Yesterday, I launched into a wandering and long-overdue meditation on the whiskies that, for me, made the long, grisly winter of ’12-’13 endurable. Yesterday’s post covered bourbon; today, it’s all about the Scots and the Irish.

When looking back on brown-booze season, it wasn’t all a bourbony blur around here. These are a few approachable, available and affordable whiskies that helped me span the gap between October and April.

* Aberlour A’Bunadh –  I was pitifully ignorant of Aberlour before 2012, but the happy coincidence of a visit to Seattle by Aberlour brand ambassador Ann Miller, and a visit of my own to the distillery last spring, made me a fan of this whisky.

The 10 year is a perfectly agreeable Speyside malt, a mix of whiskies matured in bourbon casks and olorosso butts (the same goes for its older kin), but A’bunadh is where Aberlour really shines: cask-strength, un-chill-filtered and entirely sherry aged, the whisky is silky and rich, with touches of chocolate and cherries and honey and all those reassuring flavors that remind you that, even in the depth of a blustery winter, liquid compassion can still be found.

* Dalmore 18 – A few years ago, I spent a day driving across the Scottish Highlands in a van with Richard Paterson, the master blender for Whyte & Mackay who deserves much of the credit for this whisky’s nonstop deliciousness. We drove from Edinburgh to the Dalmore distillery, blurry and beaten (at least I was) from a long night of oversampling the Dalmore Mackenzie expression. At the Dalmore, we tasted a handful of whiskies (including a particularly rare one that Richard dispensed by the dropper), poked around in the barrel warehouses, then skedaddled back to Glasgow before nightfall.

My head still faintly aches from that first, long night, but what I recall from the journey — and the reason the Dalmore 18 has earned a spot in my regular winter rotation — is the whisky’s oily lushness, its balance of coarse earthiness and bold fruit. All of the expressions of the Dalmore have this to some extent, but the 18 walks a particularly fine line between the soft nature of wildflowers and honey that you find in so many Highland malts, and the blustery ruggedness that’s bold enough to bolster you through the worst winter days, while retaining enough freshness of spirit to remind you of better times to come.

Bourbon is for shaking off the chill and settling into the comforting warmth indoors; malts like the Dalmore 18 help you pull the coat more tightly around your shoulders, and tell the wind and rain that they can just fuck off for today.

* Pretty much anything from Highland Park – Highland Park is the most Game of Thrones of whiskies.

Think about it: They’re making whisky at the northernmost distillery in Scotland, so they’d better know a thing or two about dark and cold and how to keep them at bay. Highland Park’s answer is to lace the spirit with just a mild lashing of smoke — not enough to make the whisky a brawling brute like the peaty bastards from Islay (though there’s plenty of room for those in winter, of course) — but enough to blow a little air on the embers of a drinker’s insides, a bold (but not too much) shove back against winter that can fan the flames in mind and body while soothing the season’s restlessness with honey, and grass, and toasted nuts and fruits.

My mainstay this past winter was the basic HP12. Why the 12 year? Because it’s what I have, and it works, and I can afford it. Go for the higher range if your inclination and your wallet allow — there is no disappointment to be found here.

* Redbreast 15 year – Because when St. Patrick’s Day rolls around, green beer is for suckers.

Redbreast has a lightness of character like the rest of its Irish brethren, but it also knows how to land a punch, its gentle flavors of honey and grass matched with a robust oiliness. Redbreast 15 year is as comforting as having breakfast with your grandmother, but as serious as having breakfast with the grandmother who can kill a mouse by flinging her shoe across the room at it without taking her eyes off the story she’s reading to the kids.*

(* actual example from my actual grandmother, who to the best of my knowledge never drank a drop of Irish whiskey.)

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Some people — okay, me — are of the mindset that brown booze is a year-round sort of thing, the kind of drink you keep in your glass on winter’s darkest evenings as well as summer’s brightest afternoons. But there are also people — okay, me again — who think that whiskey and other aged spirits are particularly well-suited for the cooler months, and make these spirits a staple of their October-through-April sipping, if for no other reason than to leave a few months open so all those gins, light rums and blanco tequilas in the liquor cabinet don’t start feeling neglected.

It’s been sunny and in the 60′s in Seattle, and this past winter was quite gentle in these parts, though snow and ice and traffic-snarling storms seem to have continued right up to Easter in other parts of the country. But with the season finally starting to shift, I thought I’d perform my semi-annual dusting off of the blog in order to tip my proverbial hat to some of my most reliable whiskies from this past season.

Note I didn’t write “essential whiskies” or “best whiskies” or “greatest whiskies you’ll never be able to taste” or any of such tripe (those ideas I save for my paid work– KIDDING! But not really…) —  but rather, these are whiskies that, over the past six months or so (with several making repeat appearances from winters past), have made it into my glass with such frequency that they deserve a generous pour of credit for keeping me from absolutely losing it during another gray, damp, moss-gathering Seattle winter.

I’m not listing anything exceptionally rare or expensive here — hell, some of these may come across as downright pedestrian — but especially during the winter grey, whiskey hour is regularly observed in my house, and if it was all Pappy 20 and Gordon & MacPhail selections around here, I’d be even more financially destitute than my questionable career as a booze writer already leaves me.

Anyway, here’s what kept me kicking during the bitter badness of the winter of ’12 – ’13; for the sake of readability and something resembling organization, I’m splitting this post in two, with the first covering American whiskies and the second, whiskies from Scotland and Ireland:

* Pretty much anything from Four Roses – You couldn’t buy Four Roses straight bourbon 10 years ago — not in this country, anyway. But one of the best things to happen to bourbon drinkers in the century thus far is the grand American homecoming of Four Roses.

What makes Four Roses so notable? How the hell should I know; it could be the two mashbills they use (one rye heavy, and one, um, not), or their five yeast strains, or the way they take these 10 bourbon recipes and marry them (or not) to make everything from Special Edition Limited Barrels (single yeast strain, single recipe) to the Single Barrel (ditto) to the Small Batch (four of the ten recipes) to the Yellow Label (a little dab of everything).

Again, how the hell should I know how they manage to pull flavor magic out of a pile of corn and rye — but whatever they’re doing, it works across their product spectrum, and the Four Roses Yellow Label is one of the few basic, entry-level (read: around $20 or less) bourbons I’ll drink all on its lonesome, though it does make a very comforting Old Fashioned. As far as the more premium bottlings — well, they’re just perfectly balanced, a nice mix of rye spice and corn sweetness with enough barrel influence to make it sugary and seductive without going over the hill into oaky astringency.

Four Roses? Anytime…

* Pretty much anything from Heaven Hill – Pretty much, that is; ignore the novelty items and the assorted vodkas, liqueurs and other spirits that help them pay the bills, and focus on the exceptional (and extensive) range of bourbons, rye whiskies and others (Mellow Corn! Bernheim Wheat Whiskey!) that Heaven Hill produces.

I’ll admit to sentimentality about Heaven Hill’s whiskies: the basic Evan Williams black label was the first straight bourbon I ever purchased way back when I was … well, let’s not get into that; Elijah Craig has been my workhorse bourbon in god knows how many Old Fashioneds in recent years; and Rittenhouse Bonded Rye Whiskey is goddamn Rittenhouse Rye, world without end amen — but my fondness for their whiskies extends beyond mere sentiment.

Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond has been dueling it out with Four Roses Yellow Label for ownership of my “everyday bourbon” shelf for the past few years. Wheated bourbon is one of my many weaknesses, and Old Fitzgerald has that wheated softness that I find so sultry, with a little fillip of sourdough tang to keep the whiskey from lapsing into somnolence. Last year Heaven Hill introduced Larceny Straight Bourbon — exactly the same stuff as Old Fitz, but bottled at a different age and a different proof, which gives the old whiskey a fresh appeal — and I’ve been known to nip into that these past few months for the occasional Old Fashioned or Revolver Cocktail. The only problem with the arrival of Larceny is now I have to keep an additional bourbon stocked in my house at all times.

While both of these whiskies are still in the very modest $20-ish range, depending on where you live, Heaven Hill also delivers very well at the higher echelons of bourbon: Evan Williams Single Barrel is one of the best bargains on the bourbon shelf, a lovely sipping bourbon that flirts around the $30 mark; and to show how much they care (and what they can do), Heaven Hill has been annually releasing blockbusters under the Parker’s Heritage Collection label. Last year’s release, the “Blend of Mashbills,” spotlighted the diverse skills of Parker and Craig Beam, but my favorite so far has been the cognac-finished bourbon from a couple of years ago. Exceptional aged bourbon with the fruity kiss of cognac? That pretty much eliminates the need for me to ever make the choice again.

* Eagle Rare Single Barrel Bourbon – Yes, Buffalo Trace makes a hell of a lot of good whiskey, and everything from the distillery’s eponymous bourbon to Handy and W.L. Weller makes it into my glass every winter, but Eagle Rare is the one I start to sweat about when the supply is running low.

This is such a gorgeous, balanced whiskey at a cheapskate-friendly price, which is what I’m usually looking for when I’m about to make a liquor run and I’m going through my pockets looking for misplaced $20 bills. Chuck Cowdery recently pointed out that Sazerac has shifted Eagle Rare’s bottle proof in recent years; this may have happened before I started keeping it on hand (or maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention), but Eagle Rare still delivers a much more complex flavor and rounded character than you’re likely to find in any other bourbon at a comparable price.

– coming in Part II: The whiskies from Scotland & Ireland that got me through winter….

Tags: Bourbon // Add Comment »

What, again?!

It was only a year ago that I spent a December afternoon at Rob Roy, igniting the contents of a punch bowl and dispensing Tom & Jerry as I did my best to dispel the bibulous bogeymen of ignoble holiday drinks.

The drinks were delicious (thanks to Rob Roy owner Anu Apte, who did the heavy-lifting work in the mixing department) and the company was superb. Unfortunately, it appears the rest of the world has yet to catch up, and sometime in the next few weeks, a well-intentioned host or hostess will unleash some candy cane-coated glass of freakishness to assembled guests, a misguided mess of merriment that will do more to pollute the spirit of the holidays than any Black Friday gunplay ever could. (Well, maybe that’s overstating it a bit, but still — try drinking one of these things and then tell me you don’t hate Christmas just a little bit.)

So, as part of my continuing efforts to purge the holiday season of crap-cocktail chaos, I’m dusting off (and somewhat revamping) my righteous outrage-fueled rant from last year, for something I’m not-quite-creatively calling “MORE Holiday Drinks that Don’t Suck,” as part of the SwigWell Drinking Academy at Rob Roy in Seattle.

Behold! There will be tequila, and bourbon, and stories of our ancestors’ drunken holiday sprees.

And rejoice! There will be Pierre Ferrand cognac and Plantation rum, mixed in a festive bowl and set briefly alight (as seen in the above photo from last year, taken by participant Walter Hodges), in a flaming punch encore performance sure to dispel the ghosts of vanilla vodka-soaked Christmases past.

And partake! In rich nogs and festive sours and an ugly sweater contest, with a Rob Roy gift card going to the attendee with the most god-awful Christmas sweater!

MORE Holiday Drinks that Don’t Suck takes place Saturday, December 8, from 1:00-2:30pm, at Rob Roy (2332 2nd Ave, Seattle). Tickets are $45, which gets you three drinks, a selection of snacks and cookies, and the opportunity to hear me gripe about bad drinks and celebrate the good for a whole 90 minutes, or longer if I forget to stop talking (it happens sometimes). Spots are limited, so be sure to RSVP ASAP by contacting Kristina@swigwell.com.

The date is coming up soon, so don’t delay. Make a day of it by taking care of your holiday shopping downtown in the morning, then swing by Rob Roy for an afternoon of curated cocktailing — after which, jousting with the masses at Macy’s will be, if not exactly enjoyable, then at least freaking hilarious.

Hope to see you there, and happy holidays–

Tags: Events // 3 Comments »

In the month-ish since I last updated, I’ve had thousands of visitors coming to learn more about ways to help Murray Stenson (a Twitter shoutout from Rachel Maddow and a link from the New York Times didn’t hurt), and an exponentially greater number of dollars have been raised to help this beloved Seattle barman with his staggering medical expenses — more than $130,000 raised at last count.

There’ve been fundraising events around the world to benefit MurrayAid, a fair number of them here in Seattle. But while the nights at Canon, Zig Zag Cafe and Lecosho (among many others) were tremendously significant, this weekend features the next major milestone: the Blur Ball, this Sunday, December 2, starting at 7pm at Batch 206 Distillery.

Sponsored by the distillery and by the Washington Distiller’s Guild, the Blur Ball is a big whomping benefit in a major venue, pairing some of the state’s best bartenders with its blossoming craft distilleries. There’ll be food, I’m told, along with a not-so-silent auction, with all proceeds from the event going to MurrayAid.

And the point of this post? Tickets are still available. C’mon, people, don’t miss out — between the featured spirits and the bartending talent in the room, this will be the best place in Seattle to get a drink on December 2.

Tickets are only $35 each — visit StrangerTickets for details and to purchase , and I hope to see you there–

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It’s not an exaggeration to say that if it weren’t for Murray Stenson, my career, and my life, would be disappointingly different.

A longtime Seattle bartender — most recently at Canon, and for much of the decade before that, at Zig Zag Cafe — Murray first got in touch with me in the summer of 2005, when this blog was only a couple of months old and my readership numbered, maybe, five cocktail-centric individuals with questionable taste in Internet browsing. Murray had stumbled across my blog via a comment I’d left on Chuck Taggart’s site, and invited me to come down to Zig Zag to geek out a bit about cocktails.

I did, and we did, and really, nothing’s been the same for me since.

Type “Murray” in the search window to your right and several pages of results will come up, with good reason: in the more than seven years that have passed since our first encounter, I’ve sat across the bar from Murray Stenson more than I have any other individual bartender on earth. During that time, he taught me about cocktails and spirits and all the assorted mechanics of mixology, but more importantly, he taught me how all this stuff isn’t what really matters.

Over the years, as I sat on a barstool across from Murray, he might occasionally mention a drink I wrote about on this blog or, more frequently, would introduce me to an obscure oldie that I’d then run home and blog about. But the blog post Murray remarked about more than any other was one from 2006 that had absolutely nothing to do with cocktails and absolutely everything to do with those sparkling, magic moments that happen when friends, acquaintances and strangers are all together in the unique social environment of the bar.

Without Murray, this blog would be depressingly flat. Without Murray, my skill — and my career — as a drinks writer would be weaker. Without Murray, my Wednesday evenings — which for years were (and to a certain extent, still are) my regular nights at Zig Zag — wouldn’t have been one of the highlights of my weekly calendar; they would have been, well, Wednesdays — the blandest night of the week.

Over the years, Murray demonstrated his endless patience with me, not just by tolerating my incessant cocktail-geek questions, but by putting up with me as I started bugging him with questions for articles I was writing. I used Murray as a source many times — for Imbibe, for the San Francisco Chronicle, and probably for stories I’ve forgotten ever writing. Over time, I shoved him more into my journalistic spotlight, as I did in profiles of Murray for Imbibe and for Shake/Stir, and in an essay I wrote in 2009 for the New York Times.

This is all to say that Murray’s given me a lot. And if you’re at all interested in cocktails and bars — and really, why are reading this blog if you’re not? — then he’s given you a lot, too, because this story I’m sharing about how Murray’s influenced me can be echoed by dozens of bartenders, bloggers, cocktail enthusiasts and others who enjoy relaxing in a bar, not only in Seattle but around the world, as well.

Now, it’s time to give something back to Murray.

Here’s the scoop: Murray has a heart condition, and may require intensive surgery. As with bartenders everywhere, Murray doesn’t have medical insurance, and he’s unable to work while incapacitated with this condition. Evan Wallace, a longtime friend of Murray’s, set up a MurrayAid page on Facebook, where people like me and you (hint, hint) can make a donation via PayPal to help defray Murray’s medical expenses. UPDATE: There’s now a website for the coordinated efforts to help Murray: murrayaid.org. Also, donating directly through PayPal, as described on the website, ensures your full donation will go to help Murray, without Facebook taking a cut.

Here’s what you can do:

• Make a donation to MurrayAid. (duh)
• Help spread the word — Murray doesn’t use Twitter or Facebook, but you probably do, so inform everyone in your networks of this issue and point them toward the donation page.
• Cocktail bloggers: roll up your sleeves and write. Mix yourself a Last Word and post something on your blog about Murray — even if you haven’t dusted off your blog in months, break it out now and get your readers to donate.
• Bartenders & bar owners: consider hosting a benefit or having a special that will raise funds to help Murray. “Like” the MurrayAid page on Facebook and post details of your event there. There are already benefits planned at Zig Zag Cafe on November 4 and at Paratii Craft Bar in Ballard on October 27 & 28, and those are only the events I know of right now — get on board, and make sure the word gets out. UPDATE: If you’d like to host an event, please coordinate with Jamie Boudreau from Canon in Seattle — an organized effort is a more effective effort. Jamie can be reached at drink[at]canonseattle{dot}com.

Murray’s done so much for the cocktail community over the years, and as I blathered above, he’s done a lot for me. Let’s help him out in this time of need.

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