Cellar Scribblings

[serious crayons]

Interesting. I've never heard of putting carrots in CB&C.

I keep a bottle of Maker's Mark in the cupboard but I rarely drink it. I understand that's considered pretty good, but I really don't know much of anything about bourbons (witness my ignorance about Jack Daniels). Thing is, I rarely drink anything straight (no pun intended); I think that's what it's called. I'd drink the Maker's Mark that way, and also the Laphroaig (scotch) and Johnny Walker.

I'm a bit of a bourbon aficionado.  While I like Maker's Mark, my favorite is Woodford.  It's realllllly smooth.  Bulleit is my every day.
 Knob Creek is rather peppery. Nothing against Tennessee, but I've never tried Jack. 

Recently, I was parking the car, having dropped off my friend Joey at the Mews with directions to order me a drink--my usual is a Woodford Manhattan.  When I got there, I had a sip, and said, "What's this?"  It most definitely wasn't Woodford; rather, the bartender had recommended a Maker's special edition.  I couldn't drink it.

I didn't like any whiskey for a long time until my husband talked me into drinking it when traveling and staying in hotels, probably early '90s. We'd just have it on the rocks and pretend we were Frank Sinatra.

Now my preferred is Knob Creek, and Bulleit is my next choice. When making my sweet-potato-bourbon pie at Thanksgiving, I try to get Wild Turkey.  And I"m so glad I started drinking bourbon because I used to like brandy Manhattans and I got sick of brandy. Luckily, I like bourbon ones better.

Scotch lesson: Laphroaig  and Johnny Walker are known as Islay scotches. They come from western Scotland and have a wonderful smoky flavor, and you wouldn't mix that with anything. You'd sip them--preferably by a fireplace in your library while wearing a silk smoking jacket and smoking an expensive cigar. 

Glenlivet is a Speyside scotch (from the River Spey, in what I'd call eastern Scotland--at least eastern compared to Laphroaig and Johnny Walker). It mixes fine with water or soda which is how I drink it.

Of course in Scotland and presumably England, too, scotch is simply whisky.

As for Scotch, I've never really developed a taste for it.  I find it too thin, and some of the peaty ones taste like licking a dirty ashtray. 

I never developed much of a taste for it, either. But I haven't ruled it out, because I've suddenly developed tastes for other spirits before. I can drink a gin martini now, if I have to. And when in Glasgow in about 1992, I visited a whisky museum and bought a big cylinder of shooters of different kinds. Those were pretty good! Maybe if I get a smoking jacket and some cigars ... 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I wonder how Jack Daniels could be called an Islay Scotch whiskey since it's made in Tennessee, and their website doesn't mention using peat. Of course, Watson and Holmes were drinking Scotch whiskey but for Doyle to say that would be similar to saying they were eating a Cornish pasty from Cornwall.

It isn't. Perhaps my writing wasn't as precise as I thought it was, but it's Johnny Walker that's an Islay scotch, not Jack Daniels, which bills itself on the bottle labels as Tennessee sour mash whiskey.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I know very little about whiskeys. There was an article in The New Yorker a couple of years ago that went into the history of the drink and was very interesting. I've tried the "Islay" whiskeys made with peat and they're not my thing. The few times I've drunk whiskey (which means "water of life" in Gaelic) I've had Dewars blended whiskey, which comes from the Perth area.

Dewars is a perfectly unobjectionable blended scotch. It was my entry drug, so to speak. It's been so long ago now that I don't even remember why I tried it except I heard guys ordering it in the bar. But once you've tried a single malt, like Glenfiddich or Glenlivet, you can't go back to Dewars. Now Dewars tastes like dishwater to me--not that I've ever actually drunk dishwater. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

As for Scotch, I've never really developed a taste for it.  I find it too thin.

Wasn't it you who introduced me to Glenfiddich at the Boston Brokie weekend? Seriously--or was it someone else who brought it? Years on years I've been thinking it was you. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I can drink a gin martini now, if I have to.

Got that on me. I've never had a martini. I've been thinking maybe I should go to the bar at happy hour some day and try one--but it would be gin and vermouth.

[southendmd]

Wasn't it you who introduced me to Glenfiddich at the Boston Brokie weekend? Seriously--or was it someone else who brought it? Years on years I've been thinking it was you. 

As a good host, I would have offered Scotch to you, if that's what you had expressed an interest in.  Glenfiddich was simply the only  Scotch I had at hand.  I dare say how old it was...

[serious crayons]

Got that on me. I've never had a martini. I've been thinking maybe I should go to the bar at happy hour some day and try one--but it would be gin and vermouth.

In the mid-1980s, I went out with a coworker to celebrate our mutual birthdays. The coworker said she always likes to celebrate with a vodka martini and peel-and-eat shrimp. So I tried that and, much to my surprise, the vodka martini was very good! Now if I'm going to order a cocktail in a bar or restaurant that's usually what I (with occasional forays into Manhattans, Negronis and cognac). If there's peel-and-eat shrimp around or better yet raw oysters, so much the better.

I drink gin martinis when the occasion demands, as when my aunt and her partner used to drink them every day at 5 o'clock. A few times I have ordered one on purpose in a bar. I've never liked gin much, not even G&Ts. Maybe because that's what my parents drank so that's what I would choke down when I snuck into their liquor cabinet as a teen.

[Jeff Wrangler]

As a good host, I would have offered Scotch to you, if that's what you had expressed an interest in.  Glenfiddich was simply the only  Scotch I had at hand.  I dare say how old it was...

That's what it was. At least my memory isn't totally shot.