Jack Bettridge
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Fight Fire With Drink
Posted: Apr 26, 2011 12:00am ET
As a New Englander, I never expected to feel
as though I were stepping out on a limb by taking an anti-Royalist
position. But even here in the cradle of liberty the pending nuptials of
a future British king is fomenting so much excitement that you wonder
why we bothered with the War of Independence only to slaver over every
detail of the very pomp and circumstance that we fought to free
ourselves of.
My wife says it's "because it's so
romantic."
Which apparently trumped all the "give
me liberty of give me death" bravado I could muster, because on Friday
morning three females in my house plan to switch on the television at
dawn to watch the furtherance of empirical tyranny walk down the aisle
in guise of romance.
Well, if you can't
beat them, ridicule them, I always say. So I'll be there to kibitz,
make fun of the wedding gown and strike a blow for freedom in the only
way available to me at four o'clock in the morning: by mixing a drink.
This is a
strategy that-unsurprisingly-has occurred to a number of others, even
those who don't take my curmudgeonly view of the festivities. I've just
been informed that Berry Brothers & Rudd, the London purveyor of
wine and spirits that gave us Cutty Sark, has joined forces with The
Bitter Truth, a German outfit (after all Prince William has much
Teutonic blood on his father's side) to suggest a few cocktails
using-again unsurprisingly-their products. Given my for taste for gin, I
normally wouldn't have a problem with Brit hooch, except this one day
I've set aside for protest. So I'll be drinking neither the Ginger
Royale (is that the Ginger Quarter Pounder translated for the metric
system?) nor the Wedding March, but see below for recipes.
A more to the
point wedding drink (especially given the obsession with the fertility
of the royal lineage) is an ale apparently created with Viagra by the
British brewery BrewDog. Three bottles of Royal Virility Performance is
said to deliver the dosage in one of the little triangular pills. The
brew is also laced with other aphrodisiacs, including horny goat weed
and chocolate. Of course, that's out of the question for me as this will
be a family viewing and I can't risk another incident.
A Proper Wager
Posted: Mar 31, 2011 12:00am ET
When state colleges meet in important games it always seems to generate the sort of gubernatorial bravado in which the states chief executives wager something emblematic of their state on the game. The Washington State governor might put up a bushel of vaunted apples against a sack of the famed potatoes from Idaho. The Dairy State, Wisconsin, could bet cheese for some corn from Illinois or Iowa.
But what of the meeting between the universities of Connecticut and Kentucky on Saturday in the NCAA men's basketball semifinal? The governors—respectively Dan Malloy and Steve Beshear—in an uninspired piece of betting have put up for stake ice cream from Connecticut and country ham from Kentucky.
Are they new here?
What sort of a pantywaist gamble is that? Connecticut's not known for ice cream. And country ham for Kentucky? Maybe, but shouldn't Virginia be putting up country ham? If Connecticut bets Kentucky, the stakes have to be cigars versus Bourbon.
At least that's what immediately comes to my admittedly jaded mind. But come on, this is clearly a nanny-state-politically-correct decision. I'm a Connecticut resident and am badly embarrassed by this wager. It's not bad enough that we produce some of the best wrapper tobacco in the world and then basically ban smoking in the state, we have to put ice cream in a wager. What's next, you won't be able to drink Bourbon in Kentucky, but you'll be allowed all the ham you can eat?
Malloy! Beshear! Have some cojones.
And, "Go, Huskies!"
Let There Be Ice
Posted: Jan 10, 2011 12:00am ET
It may be that winter just dumped another six inches of snow on me or that I received a press release from Johnnie Walker Gold Label touting its "ice pillar," which is a packaging sleeve intended to keep the whisky cold, but I'm thinking about strategies for cooling beverages this frigid morning. No, I haven't had a drink, yet!
Chilling alcohol-especially whisk(e)y-is such a touchy subject for some that you sometimes feel like you're advocating breaking one of The Ten Commandments when you ask for a few cubes in your drink. I've been chided by a certain venerable master distiller of Scotch, whose name will go unmentioned, for even suggesting the idea with one of his malts. (I responded with my standard quip that the only reason not to use ice is if you've the lost formula-to which I got a blank stare.) On the other hand, now another Scotch maker wants to enable me in my quest to bring down the temperature of its blend. So whom am I to listen?
I'm leaning toward Mr. Walker on this one. Not that I'm advocating chilling your Scotch against your will, but I feel if you want it a little frigid, you should have it that way. Then again, I tend not to be very rigid about how people have their drinks in general. If a guest-for some bizarre reason of his own-asks for root beer in his Cognac, I'll give it to him. I just won't pour him XO. When you take drinking too seriously you ruin the whole point of the endeavor.
But the urge to cool alcohol I don't consider bizarre at all. Clearly, cold drinks are a refreshing summer staple and most cocktails call for chilling-even those as "serious" as the Manhattan and Martini. So why not cold whisk(e)y?
The best argument against it is the damage that ice can reek as it thaws. We've all been over-served ice, especially the minuscule machine-type or crushed ice that you get in some bars. As the ice quickly melts, the drink is immediately diluted beyond recognition and you are left holding a sad excuse for a drink. But all ice is not the same, and certainly formidable chunks won't ruin your whisk(e)y, assuming you drink it fast enough-which I'm always careful to do. (As a member of the Maker's Mark Ambassadors program, I was mailed an ice tray as a holiday gift that makes ice spheres the size of a baseball that can outlast anything I pour into an old-fashioned glass with it.)
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Feeling Scotch
Posted: Nov 19, 2010 12:00am ET
I'm not much with digging into my emotions, yet I think I'm having one right now. My wife says it's guilt, but I'm not sure I trust her because that's what she thinks I always should feel.
Anyway, it has to do with all this Scotch I've been drinking-specifically some of the greatest single-malt whiskies in the world. It started when I toured Scotland in June, visiting Glenlivet, Glenmorangie, Glenkinchie, Macallan, Cardhu and Laphroaig, all in the space of a week. Everybody was generous with their most outrageous malts, but we had one especially idyllic experience on a boat off the shores of Islay, sipping 30-year-old Laphroaig as we looked in at the distillery on the shore, puffins flying by and seals diving off of rocks. Thank you, John Campbell.
This sort of Scotch immersion hasn't stopped since as I've written a column in Wine Spectator on the subject, my Cigar Aficionado story is in the current issue and I'm in the midst of tasting just about every malt imaginable for Wine Spectator. Not only that, I just hosted a cigar and malt pairing at the Big Smoke Las Vegas with six (count 'em, Auchentoshan Three Wood, Glenlivet Nadurra, Macallan 18, Glenmorangie Signet, Bowmore 15 and Ardbeg) single malts.
But wait, there's more: A month ago Bowmore visited with an opportunity to taste its 40-year-old and the trilogy of Black, White and Gold. These are all classics of exquisite qualities and I teetered on the verge of a psychic explosion as I tried them in succession.
Then last week Malt Advocate, our new sister publication, hosted its WhiskyFest, which offers dozens of malts and also brought on a handful of separate tasting opportunities. Richard Patterson invited me to a dinner for Dalmore's new Mackensie release and he snuck me a chance to taste the 40-year-old: a mind scrambler.
So when Michael Herklots of the New York Davidoff store called me the other day to go to a cigar and Glenmorangie dinner, including master distiller Dr. Bill Lumsden, I was feeling an embarrassment of riches. I couldn't possibly take advantage of another Scotch tasting like that. How could I justify hogging yet more malts when people are forced to drink sake in Asia?
Martin Miller's High Life
Posted: Oct 25, 2010 12:00am ET
I rarely encounter promoters who admit they don't know much about making their product. But I did Thursday in the person of Mr. Martin Miller, who is just recently getting around to promoting his own gin.
Miller, if you don't know, is a Brit entrepreneur who is a self-described dabbler. He started by publishing Success With The Fairer Sex, went on to promote rock concerts and try his hand at photography before creating Miller's Antique Price Guide. In 1999, he turned his sights to making a spare-no-expense, premium gin, which at the time was a far crazier venture than it might seem today. Vodka was king and getting more powerful. Gin had been losing market share for years. "The perception was that it had had its day," says Miller. But he saw the vodka market as too crowded and decided gin was where he wanted to put his name down—literally. Now two such spirits, the standard Martin Miller's Gin (80 proof) and the Westbourne Strength (90 proof)—are branded with his moniker.
Of course, the popularity of classic cocktails has now turned gin into a must-have ingredient for anyone who claims to keep a passable home bar. The young mixologists who were proponents of the movement looked to the past to forge the future, and revived the traditional recipes that date past Prohibition. What they found was that most of the cocktails in which vodka is so often substituted—first and foremost the Martini—called for gin (vodka wasn't even generally available in the U.S. until the late 1930s).
So Martin Miller stepped in it at just about the right time. But what's this about his not knowing anything about gin? He claims he doesn't, and his ignorance doesn't stop there. Miller's lips part and his formidable teeth reveal themselves in a devilish grin: "I knew nothing about antiques or publishing when I started." But he and some friends had an idea: that the world needed a good gin. "I'm not really a worker," he says, "I love concepts."
Your Scotch Aha! Moment
Posted: Oct 12, 2010 12:00am ET
As immersed in single malts as I've been lately—a trip to Scotland that has me writing back-to-back feature stories in Cigar Aficionado and Wine Spectator—it's little surprise I've become obsessive (my wife says excessive) on the subject. One of the things that fascinates me about malt (and malt drinkers) is the aha! moment.
Everyone seems to have one—anyone who can remotely claim membership in the international brother-and-sisterhood of single malt Scotch lovers, that is. It was that instant when you first really connected with malt. It wasn't necessarily your first-ever dram of malt. In fact, it probably wasn't. But it touched you and left you forever enamored. The gates opened and you saw the light, a convert.
Single-malt is like cigars in that they are a journey of discovery. You warm up to their charms in steps. And then one time, you take a sip or draw a puff and you just get it. Their depths of flavor reveal themselves to you and after that you never approach a dram or smoke the same way. You begin to identify flavor notes more easily as you have this frame of reference in the aha! malt or cigar that opened your eyes.
What's interesting is how often that change comes in one moment, with one revelatory cigar or malt. I know it did for me. I've started collecting stories for possible inclusion in the Wine Spectator story I've mentioned above. If you'd like to share, please send me an account of your personal aha! moment in our drink forums by clicking here.
A Spirited Fantasy Camp
Posted: Sep 8, 2010 12:00am ET
The problem with fantasy camps is they all assume a level of experience or ability that I don’t have. You probably want to have swung at a fastball some time recently before you go off to baseball camp to face down a major league pitcher. And if you’re going to rock’n’roll fantasy camp, you might first want to have spent some time jamming with other musicians, not just strumming chords in your basement while the cat wails.
Now, a lucky few are going to enjoy a fantasy that is right up my alley. The Glenrothes single malt Scotch is holding a contest that will determine four winners to attend a week-long experience at its distillery in Speyside, Scotland in May. They may not call it a fantasy camp per se, but that’s how I’m thinking of it.
Winners learn the art of creating “Scotland’s quintessential elixir,” says the promotion.
Yes!
Skills acquired will include: testing the water source, milling, mashing, fermenting and distillation. Not only do you lay down casks for maturation, you also get to nose them to select whisky for bottling your own selection of The Glenrothes, labeled with their own hand-written tasting notes.
I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds better than getting chin music from Nolan Ryan.
Ronnie Cox, The Glenrothes brand heritage director, who will host the event, says the physical level of involvement will be based on winners’ fitness levels. “We’ll fit the tasks to the person. Nobody is going to get crushed by a cask.”
Even better. I won’t even have to pack my back brace.
The contest will start October 15 and winners will be chosen from entrants who visit www.theglenrothes.com/whiskymaker and tell the judges why they are uniquely qualified to undertake this exciting, immersive task.
If “immersive” is the operative term here, I think my qualifications are obvious, given my personal level of literal immersion in the liquid subject matter. But I’m not trying to sway the judges—yet.
Branching Off the Label
Posted: Aug 31, 2010 12:00am ET
Just got a bottle of Basil Hayden’s Bourbon (which I adore) and rather than drinking it, I was perusing the label (which I generally deplore, but I’m on duty, and sometimes you have to learn about liquor the hard way—through reading).
That’s when I came upon these words: “You’ll find Basil’s at its best when sipped STRAIGHT or with a splash of branch water.” It’s a message with which I generally concur. At 80 proof, Basil Hayden’s is mild enough (“gentle” is the word on the label) that you can easily drink it NEAT (I like to reserve the term STRAIGHT for the Bureau of Alcohol Firearms and Tobacco’s legal definition of Bourbon: at least 51 percent corn in the grain recipe, aged at least two years in new, charred-oak barrel with no coloring or flavoring added). And if I were to add water (which is actually allowed under the legal definition), it probably wouldn’t much more than a splash so as to savor the unusually high rye content in the Basil Hayden’s mash.
But what of this “branch water”? You hear the expression all the time in old western movies when cowpokes come off the dusty trail, belly up to the bar and ask for Bourbon and branch water. “Bourbon and branch” was also J.R.’s favorite bar call on Dallas, television’s great paean to greed and corruption in the Texas oil industry (except that I think it was dislocated—isn’t Houston about oil and Dallas about cowboys?)
I’d never really thought much about what branch water was, so I went looking for edification in that the great resource of truth and other things that are sometimes, maybe true: Wikipedia. There I found my choice of definitions.
First was:
• Water from a stream (a term primarily used in the southern United States).
Now I have a brook in my decidedly not Southern back yard, but that’s out. First of all, part of the water comes from runoff from a roadway up the hill and, second, well, frogs, you know…swim in it. Besides my well water isn’t even that good and that’s been filtered through the earth.
Release The Kraken!
Posted: Aug 20, 2010 12:00am ET
…and the Sailor Jerry and the Cruzan 9 and the Black Beard and the Seven Tiki.
Spiced rum, a drink category that virtually didn’t exist before Captain Morgan stormed our shores in the early 1980s, is, well, spicing up the market. New brands are joining the fray and pulling it in new directions.
Which, oddly enough, I think is great.
I’ll admit I’m not the preferred-customer profile for the spiced variety of sugar-cane spirit. Normally you’ll find me lurking in the extra-aged end of the rum pool. But I always applaud category excitement. The rising tide seems to raise everyone to new heights. And you can always expect redefinition of what a drink can be—translation: novel options. If you doubt, just consider what happened to the whiskey world when single-barrel and small-batch Bourbons started turning that category on its ear.
But what can you do to spice up spiced rum? When you’re talking about a spirit whose major presence is personified by a seventeenth century Welsh privateer who sports a saber, a cape and a tri-cornered hat, a lot has to do with image. And the Captain mascot worked so well that sales have boosted every year since its arrival and Captain Morgan is now one of the top-selling liquors in America of any kind with unerring growth for its entire existence.
Well, if you want to trump the Captain for connection to the sea you have to get right in the water. Which is what The Kraken did. The label portrays a kraken, a mythical sea monster reminiscent of a giant squid, swallowing up a galleon from beneath the waves. When the rum hit the market in March, it got a serendipitous boost from the almost simultaneous release of the remake of Clash of the Titans. Possibly the only redeeming scene in the film is when Zeus, played by Liam Neesan, spouts the line, “Release the kraken!” and the beast slithers out.
Elwyn Gladstone, of The Kraken’s parent company, says the timing of the releases (I guess three in all if you consider the rum, the movie and the beast) was a “happy coincidence.” He hastens to add that the name has been floating around at least since the eighteenth century (Alfred, Lord Tennyson rhymed about it).
Another Slice of Heaven
Posted: Jul 31, 2010 4:45pm ET
Heaven Hill just sent me a pre-release of the whiskey maker’s latest Parker’s Heritage Collection, a series of four (so far) special releases that are a tribute to its distinguished master distiller Parker Beam. The good news is it’s excellent. The further good news is it will sell for $79.99, far more approachable to the wallet than the prior two releases ($200 and $150 respectively). If there’s any bad news it’s that there will be only 4,800 bottles for distribution in the U.S. as well as internationally.A 10-year-old, this whiskey is packed with flavor, but doesn’t have the pronounced woodiness that the earlier Parker’s released at 27 years was shouldered with. I found plenty of everything here—sweetness, spice, vanilla, caramel and maple—all layered in a kind of confection.
This year’s Parker’s is a wheated Bourbon from its Bernheim distillery, where Heaven Hill now produces Old Fitzgerald. While Bourbon is typically made with a grain recipe that includes more than 51 percent corn together with a mix of rye and barley, Old Fitzgerald substitutes winter wheat for the rye. That tradition dates to when the legendary Pappy Van Win Winkle owned the label. The Fitzgerald label came to Heaven Hill when it bought the Bernheim facility from United Distillers in 1999 after losing its own Bardstown distillery in a fire in 1996.
As a 10-year-old, the new Parker’s Heritage represents the oldest wheated Bourbon Heaven Hill has produced. (The Very Special Old Fitzgerald 12-year-old is product the company inherited from United Distillers.) The Parker’s Heritage is bottled at a cask strength of 127.8 proof (63.9 percent alcohol) and so has a pronounced tang despite the smoothness that wheat usually implies.
Heaven Hill's whiskies are all aged and bottled in its original facilities in Bardstown. The 52 barrels for this release come from the fourth, sixth and seventh floors of Rickhouse A. Beam says, “It has the caramel and smokes notes that only 10 years in the top floors of our rickhouses can produce.” The distiller adds that it is at this age and proof that a wheated Bourbon shows best.
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