Spirited Cocktails

As the holidays hurl towards us at breakneck speed, deciding what to get for that special someone (or your parents, your siblings, your boss, your co-worker, your doorman, your super, your postman, and so on, and so on) becomes a challenge. I’m here to help, though mainly just by way of taking advantage of other people’s hard work.

First – let me talk briefly about scotch. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how scotch became the quintessential non-threatening, no meaning implied gift, but there it is. For some reason, Johnnie Walker Blue has taken hold as the guaranteed-to-impress brand. I actually do like Johnnie Blue, but let’s be honest – it’s a bit pricey, no? (At $150 per bottle, I’d say yes.) The folks at Chivas sent me a sample of Chivas Regal 18 to taste, as well as a sample of Johnnie Walker Blue for the sake of comparison. From my vantage point, they’re actually tough to compare, as they have very different flavor profiles. I find Chivas to be generally sweeter (in a caramel sort of way), with a nice smoky finish. With Johnnie Blue, the smokiness is more up front, and the sweetness that follows tastes more like bittersweet chocolate to me. 

Don’t get me wrong – both Chivas Regal 18 and Johnnie Walker Blue are fine blended scotches. But with Chivas 18 averaging $55 per bottle vs. Johnnie Blue at $150, I think Chivas 18 might give you a bit more bang for the buck. Just my two cents though.

As for other holiday gifts, for those not particularly inclined towards scotch (who are you, anyway?), there are many other options. I’d thought about pulling together a boozer’s gift guide, but so many of my friends have beat me to it, I thought I’d just go ahead and share some of my favorites:

-Hal Wolin of A Muddled Thought has been publishing an ongoing series on good gift ideas for the spirited individual in your life.
-Selena Ricks of The Dizzy Fizz has a two part gift guide: Part 1 with excellent DIY ideas, and Part 2 with a selected list of educational materials (you can never know too much about booze).
-Our friend James over at NY Barfly has a great list of places to drink over the holidays (we’re working our way through the list one by one!)
-Paul Clarke at Serious Eats has a very comprehensive list for the budding mixologist.

If you’re looking for something to buy the overworked and underpaid Spirited Cocktails staff (you know, me), I wouldn’t turn down my very own Meehan Bar Bag from Moore & Giles. Just sayin.

Happy holidays!

Cheers,

Josh

I love a good tweetup. As you probably know, I’m a Twitter addict, and I’ve met so many great people on the Twitter machine. Every once in a while though, it’s nice to crawl out of one’s cave and actually hang out with people in person!

Last night, we were lucky to have two amazing tweetups back-to-back. The first was the evolution of what has become our awesome monthly event (which began with our brown liquor tweetup in Brooklyn, followed by our clear liquor tweetup at Double Crown last month). This month’s tweetup focused on Rum – Tiki-style cocktails in particular. @Sweetblogomine was kind enough to get things organized at Elettaria in the West Village, which has a Mahalo Monday tiki special. My favorite of the evening was the Black Pearl – a twist on the Old Fashioned which includes Old Forester bourbon, Curzan black strap rum, demerara sugar and bitters. Outstanding.

As the tiki tweetup started to wind down, it was time to move on to Keen’s Chophouse for a tasting of The Dalmore, an excellent Highland single malt scotch. Organized by our good friend @livethelushlife and hosted by whiskey expert @the_nose, we were fortunate to receive an expert education on the proper way to taste scotch. Turns out I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time. We tasted both the Dalmore Gran Reserva and the Dalmore 15, both of which are outstanding single malts. The Gran Reserva spends time in both sherry and bourbon barrels, and turns out a bright, intense flavor with a sweet finish. The 15 year spends its time exclusively in sherry barrels, resulting in a more rounded, balanced flavor with a beautiful aroma.

Our good friend @halw also received an exclusive taste of a 1936 single malt, said to be one of the most expensive scotchs on the planet (at around $160,000 per bottle). He seemed to enjoy it :-)

You can read all of our tweets about the event by searching for #TheDalmore on Twitter.

Thanks again to @sweetblogomine, @livethelushlife, and @the_nose for hosting wonderful events! It was also great to see (and in some cases, finally meet!) so many Twitter friends, including @brooklynwino, @shotsandcuts, @halw, @daisy17, @meredithmo, @csmcbride, @paystyle and @selenawrites.

Cheers!

I had the good fortune to attend a tasting last night of Macallan scotch. This wasn’t any ordinary tasting though – this was a Twitter Tasting! My cocktail-blogging colleagues and I took a break from our AA meetings to all get together in one place, taste amazing scotch, and broadcast our feedback via Twitter in real time. Our tweets were projected onto the wall so we could keep up with each others feedback, and the best part is, the entire conversation is preserved under the Twitter hash tag #Macallan. So even if you missed us last night, you can relive the entire event (including my feedback on the Macallan, and some great conversation with @halw, @livethelushlife, @nybarfly, @ekeyNYC, and many others) on Twitter. It’s a beautiful thing.

Once you’ve caught up, send me a tweet and let me know what you think.

Cheers!