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Fellow Drammers!
We're very excited to be kicking off what we hope to be a regular monthly-ish series of whiskey tastings here in Richmond, starting this Thursday March 5th at 7pm, and we're enormously grateful to Giao for organizing and to Wolf for hosting! Our club is not open to the public, but if you're getting this email, then someone in our network must have invited you, and we hope you can join! Please let us know in advance if you are planning to attend -- you can register through our website, or by email to Giao or to Charlie@drammersclub.com to confirm, $50/person, includes food, and the drinks!).
A little background -- our club started in NYC in 2013 with about 10 people and has grown now to over 1200 people in nearly 25 cities around the world from Los Angeles to Paris, Mumbai and Beirut. You can read more about how we got started on our website, but in a nutshell we would get together at a Chinese restaurant that was BYOB, we'd split the cost of a few rare whiskies, and had fun comparing notes with the other people at the table. We ended up becoming close friends in the process. Word spread, the club started to grow, and before we knew it we were hosting some of the most famous people in the whisky world as guest speakers at our get togethers.
We've tried to expand that in recent years with the goal of creating a global network of people who can appreciate a good whisky (and sometimes mezcal and other spirits!), so that if you get off the plane anywhere in the world, you've got drinking buddies there waiting for ya. Well, we're not quite there yet, but we're off to a great start, and in fact Whisky Advocate just called us "the Ultimate International Whisky Club", which is truly an honor. All of which is to say -- it's about damn time we had a chapter in Richmond, don't you think?!
So, of course, we wanted to kick things off with a bang, check out this lineup of rare whiskies we'll be tasting together. Fair warning, when it comes to whisky we get a little extra nerdy, so these are absurdly long descriptions -- our feelings will not be hurt if you skip them, ha. On to the whisky -- drumroll please....
Invergordon Single Grain Scotch, Aged for 45 Years. Obviously any scotch that is aged for 45 years demands our immediate attention, but here it's important to note this is single grain scotch, not its far more famous cousin single malt scotch. A 45yo single malt scotch, made from 100% malted barley, would cost many thousands of dollars per bottle, but single grain scotches, even super old and heralded ones like this, continue to skate under radar. Although the name confuses some people, single grain scotches can actually include multiple grains in the mashbill (the "Single" refers to it having been made at a single distillery, as opposed to a blend of different distilleries, which is what most single grain distillate is made for). That mashbill often in the past included corn, btw, so in some way this category straddles between what is typically thought of as "scotch" and bourbon. In any case, it is extremely rare to find anything aged this long, and as the evaporation took effect year after year, the flavor just became more concentrated and more and more tasty. This is a rare chance to try this and promises to be one to remember.
Laphroaig 13yo "Chieftain's" Bottling - Sherry Butt Cask Strength. Continuing our pre-Feis Ile prep, we'll be tasting another Islay bottling from the distillery that is beloved by many as the smokiest of all the major scotches (they also malt some of their own barley!). Unlike the Ardbeg bottle, which was released by the distillery, this Laphroaig was sold to a so-called "independent bottler" who released it under their own label (hence "Chieftain"). That used to be common, but Laphroaig has stopped selling their casks, full stop, so these are increasingly rare (and the prices are going bonkers for anything, let alone one released at cask strength and aged in a sherry barrel). The reviews on this one have been outstanding. And again, it's worth noting that we're in discussions to host their master ambassador Simon Brooking at our NYC chapter in mid-April. Ok, now on to the American whiskies...
George Dickel Bottled in Bond 13yo Tennessee Whiskey -- Named the #1 Whisk(e)y of the Year by Whiskey Advocate in December 2019! This was the very first expression created by Dickel's new master distiller Nicole Austin, formerly part of the distilling team at Kings County in Brooklyn. Talk about getting off to a good start! Her very first whiskey was named the number one whiskey in the world last year, incredible! Bottled in bond, so 50% ABV, and made in the Tennessee whisky style that makes it like a bourbon, then filters it through a charcoal filter before aging it. These flew off the shelves after they won the award, but we socked a few away for a special occasion!
High West American Prairie Finished in Armagnac! We love this distillery nestled in the mountains near Park City, Utah, and their normal American Prairie bourbon is delicious in its own right, but this is a very special bottle of American Prairie that is further aged (or "finished") in ex-armagnac barrels for an additional 21 months. We recently met with their team in Utah, where we had a chance to try a series of special private bottlings that are for the most part only available at their bar, which is where we first tried this armagnac finish, and we fell in love. Happily, we were able to track down a bottle so that we could try it on Thursday in Richmond! Note that High West (admirably) is up front that they release whiskey that has a mix of bourbon made in-house blended with sourced whiskey. In this case, Their American Prairie Bourbon is a proprietary blend of 3 whiskeys: a 2-year bourbon from MGP in Indiana (with a mashbill of 75% corn, 20% rye, and 5% barley malt), a 6-year Kentucky bourbon, and a 13-year Kentucky bourbon. 51.1% ABV.
Westland - Drammers Exclusive Cask #430. This would be called a scotch if it was made in Scotland (it is 100% malted barley) but since this was made in America, it is known instead as an American Single Malt. The key here is that Westland used to run a private cask program, but (like Laphroaig as per above) they have stopped selling private casks altogether, in their case deciding to shut it down for at least 5 years. Luckily we have a great relationship with them, having hosted their master distiller in the past, so when we heard they were shutting down their private cask program we jumped into action, and we're very proud to say that our club secured the last two casks sold under their private cask program. One is heavily peated, one is lightly peated, and only Drammers members have access to it (through our website, and we'll try to bring a few along with us to the meeting if anyone wants any). Since we've already got a bunch of peat bombs in the mix, we went with this, the very lightly peated of our two casks for our lineup. This one ages for 69 months in a first-fill ex-bourbon cask, and yielded 202 bottles at a whopping 62.1% abv.
Medley Bourbon - Drammers Exclusive Selection (LA Pick). Like the Westland bottle, this is exclusively available to Drammers members. Medley is a storied name in the bourbon business going back centuries, and recently resurrected by our friend Sam Medley and his father, who worked for decades at many of the most famous bourbon distilleries. Last year, they decided to set aside their 25 best barrels (out of thousands) that had matured for 8 years to be made available only to select whiskey clubs, and we were very proud to be selected for NYC, Los Angeles and Denver. Each chapter got together with Sam, tasted a bunch of special barrels, and took a vote to pick a favorite, this is the LA pick, which was bottled completely unfiltered and at cask strength (63.32%). It is delicious neat, and opens up beautifully with a few drops of water. Btw, in future meetings we'll be having more bourbon in the lineup -- didn't want you to think this lineup reflected a preference bourbon, in fact we're planning a field trip to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in September which you're all invited to join!
Capon Espadin Rezpiral Mezcal - Drammers Exclusive Selection. While we certainly mostly drink whisky at Drammers Club, we're open to trying any spirit that demands attention, and we love mezcal in particular, organizing an annual trip down to Oaxaca for Day of the Dead each October (which we've done for the last 3 years). In that time, we've met tons of great mezcaleros, and invited some of them to come speak at our club (we hosted the maestro mezcalero behind Noble Coyote mezcal last week actually). This brand, Rezpiral, really got our attention, and we've had several of our members go to Oaxaca to volunteer for their rare agave fields, which they give (as in for free) to family-owned mezcaleros and then buy back the mezcal at market prices in an effort to support these independent producers, many of whom are the best in Mexico. When they came to present at our NYC chapter a year ago, this particular product stood out as our favorite, so we arranged for a Drammers-exclusive batch. We'll explain the process in more detail at the meeting, but it is a difficult process that results in an extra-sweet agave, and we had it rested in glass for over 6 months (also unusual) resulting in something truly special.
That's our lineup, and one helluva lineup if we do say so ourselves! We hope you can join, please be sure to RSVP (www.drammers.com or charlie@drammersclub.com).
LOCATION: EVR Research, 310 Granite Ave, Richmond VA 23226
Best regards,
Charlie Prince and Drammers Club!