Sep. 26: Drammers Warsaw...
Hello Warsaw Drammers!
We’re very excited to welcome you to join a special tasting of rare Scotch, bourbon and other spirits on Thursday, the 26th of September starting at 7pm. We’ll be tasting through 8 rare expressions that we can comfortably say, you won’t have another chance to try anywhere else. A bit thank you to Michal Reczkowicz for hosting! Wait until you see his view! Address: Tower, Złota 44, 00-120 Warsaw, apartment 313 (31st floor). Ok, check out our lineup for this event, drumroll please:
Single Cask Nation - Inchgower 11yo Sherry Finish. Our friends at Single Cask Nation were recently acquired by Artisan Spirits, the same parent company that owns Scotch Malt Whisky Society, which happens to coincide with when a single barrel we selected from them has arrived. It’s distilled at the Inchgower distillery (owned by Diageo, who almost never releases single casks of it), and it was finished for 26 whopping months in a sherry cask. It’s a Drammers Club-exclusive pick, and it’s widely been called one of the top 10 best releases ever from SCN, which is truly saying something. It’s a sherry belter for sure. 56.3% abv
Loch Lomond's Glengarry 12yo. This single barrel was so good, the distillery submitted it to the San Francisco Spirits Competition (largely seen as the best spirits competition in the world, or at least one of the top two), where it scored a stunning 96 points and Double Gold. It’s actually in the running for best single barrel of Scotch of the year (we’ll find out next month). This is a 12yo single malt Scotch from the Highlands distillery Loch Lomond. Distilled in 2010, bottled in 2023, unpeated, matured in a 1st fill Bordeaux red wine barrel -- the barrel yielded 281 bottles. 55.0% abv. Of course non-chill filtered and no color added. Cask #21/546-6
Duncan Taylor - Octave Single Cask Pick - 13yo Aultmore. Keeping the independent bottling party going, we’ll try a release from another of our favorite independent bottlers — Duncan Taylor, in their “Octave” line (which features Scotch finished in 50 gallon barrels that used to hold sherry). Indy bottlings are a great way to try whisky from distilleries you rarely get a chance to try, which is certainly the case here. While Bacardi owns Aultmore, the distillery is not widely known, and you very rarely see single barrels from them (most of what the distillery makes goes into blends). We selected this cask for the club because we thought the Octave/sherry finish worked particularly well on it. Bottled at cask strength in the low 52%ish range abv..
Proof & Wood Curated Collection - 10yo Straight Bourbon (Drammers Pick #100). 750ml, 56.3% abv, 1 of 144 bottles. Distilled at MGP Distillery, Mashbill: 99% corn, 1% malted barley. This was our 10 Year Anniversary Commemorative bottle that was unveiled at our 10 year anniversary party, The Drammening last October. Special stuff.
Starlight Distillery - Mesquite-Smoked Bourbon Finished in an Oloroso Sherry Cask. 55.9% abv. This distillery is located in Indiana, close to Louisville. Our Indianapolis members have been raving about it for years, and we couldn’t believe our eyes when we visited the distillery last year — it’s ENORMOUS. It must be producing more bourbon than the next 10 “craft” distilleries combined. And it’s great bourbon at that. We immediately set out to do a barrel pick and ended up picking four barrels for the club (including the Brazilian rum that we’ll be tasting, see below). This one was aged 5.5 years, features a mashbill that includes corn that was mesquite-smoked before distillation, and was finished in an oloroso sherry cask. The head of our Indianapolis chapter, Sean Crain, says may be the best single barrel of Starlight he's ever tasted (and that's saying something!). Bottled at cask strength of course.
Atelier Vie - RIZ Louisiana Whiskey - Experimental Brown Rice Single Cask. This is truly a one-of-a-kind barrel, the first experimental brown rice whiskey made by Jedd, the founder at the Atelier Vie distillery in New Orleans. His regular white rice RIZ New Orleans Whiskey is one of his best sellers, and we had a chance to try this, the only barrel of brown rice whiskey he’s ever made, when we visited the distillery last year. We were blown away and immediately asked if we could have it as a Drammers-exclusive. It was aged 3 years and 7 months and bottled at cask strength of 61.52% abv. Btw, the angels share was quite high — the barrel only yielded 72 bottles.
Rolling Fork Brazilian Rum. A Brazilian rum aged 12 years, distilled at the Epris distillery and bottled by the independent bottling group Rolling Fork. And, importantly, it was aged for part of those 12 years in an Amburana cask. If you’ve tried any bourbons finished in Amburana, they bring rich, bbq sauce notes and are often overpowering — sometimes too much of a good thing. So, the Rolling Fork team didn’t finish this rum in an Amburana cask, rather they matured it partially in an amburana cask, but then tempered that by having the end of its maturation in an ex-bourbon cask. , which is definitely a good thing. Bottled at cask strength of 55.05% abv.
One more surprise pour!
That’s our lineup! We hope you can join us. We’ll order in light food (likely pizza, included). Please feel free to invite friends to join, and please let us know if you have any questions.
Cheers,
Charlie, Maks and Drammers Club