Oct. 24: Drammers Washington DC...
Hello DC Drammers!
Our next Drammers Washington DC tasting is coming up this Monday, October 24th at 7pm, and this month we're bringing the party across the bay! A big thank you to fellow Drammer Joe Van Name for hosting us! The address is: 701 24th St NW WDC 20037.
We've put together a nice mix of Scotch, bourbon, rye and American and single malt for the occasion (details on that below). We hope you can join us!
BOTTLE LINEUP DETAILS:
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:
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, KingsCounty'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. We’ll add a couple more bottles to this lineup including at least one more Scotch, and we’ll update this when we have that finalized, but we can confirm these for now).
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.
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: Monday, October 24th at 7pm
WHERE: 701 24th St NW WDC 20037
FORMAT: In person tasting (indoors, they also have an outdoor patio)
FOOD: We’ll order in pizza as usual, included in the event.
PRICE: $40/person for Members / $50/person for Observers