their favorites. Then at the next meeting, everyone in the chapter will be invited to go to the distillery to vote on the final pick -- whichever gets the most votes will be our our first Drammers Portland barrel selection!
But whether or not you join for the Noon barrel pick event, everyone in the chapter is invites to join for our tasting this Saturday evening at 8pm. At that tasting we’re going to be trying a mix of scotch, American single malt, bourbon and rye, with a particular focus on Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn.
Kings County was founded in 2010, making it the first distillery in New York City since prohibition. They are deeply respected in the American Craft Whiskey scene - among other things, they only make whiskeys, they have never sourced anything they’ve sold, and they have never let anything they made be bottled under anyone else's label (in other words, they never contract distilled for anyone else). And, oh yeah, their previous Master Blender, Nicole Austin, went on to be the Master Distiller at George Dickel where her first release was named the best whiskey of the year by Whiskey Advocate. Not too shabby!
We’re proud to say that our club has a particularly close relationship with this distillery -- their founder, Colin Spoelman, was our second-ever guest speaker back when we started inviting guest speakers in 2016. And we're proud to say that many of our members have worked at the distillery over the years. During the covid pandemic, like many distilleries, they hit a cash crunch, and we jumped up and bought 7 barrels of their whisky as exclusive picks for the club. We didn't realize at the time how helpful our timing was -- in this article in Whisky Magazine about our club, you’ll see the article ends with a quote from Colin saying that our club "saved our ass at a time we needed our ass to be saved”. Humbling stuff and we couldn't be more proud to support them.
So for this tasting, we'll try a range of bottles from their distillery:
White Rye - Unaged Rye Whiskey. 40% abv. This distillery started out making moonshine, drawing on Colin's roots in Western Kentucky, so we'll start here too. Though not with their standard core range moonshine (which is also excellent), but with this distillery-only bottle of their unaged white rye.
3yo Single Barrel Bourbon. Next we'll get into our club barrel picks, and there are only a few bottles of these left, so we wanted to be sure you had a chance to try them before they were gone. Kings County has a somewhat unusual recipe for their bourbon -- 85% corn, 15% malted barley (so no rye or wheat at all). This straight bourbon uses that mashbill and was aged for 3 years in a 15 gallon barrel (barrel #3867) and we'll get more into small barrels vs. big barrels during the tasting. 64% abv.
4yo Single Barrel Bourbon. Next is a different single barrel, aged 4 years in a 15 gallon barrel, barrel #3503, bottled at 64.7% abv. Same mashbill as above, but a totally different profile.
5yo Custom Blend Straight Bourbon. Next up, they created a special blend just for us -- a combination of four 10 gallon barrels, bottled at a remarkable 68% abv. Unlike the first two, this features over 20% rye in the mashbill (closer to 30% if memory serves), making it an unusual (and certainly spicier) departure from their normal release.
5yo Oated Bourbon. Our last entry from Kings County is a fun one -- a very, very unusual oated bourbon. By definition, bourbon has to be at least 51% corn, and usually rye or wheat make up the second biggest grain in the mashbill, the so-called "flavor grain". As noted above, Kings County's normal recipe skips that, going straight to a higher portion of malted barley. Here, the flavor grain is oats! That's very rare -- Buffalo Trace put out a very limited experimental release of oated bourbon many years ago, but otherwise we've almost never seen it, and it's certainly rare to find like this at cask strength -- 64.2% abv.
We'll also be trying a fun mix of other bottles at this tasting:
Single Cask Nation - Ardmore 10yo. Aged 10 years in a first-fill bourbon hogshead, cask #707927. Distilled in December 2009 and bottled in August 2020, 1 of 200 bottles, bottled by our friends at Roma Wine & Liquors in NYC. This distillery is in the Highland region of Scotland. 58.8% abv.
Single Cask Nation - Teaninich 11yo. Aged in a first fill bourbon hogshead, cask #716153. Distilled September 2009, bottled October 2020. 1 of 262 bottles. This distillery is also in the Highlands region of Scotland. 61% abv.
Balcones - American Single Malt (Apple Brandy Cask Finish). We'll have some fun comparing Single Malt Scotch (aged of course in Scotland where it's reasonably cool) to American Single Malt aged in Waco, Texas, where it is maturing as fast as you can imagine. We're huge Balcones fans, having bought 4 barrels from them to date. This barrel is finished in apple brandy casks, giving it an beautifully sweet finish. Bottled at 64.5% abv.
That's our lineup! We hope you can join us!
WHEN: Friday, October 7th at 7pm
WHERE: Whiskey Bar located down by the Rockies stadium at 2203 Larimer Street (80205)
FORMAT: In person tasting (indoors)
FOOD: We’ll order in pizza as usual, included in the event.
PRICE: $40/person for Members / $50/person for Observers