So, what are you drinking now?

As most of you know, I've had some pretty awesome opportunities to taste whisky through the years, but today tops them all. I am in DC for a work conference and had the opportunity to meet in person for the first time and to taste with @Victor and his lovely wife, @dramlette. Their hospitality and generosity were overwhelming. Since most of my whisky experience is with Scotch, @Victor shared some amazing American whisky in order to further my whisky education.

We sampled the following;

Van Winkle Special Reserve 12 year Lot "B" 45.2% ABV

Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve 15 year 53.5% ABV (2010 bottling)

The Buffalo Trace Antique Collection (following 5 bottles);

William Larue Weller Barrel Proof 67.3% ABV (2015 bottling)

Eagle Rare 17 year (bottled Spring 2015) 45% ABV

George T. Stagg Barrel Proof 71.4% ABV

Sazerac Rye 18 year (bottled Fall 2011)

Thomas H Handy Sazerac Rye Barrel Proof 63.1% ABV (2016 bottling)

Abraham Bowman Bourbon (distilled 12/14/94, bottled 5/11/12) 73.75% ABV

Willet 4 year 55% ABV

High West Double Rye Batch No. 3 Bottle # 1033

I couldn't pick only one favorite, but the standouts for me were the Pappy 15, Weller, Thomas Handy, Sazerac 18 and the Bowman. Amazing stuff!

Following a wonderful meal that @dramlette made for us, we switched to Tequila and Mezcal as this is something that I have wanted to try for a long time, but wanted to do so with someone knowledgeable. Again, @Victor was a wonderful guide and teacher.

Casa Noble Tequila Blanco

1800 Reposado

El Tesoro Anejo

Don Julio 1942 Anejo

Jose Cuervo Reserva De La Familia Extra Anejo

Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal Chichicapa

Mezcal Artesanal Mezcalosfera

The favorite for me by far was the Jose Cuervo De La Familia Extra Anejo

We finished with a couple of other spirits;

An 8 year Belgium Genever 50% ABV

Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor 58% ABV

Just having the opportunity to meet @Victor and @dramlette in person would have been enough of a treat, but having the opportunity to taste some amazing spirits with them exceeded all expectations. What an amazing day.

After that, I had the opportunity to go to dinner at Jack Rose Saloon which has over 2,600 whiskies available. In addition to some amazing food, a few of my co-workers and I had the following;

22 year (Nov. 14th, 1990) Rosebank (SMWS 25.64 - "Manzanilla Sherry Trifle") from an ex-bourbon refill hogshead. 59.8%

22 year (Sep 16th, 1992) Glenlossie (SMWS 46.31 - "Sniffing a bee's knees") from an ex-bourbon refill hogshead. 54.2% ABV

20 year (Nov. 26th, 1996) Laphroaig (SMWS 29.241 - "A Perfect Moment") after spending the majority of the maturation in an ex-bourbon hogshead, it was finished in a first-fill ex-Oloroso Sherry Hogshead). 49.3% ABV

Bruichladdich Octomore 6.2 (5 year - 167 ppm) matured in a Limousin oak cask 58.2% ABV

My co-workers preferred the Glenlossie, but I really liked the Laphroaig and Octomore.

Thanks again to @Victor and @dramlette for a very special time together. They are very special people!

@OdysseusUnbound Funny... I had a 200 cc bottle of Lag 16 and enjoyed it. When I had a dram of it at a restaurant I had the same experience as you seem to have had.

@bwmccoy, thank you very much for your very kind words. It was a great joy for us to meet you.

@bwmccoy Sounds like that would definitely fit under EPIC TASTINGS

@Nozinan, yes, I suppose so. The way I look at it the list speaks for itself. Most of our tastings chez nous et chez @Maddie are like this. I am more inclined to use the Epic Tastings Discussion listing for gatherings of multiple individuals, and particularly for gatherings of multiple individuals who do not often get together for tastings. .

N.B. regarding @bwmccoy's list: small items of useful additional information:

1) the George T. Stagg was the 2012 release.

2) the 4 yo Willett was a Rye, from Barrel # 1475. This particular sample came from @Nock's bottle. Thank you, @Nock! We do also own some bottles of Willett Family Estate Rye of our own

3) for those not given to subtraction, the Abraham Bowman Bourbon 73.75% ABV release is 17 years old

4) Sazerac 18 yo Rye is bottled at 45% ABV

@Victor Thank you for the additional details.

I also want to thank @Nock for sharing the Willett sample with @Victor and thanks to @Victor for sharing it with me.

@bwmccoy, your time spent with @Victor and @Dramlette is a session that will certainly not be forgotten soon. The Nats game, N. Potomac and Jack Rose visits is one hell of a trifecta!

....pssst, just between you and I, my favourite from "The Maryland Sessions" was Abraham Bowman Bourbon 69.3% distilled 01-1993 and bottled 09-2011.

@bwmccoy, the Abraham Bowman to which @paddockjudge refers was from the very first release of Abraham Bowman, in 2011. The bottle from which we drank when @paddockjudge was here was @Maddie's, and consumed at @Maddie's house. @Dramlette and I do also own a bottle from that release which remains unopened.

Not whisky, but after being away from my wife for 2 days and 1 night (which felt much longer), we shared a lovely bottle of Carmenere from Chile tonight. Not an expensive wine (approx. $ 20) but one we enjoyed tremendously.

@OdysseusUnbound - Also not whisky for me tonight, but some co-workers and I went to a great restaurant in DC tonight called Oyamel. After my tequila tasting with @Victor yesterday, I felt confident enough to order 2 flights of tequila for my co-workers and I to share. We tasted the following in order;

Casa Noble extra anejo single barrel (Barrel # 464, bottle number 214 of 300)

Seleccion Suprema De Herradura extra anejo

Diablito Certified Organic extra anejo

Fuenteseca Cosecha 2013 Tequila Blanco 100% de Agave Azul Huerta Singular

Juan Coronado 2013 Special Edition Maestro Dobel Tequila from a Hungarian oak barrel # 8457, bottle #40

Del Maguey Iberico Santa Catarina Minas Mezcal

My 3 co-workers and I all agreed that the Diablito Certified Organic extra anejo was the best of the 6, followed closely by the Seleccion Suprema De Herradura extra anejo.

Longmorn 20 CS, ex-bourbon, AD Rattray

@OdysseusUnbound Nice choice with the carmenere - it's got an interesting history. I've only ever had a couple of bottles myself as it's not commonly found over here.

@MadSingleMalt that Longmorn sounds great. Is it a newly opened bottle or one you've been working on for a while?

Cracked open my newly purchased bottle of Springbank 10 and it was love at first taste. I knew this would be in my wheel house and it hasn't disappointed!

@Hewie - Enjoy! Did you get the old or new label in the end?

@Hewie, Springbank 10 is soooo good! I was just thinking a moment ago how freeing it would be, in a way, to have drunk down my whole backlog of unopened bottles and be living a breezy carefree whisky life of just grabbing another bottle of Springbank 10 whenever it's time for a new one, and maybe mixing it up with an Islay every so often. I think I'd be just as satisfied with that as I am with my current big ol' hoard.

I recently found out that a guy at work was developing a taste for scotch, and I suggested Springbank 10 as his next destination. Yada yada yada, his bottle's empty and now he's a member of my whisky club!

@Hewie, that IB Longmorn is good in the same way that Glenlivet 16 Nadurra is good: straightforward powerful honeyed golden ex-bourbon goodness.

But for me, I'm not really loving it. I'm glad it's only a half bottle. It has no flaws—it's just uninteresting. I'm gonna pour off a big portion of it into a sample bottle for a friend.

I opened it this past July to taste alongside my club's sherried Longmorn 12 from G&M. Even at 43% (versus CS) and 12 years (versus 20), I like that club bottle from G&M way more. I supposed it's the sherry—it's just way more interesting.

@RianC I went to a shop where I knew they had some with the old black labels. I pulled them out of the boxes and there were 2 from 2014 and one from 2010. I grabbed one from 2014 as you can't guarantee how they've been stored over those years and 8 years of uncertain storage may have left me with a less than stellar bottle. Funnily enough they tried to tell me the older one would be even better now due to the extra aging ha ha. @MadSingleMalt I completely hear what you're saying about satisfaction. I was thinking as I nursed my dram that if my circumstances changed I too would be completely happy with this as my 'one' bottle. That Longmorn bottle sounds good, as I do enjoy ex-bourbon aged whisky, but it's interesting that your preference was for the 12. I know some can come across a little straightforward but that can also be their beauty. My bottle of Arran 10 (ex-bourbon, 46%, NCF, no added colour) is developing an intriguing musty lactic note to offset the fruit. It reminds me of the inside of a chardonnay wine cask (yes- I used t have a few barrel ends lying around which I intended to use to make things from). So yes, they can get boring but I find that they can also have a something special in their lack of peat and sherry. I know that you like big, bold flavours so can understand different preferences - and rightly so.

Hot tub + cigars + whisky with a couple friends. The question is - peated or sherried??

@nooch, one of each

@nooch I agree with @paddockjudge - what is this 'or' ? Enjoy

Friday night dinner with my Aunt and uncle. My uncle is having some health issues where he can't really have alcohol very often, and I'm wondering how many more times I'll be able to "Scotch" with him.

I think he's not keen on having too many bottles open so the choice today was between Balvenie 14 YO Caribbean cask and Dalwhinnie 15. He chose the 'whinnie so I said what the heck. Usually not a big fan but tonight it was just right. I guess it's more important who you have it with than what it is...

@Hewie @paddockjudge both it is!!!

No whiskey tonight - had to work late, and have an early day tomorrow so just settled for a bottle of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout beer. Tomorrow night, I'm planning on maybe Laphroiag or Ardbeg...

It’s amazing how the weather plays a role in what I reach for. Last night in Southern Ontario the weather was perfect for the warmth of sherried and peated scotches I might not reach for on a hot summer day. Octomore and a cigar hit the spot last night.

@Hewie - Good stuff! I find Arran has a slight musty note to it. I guess it's the dunnage warehousing? There's a Ralfy vlog somewhere on line where he visits Arran distillery and I'm pretty sure James MacTaggart (head distiller) says they send all their new filled casks to Bladnoch for the first couple of years or so and are then returned to the modern dunnages at Arran.

He reckons that the conditions are similar but they (Bladnoch) have old style dunnage and this imparts into the finished product. Interesting . . .

Polishing off the last couple of drams of Balvenie 12 SB. My little lad has just popped his toy rabbit's foot into my dram while I was glued to the golf . . . ah well, at least he didn't drink it

@nooch - I'm exactly the same! We just started with the cooler weather a few weeks back and out came the big peat and sherry whiskys; but we've had a warm week or so and I'm back on the lighter, fruitier malts now.

Beer, Bourbon, and Bar-B-Q event yesterday in Leesburg, Virginia. We did this one last year and it was great. This year's had a lesser number of interesting whiskeys, it seemed, but the whole pig barbecue was enjoyable. After tasting with @bwmccoy a few days ago this one was more of a Minor Feast Day:

The really good ones:

1) Sagamore Spirit Cask Strength Rye, 56.2%, probably still MGPI sourced, still lovely

2) Woodford Reserve Cask Strength, 62.75%

3) Balcones Single Malt

4) Blanton's Original Single Barrel, 46.5% up to par for Blanton's

5) Jefferson's Reserve Groff Cask-- it better be good at $ 100+

6) Four Roses Single Barrel, OB, up to the usual high standard

The good ones:

7) George Dickel Rye

8) Bulleit 10 yo Bourbon

9) Rittenhouse BIB Straight Rye

10) Speyburn 10 yo Single Malt. YES, this Speyburn 10 didn't suck! What a surprise!

The pretty good ones:

11) Mullarkey Bourbon, NAS, 45% ABV, from their distillery in Bristow, Virginia. This is the only new whisk(e)y that I got to try today, unfortunately. I go to these things primarily to get an inexpensive taste of some things of which I do not want to buy a bottle. This was OK, but I wouldn't buy a bottle of it. This tastes to be 12 to 24 months old

12) Koval Single Barrel Rye, 40% ABV, Barrel # FV2J32. I think that this was only my second taste of Koval Single Barrel Rye. Another "OK, but I wouldn't buy a bottle."

13) Ezra Brooks, 45% ABV, from Luxco. Below average for Ezra Brooks, which I usually like a lot. Maybe an 83 point whiskey

14) Jim Beam Green Label Pre-Prohibition Style Rye Whiskey, 45% ABV. This batch was less weird than the one bottle of this I once had, but still was just OK. Maybe an 83 point whiskey

15) Balcones Baby Blue Blue Corn Whiskey, 46% ABV, tolerable, but no great shakes. These Balcones Blue Corn Whiskeys are a lot better at higher ABV

The not so good ones:

16) John E. Fitzgerald Larceny, 46% ABV, wheated bourbon from Heaven Hill. This is my third sample of this from three different batches, and they have all tasted rough. What gives?

17) Rebel Yell, 40% wheated bourbon from Luxco. Another "meh" batch of standard Rebel Yell. One year ago at the same place I tasted a very good batch. Buying Rebel Yell is a crap shoot

I quit at a mere 17 products tried, despite having 2 1/2 more hours and 20+ more whiskey products available, along with 60 beers. Both @Dramlette and I did get some nice free Evan Williams Bourbon baseball caps and T-shirts. The weather was near-perfect and we always have a great time with the people we meet at these events. I don't remember what I paid for it back in January, but it was somewhere between $ 37.50 and $ 49 per person, Bar-B-Q meal included