Liquor appreciation group

[higgins]

I want to tell you about a group that I'm lucky to be a member of and encourage all of you to start up a group like this.

I had been meeting with a group of anywhere from 6 to 15 friends after work on Tuesday nights for dinner and beers for about 15 years. At the beginning most of us had been members of our local homebrewing club, but there were others who were not homebrewers. We started going to this particular restaurant because they offered $2 craft pints on Tuesday nights (this eventually evolved to $2 off regular price pints). About 5 years ago they added another Tuesday night special: any shot of bourbon, rye, irish, or scotch on the menu that was $10 or under was only $5, so of course those of us who like liquor started taking advantage of that as well.

4 years ago this month one of the guys (who is a big bourbon aficionado) invited a few of us to his place after dinner for a small bourbon tasting. This became a regular occurrence, and after a few weeks it was decided that it wasn't a good idea to drink liquor after dinner/beer/liquor at the restaurant and then drive home, so we decided to do it before dinner. It started with just 4 or 5 of us meeting regularly, but has grown such that we have about 15 members and see around 6 to 10 at each meeting. We started meeting at 3 PM on Tuesday afternoons (bi weekly) at this guys house. (NOTE: we were all retired, but if you still work it could be later in the evening). The only rules were that it had to be brown (even just slightly) and we would limit ourselves to five 1/2 oz pours (15 ml). You were not required to bring anything, but most of us would pick up a bottle to bring. As a group we would select the 5 we wanted to sample and would proceed to do so over the next 1 1/2 hours before going to dinner.

This has been one of the highlights of my life the past 4 years (with a couple of pauses due to the pandemic). In that time we have had well over 500 samples (at least 400 different ones) of brown liquors - Bourbon, Rye, American and Canadian Whiskey, Scotch, Irish, Rum, Tequila, Brandy, and others. Some of our members travel fairly often, so they now look for things that they can't get at home to bring to our gatherings. It has really opened my eyes as to the wide variety of things that are out there. And it got me interested in distilling.

So I suggest gathering up a few friends who enjoy sipping liquor and start meeting regularly. We thought it was important to establish rules to limit our intake, and settled on 1/2 oz pours of no more than 5 liquors over a 90 minute span. This is about tasting and discussing, not just drinking. There were no rules about repeat offerings, but once you start looking at what is on the shelves its pretty easy to pick out something you've not had before. And when you start to talk about these gatherings with other friends you may find others who would like to join in.

[jonnys_spirit]

Sounds like a really great ritual. Thanks for sharing this ! I’m going to borrow it and pay it forward with intent.

Cheers,
-jonny

[higgins]

I took a photo of our lineup at our gathering last night. I should have been doing this every time, but for some reason it just dawned on me yesterday to take a pic. We call it BLAST - Brown Liquor Appreciation Society Tasting. In 5 years we are now at 644 commercial samples (487 different ones), and 45 'experimentals'.

July 9, 2024

• Ron Zacapa Systema 23 Solera rum, Guatemala, 80 proof. Distilled from fermented cane juice.
• Starward Two Fold Australian Whisky, 80 proof. A blend of barley malt whisky & wheat whisky, aged separately in Aussie red wine barrels, then blended. Very good - much like a Scotch finished in red wine barrels. A member found this in New Orleans.
• George Dickel Bottled in Bond 13 yr Tennessee Whiskey, 100 proof.
• Woodinville Bourbon, 90 proof. Distilled near Seattle, aged in Central Washington where the temp fluctuations are greater.
• Still Austin cask strength rye whiskey, Austin TX, 116 proof. Mail ordered directly from Still Austin

A great lineup, as are most sessions.

If I get any positive feedback on this post, I will continue to do this every other week.

[Dougmatt]

Good to see the lineup Higgins. I’ve tried the Zacapa, Dickel and Woodinville before.

How was the Still Austin? I’ve seen that on a review channel I follow, but haven’t tried it. The Australian is very interesting. may need to try to find that somewhere / somehow.

Btw Steve B and I are still waiting on our invitation to BLAST ….

[higgins]

Dougmatt,

The Still Austin rye was a very complex sip, and quite friendly to the palate. Even though it is 116 proof and the label says 'aged at least 2 years', it was comparable to a much older whiskey. I gave it the eye test and there was a slight burning after about 20 seconds, so there is a touch of heads in it. At 116 proof and $65 a bottle, it is about my upper limit of what I can afford, but I'd buy it again. Next BLAST I'll be taking the Still Austin cask strength bourbon (116p, $60)

I just read a review on the Starward, and it gave it 3 of 5 stars. I totally disagree with that, and even though it is young (3 years) it is tasty and quite smooth (yeah, I know we aren't supposed to use 'smooth' as a descriptor - I guess I should say it 'goes down easy', or it's 'dangerously drinkable').

Our BLAST host lives an hour north of me (but then again EVERYWHERE is a minimum 30 minute drive for me), so I end up driving about 100 miles on BLAST Tuesdays. I can't imagine you'd want to drive 4-5 hours just for a 90 minute session. And SB is only an hour closer. However, our airport is only about 10 minutes from our host, and Delta flies there

[Dougmatt]

Thanks for the write up. I think I’m going to try and get a stillaustin bottle.

Maybe our next meetup should align with a BLaST session .