The Best Kind of Homework

I'm working on a review of seven year old Auchentoshen bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.  If you want to see if my opinion of Auchentoshen matches yours, get to the store and pick up a bottle!  Try the Classic or the 12 year old.  Check back for a full review next week.

Lessons from the Golf Trip

I just got back from a golf trip to central/southern Pennsylvania.  Twelve guys, three nights, and 90 holes of golf.  The number one question I got from people leading up to the trip was, “are you bringing whisky?”  Of course I was bringing whisky!  I think the majority of the group ended up trying a little bit of the bottle and receiving it well.  It made me think of a list of rules for bringing a bottle of whisky on a road trip:

1. Get a GOOD bottle – You don’t need to break the bank on a 40 year old Highland Park for a trip to Chambersburg.  Just a good bottle, representative of the distillery’s products will do.  I chose the 10 year old from Ardbeg.  Avoid the plastic bottles for the trip.  Get something people will actually enjoy.
2. Bring a full bottle - There’s always less whisky left in an open bottle than you remember, so make the trip to the liquor store and get a fresh bottle in the box (easier to travel with anyway).
3. Share it – This is a great opportunity to expose whisky to friends who may not be familiar with it.  Give them a small sample and see what they think.  It’s a nice, risk free way for them to try something new and you’ll be spreading the word.
4. It’s a golf trip, not a whisky tasting – Not everybody needs to bring a bottle on a road trip.  We’re not doing a tasting event, we’re enjoying a drink.  Figure out the people who are bringing the bottle(s) ahead of time so the rest can take care of other supplies.
5. Bring your own glasses – For the first time, I packed up a bunch of glencairn glasses and packed them with my whisky.  Not relying on the “complementary” plastic cups from the Sheraton Four Points ended up being a good call.  The glasses added to the experience, discouraged mixing the Ardbeg with Diet Coke and made us feel more like grown ups than over-sized college students.
6. Finish it – You don’t want to drag a bottle back with you from a road trip.  Make sure you’re generous enough that it doesn’t come home with you.  If no one wants the last dram, I’m pretty sure you’ll know what to do.

So, that’s it. Follow these rules and a bottle of whisky will add a nice touch to your road trip or golf trip.  Enjoy.

Best of the Web

I thought I’d include a list of some of my favorite recent whisky articles and some good links for useful information on whisky:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6667949/pappy-van-winkle – just to prove to you that I’m not only interested in scotch, this is a really enjoyable article about a hard to find bourbon and why people love it.

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/how-the-world-fell-in-love-with-whisky-20110618-1g8i8.html – An explanation of the current scotch phenomenon.  Not living in the UK, I was surprised to has learn that its popularity was on such a steep incline there as well.

In addition to the occasional article, I use these websites regularly to research purchases and this blog:

http://www.scotchwhisky.net/ – this is my go to reference site on the internet.  All of Scotland’s distilleries, organized alphabetically, as well as regionally, to give you a nice overview.

http://inebrio.com/thescotchblog/ – this blog, from Richmonder Kevin Erskine, while not adding content since 2010, is a good reference for articles and information.  I also recommend Kevin’s book, The Instant Expert’s Guide to Single Malt Scotch.  I correctly answered a trivia question on Kevin’s blog a few years ago and he sent me a Johnnie Walker hat, so there’s that.

http://maltmadness.com/ – one of the best reference sites on the web.

http://www.whiskymag.com/ – yes, there’s a Whisky Magazine.  It’s a wonderful magazine which covers all of the world’s whiskies, and has articles from some of the world’s greatest whisky writers like Dave Broom, Dominic Roskrow, Jim Murray, and the late, great Michael Jackson.  The website also contains a wonderful database of information and reviews.

http://www.maltadvocate.com/ – yes, there are two whisky magazines.  This one is published in America by John Hansell.  John’s blog, “What Does John Know?” is a must read.