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Hola amigos!
We're excited to announce the launch of our Drammers Merida chapter, our 2nd chapter here in Mexico. Drammers Club is an invite-only members club that started in NYC in 2013 and has grown to over 30 chapters around the world including Mexico City, across the US and Europe to Tel Aviv, Beirut and Mumbai currently, and we're very excited to expand today to include Merida! More information about the club generally is available at www.Drammers.com.
Our kickoff meeting in Merida will take place on Thursday, November 5th at 5:30pm (we'll start at 6pm sharp!), and the cost is 350 pesos/person (approximately US$17). Our longtime friend and fellow Drammer Isidoro is heading up the Merida chapter and has arranged a wonderful event which will take place at El Acervo Mezcalero del Sureste. Like at all our events, on Thursday we will taste through an array of special whiskies, mezcals and other spirits, including some that are rare and you'll likely never get another chance to try. Check out the lineup we'll be trying below:
Balcones Single Malt Whiskey Finished in an ex-Apple Brandy Cask. Sometimes our club is given the opportunity to buy special one-off barrels of whiskey just for our members, and earlier this year we bought 2 experimental barrels, both of which we'll be trying at our Merida kickoff event. This is made just like a scotch -- 100% barley, on a "pot" still unlike the "column" stills that are dominant in Kentucky, but because the distillery (and the barrels!) are aged in Waco, Texas, where it is much hotter, the whiskey matures at a much faster rate (the heat causes the whiskey to expand into the barrel and absorb the wood flavor much more quickly -- it also sees evaporation as high as 10% a year vs. 1.5% on average in Scotland). Balcones specializes in single malts, and as a one-off experiment, they transferred one of their best single malt barrels into a barrel that used to hold apple brandy, where it absorbed some of those sweeter apple brandy notes (this is called "finishing" in the whiskey world). There was so much evaporation, that the barrel only yielded 126 bottles (normally you'd see more like 220), and was bottled at 64.5% abv.
Balcones True Blue Finished in an Ex-Tequila Cask. This is the 2nd cask we selected back in March, this time a corn whiskey finished in an ex-tequila cask, which has generated a lot of excitement amongst our members and is nearly sold out. It has a nose like Halloween candy corn, palate like buttered move-theater popcorn, fruit rollup, spearmint, and the tequila notes start to show at the end. This barrel saw even more evaporation, only 114 bottles, so there was a lot of air in the barrel oxidizing the whiskey into something truly unique. If you'd like more information on each, we have about 7 hours of videos up on our website under the Video Library tab, first the recording of us walking around the warehouse tasting and selecting the barrels with their team, and then when they arrived, a 4 hour discussion with their master distiller Jared Himstedt, who we're fortunate to call a good friend of the club. 56.6% abv.
Sierra Norte Yellow Corn Whiskey. It's a bit of a puzzle that Mexico, with its unparalleled, rich history in corn, does not have more whiskeys in the market, but that's starting to change. Last year, during our annual trip to Oaxaca to meet the great mezcaleros, about 7 of us went to visit Douglas French, the master distiller behind Sierra Norte, which shocked the world when its yellow corn Mexican whiskey was named one of the top 20 whiskies in the world by Whiskey Advocate. We'll delve more into Douglas' story on Thursday, but it's a wild one (he has been making mezcal for decades under his "scorpion mezcal" brand long before its recent resurgence. 46% abv.
Sierra Norte Black Corn Whiskey. In addition to the Yellow Corn whiskey, Douglas has also released a white corn, black corn, purple corn, red corn, and he's just in the process of finalizing a green corn variant. He scours seed banks the world over to find heritage Mexican corn varieties, then grows them until he can isolate enough stalks from cross-contamination to make a dedicated whiskey from it. Note that unlike the True Blue whiskey from Balcones, this is 85% corn, 15% malted barley. Our club had the honor of being the first in the world to try his green whiskey during Muertos last year at his distillery in Oaxaca, and he visited our NYC chapter last December where our members there got to try it, along with his other varietals. Everyone has different favorites, but this black corn whiskey, which has a darker taste, with perhaps shades of chocolate and roasted coffee, emerged as a particular favorite. 46% abv.
Dakabend Mexican Rum (aged and unaged). Last week our club traveled 5 hours outside of Oaxaca centro visit an exciting mezcal palenque, Mezcal Tosba, who we're planning to do more with in the near future. But on arrival we were delighted to learn they also had a rum brand, with both unaged clear rum (which is available in the US), plus 3 barrels of aged rum (its been aged 3.5 year and has not been released anywhere). They generously allowed us to bring a bottle of each to taste at our Merida kickoff meeting. We don't have an exact abv on this, but guessing 48% abv.
Rezpiral Tobasiche Agave Distillate. Normally our events will feature more whiskey, but having just wrapped up our 4th annual trip to Oaxaca to meet with and pay our respects to some of the great mezcaleros, we had to include a few mezcals in the mix as well. We've actually got a ton to try, but we can start with this, a batch we selected exclusively for our club after meeting with the mezcaleros last year. It is technically not a mezcal, since they did not engage the mezcal council to certify it for reasons we can discuss in more depth on Thursday. We are proud to work with this organization, Rezpiral, which (in addition to buying the mezcal at fair market prices) also shares 30% of the profits with the mezcaleros, which is unheard of in this industry. It is run by Alex White who we met with a few days ago at his experimental agave vivero in Tule, near Oaxaca. 46% abv.
Rezpiral Tepextate Agave Distillate. Female maestro mezcaleros are few and far between, sadly, but a few have emerged as true masters of their field, and we were delighted a couple years ago to travel to Berta Vasquez's home town and distillery to learn all about her mezcal. We selected this batch for our club, which we won't have in hand until probably December, but Alex passed along a bottle for us to share on Thursday in the meantime. 48% abv.
Gin Katun. Isidoro, our chapter head here in Mexico, has also arranged for us to try this special gin made here in Mexico by Bruxo mezcal’s founder Roberto, which he'll be telling us more about on Thursday!
That's our lineup! We hope you can join us. Please feel free to contact us with any questions, either directly through Isidoro, or here at Drammers Club (charlie@drammersclub.com).
Cheers!
Drammers Club