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Omniboire

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@Victor
Victor started a discussion

I am an omniboire. I like the better examples of every style of whisk(e)y. I find that I go through phases or 'seasons' of wanting to drink whiskies of a certain type, malt whiskies, ryes, bourbons, wheated bourbons, Irish blended, Canadian blended, blended Scotch, etc.

Many whisk(e)y drinkers lack either the experience, the inclination, or the opportunity to like a variety of whiskies. For those who do appreciate a wide variety in their whisk(e)y-drinking, do you find that you have 'seasons' --lasting weeks, months, or years-- of being drawn to one sort of whisk(e)y or another?

9 years ago

24 replies

@Maltmaniacmate

I've made it a rule in my house to always have 5 bottles open and those 5 are always: 1) an unpeated Scotch 2) a peated scotch 3) an US bourbon or rye 4) an Irish or a world whisk(e)y. 5) a blended whisky. That way I keep an open mind and force myself to explore different sorts of whisk(e)y. So I don't really allow myself "seasons", but of course I still have them and I would say that they actually often follow the real seasons. A change in the weather can also trigger a change in my taste of whisk(e)y. However, with the system that I have I operate not so much with seasons, but rather with "moods". So for instance if I'm watching an American film I often feel like a bourbon. If I'm reading a book or contemplating something I often go for the scotch. When I have a friend over who's not much of a whisk(e)y drinker I will put the Irish on the table. Both blended whisky and Irish whiskey is also a great "starter", to get the palate ready for the stronger stuff...

9 years ago 0

@bourbondrinker

Hi Eugene. I too have those seasons. Mine usually last a month and I shift to different types of whisk(e)y based on my mood. I could even have an empty month -no whiskey at all, then I crave a specific type. Some times I have a "break" with Zivania (a local distillate from grapes, also called Tsipouro or Raki in Greece and Grappa in Italy) or with a sweet wine Commandaria which is the oldest wine in the world. Last month I was on rye... ow I'm back to bourbon and reeealy enjoying that Blanton's !!! Cheers!!

9 years ago 0

@Frost
Frost replied

You raise a great point @Victor. I am open to all good whisk(E)y and do find myself in moods for particular styles at certain times. Generally I am happy to have any I enjoy when the mood strikes.

9 years ago 0

@OCeallaigh
OCeallaigh replied

I absolutely do like every style and go through phases. I just went through a peaty phase and am starting into a really simple unpretentious whiskey phase. Bourbon, Irish, blends, etc.

I don't really understand people who don't appreciate more than one or two styles of whiskey. Maybe they just drink it less often, so they don't have the need for variety... oh well.

To each his own!

9 years ago 0

@maltster
maltster replied

I definitely go through different periods with all my spirits (Whisk(e)y included). There is of course the more heavily wherried/peated bruisers in wintertime and the more delicate spirits in summertime but last summer I fell in love with chilled Laphroaig - it´s so refreshing so I played with some other bourbon cask aged peaters and their temperature. As I have quite a lot of opened bottles and samples usually I find a good one out of my current moods and then I search for similar or complementary taste. Currently I am thoroughly enjoying the very fruity style (Ben Riachs, older Glen Keith, Bushmills,etc.) and my heavy sherry style season is slowly ending as I lust after my beloved waxy/farmy and salty style of Clynelish/Brora/some Springbanks etc. My Talisker season has never ended since I discovererd this distillery many years ago and I am always in the mood for very old blends from the 50´s and 60´s as they offer an old style flavourprofile.

I have seasons influenced by current taste preferences and I have ongoing staples for different moods - when I`m feeling exhausted but in a good mood I usually tend towards bourbons with a singing rye overtone. When I´m traveling and find myself at a bar or lounge in the evening I usually try to discover something new but I almost always start to have a Johnnie Walker Black Label -it´s like seeing an old friend.

9 years ago 1Who liked this?

@Fiberfar
Fiberfar replied

Whisk(e)y, beer and even certain food items. I usually find myself drawn to heavily flavoured whisky and beer in the autumn and winter, and lighter variants in the spring and summer. That said, I have no problem enjoying a Russian Imperial Stout or a bottle of Corryvreckan in the summer, but it's more likely to be something with a different palate or expression.

9 years ago 0

@Alexsweden
Alexsweden replied

I don't perceive my tastes as seasonal but I am an omniboire in the sense that I am able to enjoy good quality be it whisky, cognac, rum, mescal or whatever.

9 years ago 0

@Alexsweden
Alexsweden replied

I don't perceive my tastes as seasonal but I am an omniboire in the sense that I am able to enjoy good quality be it whisky, cognac, rum, mescal or whatever.

9 years ago 0

@JoeVelo
JoeVelo replied

Oh yes! I really much like peated whiskies during the harsh Québec winter. I will also drink rums neat in winter just to get a feel of the caribbean sun warming my cold blood. In summer, I tend to drink whiskies lighter in taste. I would taste a bourbon or a rye by the campfire

9 years ago 0

@AndyC
AndyC replied

I don't have any sort of preference of whisky for the different seasons, but I'd certainly agree to experiencing definite shifts in the types of whisky I want to drink.

For me, I think this is about really getting drawn in by a particular sort of whisky by identifying a feature of a particular whisky that I really like. For instance, if I have a whisky that has a powerful woodiness that I really like, I often find myself then seeking out very woody whiskies and loving that flavour in them. The same for salty whiskies, peaty whiskies and sherried ones. I don't really seek out very sherried whiskies at the moment, but went through a phase a while back of being very into them.

For me, it's about being focused in on that particular taste and its interaction with others, but either one or two of these features combined (like peaty/salty; peaty/oaky; sherry;spicy) seem to really grab my obsessive seeking for the dram that I like most along those lines.

The train of experience-seeking can be somewhat tenuous. For instance, I've had a very strong leaning towards peaty whiskies recently at the expense of others, but then a recent obsession with the woodiness of laphroaig quarter cask drew me to seeking virgin oak finished whiskies, and then getting a very strong taste for bourbons, which i then started enjoying a lot more than i had before from having a different experience of the virgin oak in bourbons than I had previously had. I definitely notice a bit of a diminishing in how much I like whiskies that I had previously been obsessed with when I find some particular element like sherry or brine or barley or woodiness appealing.

I just hope I never grow obsessive about old whiskies, cause that would require me to do some really stealthy buying to hide it from the wife.

Apologies for this being a bit ranty and unstructured! (IF you have made it to the end that is. If you haven't, and are just reading the end, thinking blah, blah, blah, is this guy going to say anything worth reading, this apology doesn't apply.)

9 years ago 2Who liked this?

@Victor
Victor replied

I had a 'season' recently, lasting about 18 months, during which I drank almost exclusively malt whiskies. During that period I had a lot of trouble getting back into, especially, rye whiskeys. I wondered for awhile whether I would ever enjoy ryes or bourbons the same way again. Turns out I do like the ryes,...and the bourbons, just fine again. It was a phase during which my exploration was making it easy for me to dwell for an extended period within a set of related taste profiles.

9 years ago 0

@Nozinan
Nozinan replied

I think over time I am developing a respect for a variety of spirits. I'm also open to trying new ones I come across like the Lambanog my nephew brought back from the Philippines.

I do get an inclination for one or the other, but it's not seasonal. It's more weeks to week.

9 years ago 0

@Victor
Victor replied

@OCeallaigh, I was in a bit of an Irish phase not too long ago. I love that Tullamore DEW Phoenix. Bring me more blended Irish at 55%!!!

Currently I've been re-visiting my first real whiskey love, rye whisk(e)y: Sazerac, High West Rendezvous, Jefferson's, Alberta Premium, Knob Creek, Jim Beam Green Label. A couple of days ago my sister opened a new bottle of Wiser's Legacy. Damn, that's good!

9 years ago 0

@Jules
Jules replied

Good rule, @Maltmaniacmate!

And yes @Victor, it gets to the point of being silly with me - some weeks I'll proclaim that I no longer drink sweet sherried Scotch and only really enjoy a good peat-monster or a nice dry rye Whiskey - then a few weeks later I'm singing the praises of cask strength GlenDronach again...

Oh the incongruous nature of the Whisk(e)y lover...!

9 years ago 1Who liked this?

@Nock
Nock replied

I am nowhere near the level of omniboire that @Victor is. However, I am a fellow member of the “Big Flavors Club.” I enjoy many beverages (and foods) that are bold and full flavored. That said I absolutely go through phases and seasons. But they rarely follow the seasons of the year!

When I first got into single malts I was in a light, crisp, citrus phase (Glenmorangie, Oban, and Glenlivet) that lasted for about 5 years. I then shifted into a sherry cask phase for 3 years or so (Macallan, Dalmore, Aberlour). But starting with Highland Park 12yo I quickly dove down the rabbit hole of peat (Talisker, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, and Laphroaig). I have remained largely in this peat phase for the last 10 years or so. I have occasionally broken away to enjoy Bourbon, Rye, Gin, Rum, and Armagnac for brief seasons. However, I always seem to come back to peat.

This past summer I was enjoying some unpeated more malt forward whiskies (Benriach 10yo from the 90’s, The Laddie TEN, and Glen Moray 12yo). My palate really wanted simple. And I think I drank a ton of Grant’s Family Reserve (a fantastic blend for the money).

Starting just before Christmas I really got into Rye and Bourbon phase where that was about all I was drinking from December until March. In fact I have only come out of that in the past few weeks . . . and for some reason my palate has turned toward sherry influenced whiskies. This is unusual for me . . . but I am going with it. If I am not drinking a bourbon I am drinking something with sherry. I am finding that it really takes about a year or more of a bottle being below the half way mark for a whisky with sherry influence (full matured or finished) to reach a place I enjoy.

Currently I am contemplating a bottle of Highland Park Dark Origins . . . I know it has mixed reviews, but it sounds like the sherry and peat are both dialed way up. Further, I am curious about the sulfur that Jim Murray and others are finding. I still can’t decide if I am immune to sulfur, if I love it, or if I hate it.

9 years ago 2Who liked this?

@sengjc
sengjc replied

I too transition through different phases where a particular style (or sometimes multiple styles) will dominate but not exclusively. I maintain a wide range of different whisky styles almost all the time: peaty, bourbon cask, wine cask, sherried, blended. Of late, I have added bourbon and rye to the mix.

9 years ago 0

@Victor
Victor replied

As an Omniboire I have hundreds of bottles of disparate styles of whiski and other spirits lying around. Most of these bottles were purchased at a good price when there was no large disincentive to buy a bottle of something rather than pay 500% markup for a drink of whiski at a bar. I am a "waste not" kind of guy, and, while I don't mind giving away bottles to people who will appreciate their contents, I prefer not to dump bottles down drains or give them away to the non-appreciative. I hope to consume all of my bottles one day, though that day will be a very long way off. In the meantime I have high hopes to have a "season" to get excited about rediscovering the appeal of long owned bottles that makes me look forward to drinking them again.

I've always enjoyed the low-ABV NTDCL Bowmore house style (NTDCL = Non- Tempest, Devil's Cask, or Laimrig) well enough to enjoy drinking them, but when the time to pour a drink comes along, they have almost never competed well against the many All-Star bottles which I also own.

Well today is the second day in a row I have been drawn to have a dram of Bowmore Legend, a now-discontinued, thought to be 8 yo OB Bowmore which is bottled at 40% ABV. Bowmore Legend was released c 2009-2011. I am liking it quite a lot today, as I did yesterday. It is quite a mystery, is it not, how we like something one day, don't want to drink it for most of the next 10 years, and then find a day later when we are ready to accept and enjoy it again? Life is spontaneous!

2 years ago 4Who liked this?

@casualtorture

I just noticed this discussion, I guess I'm an Omnibore although I generally don't care for things that are triple distilled.

For Scotch, guess my "typical" pattern is that I like lot's of big peat/heavy sherry when it's cold and/or rainy/gloomy and I like lighter stuff during summer (lighter sherry and bourbon cask).

Bourbon and rye are good all-year-round picks for me and I have access to a lot of variety so I can explore the varied bottom/mid shelf stuff frequently.

I'll throw beer in here just because. I love dark beer in general, but especially in winter. Imperial Stouts and Belgian tripels/quads are my jam. During summer I like Gose, Pilsners, and sours. But I'll drink anything other than an IPA (bleck).

2 years ago 2Who liked this?

@Victor
Victor replied

@casualtorture thanks for joining in. I used to like IPAs a lot, but over time have grown not very fond of them. Why, exactly? I really don't like hops bitterness. I like most whsky peat bitterness fine, but hops rub me the wrong way when they are strongly emphasized. Usually, with beer I tend to go for the clean cut straightforward malty malts without frills, or for the toasty/roasty porters and stouts. For me with stouts, though, the bitterness gets to be too much pretty quickly. I like stouts which are sweet, neutral, or slightly bitter, Guinness excepted. I'm just about the only person I know of who dislikes Guinness Stout. Every time I have some all I taste is caramel. It's just too much caramel for me. If I am to drink a Guinness product it will be Smithwick's Ale, which I like a lot.

2 years ago 3Who liked this?

@casualtorture

@Victor McCreary's is a Guinness certified Irish Pub in Franklin near us, and I'm not sure what makes it "certified" (they have it up on the wall), but they have the best Guinness I've ever had on draft. It is super creamy and malty. Not sure what they do to get it like that but I'd love to learn. I make the 20min drive just for that.

2 years ago 3Who liked this?

@casualtorture

@Victor I did have the blonde and didn't care for it. I do want to try that milk stout though. I'm usually a sucker for a good lactose brewed stout.

2 years ago 2Who liked this?

Liked by:

@OdysseusUnbound@Maltmaniacmate@Fiberfar@OCeallaigh@paddockjudge + 1 others

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