Kentucky at last: Knob Creek Hollywood Barrel

It’s a grotesque oversight that I have not gotten to my fair home state’s glorious produce until now.  I apologize, and expiate:

Intending to avail myself of the positively silly current post-off on Eagle Rare 10 year, I stopped in at one of my regular haunts, Hollywood Liquor Store, to survey their new digs.  They’ve moved a few blocks west of their erstwhile location, into a gigantic old carpet warehouse that, so far, gives the unfortunate impression of shopping for one’s sippin’ corn in an airport terminal.  Snarkiness aside, they remain among the best two or three locations for whisk(e)y on the east side of Portland.

It was either testament to this or clever marketing (both?) that they offered a “private selection” made by Knob Creek to their specifications; apparently they were given the choice between several different blends, and chose the one they preferred, which they offered in an attractive flip-top tin.  Unlike the regular bottling, this selection is finished in a plastic screw-cap.

It’s good!  Brash, bright, and unabashedly Kentuckian, accurately described by the staff at Hollywood as a bit smoother than the standard Knob 9-year, this is an excellent value at under $35.  It’s got that trademark Knob heat- you know you’re drinking whiskey here- with all the big flavors that that entails, but wrapped round with a compelling complexity and multilayered sweetness, without ever straying into the realm of the cloying.  

Further, Knob occupies a special place in my heart: before I fully embraced spirits, I would usually have a bottle of Hendrick's Gin and Knob Creek on top of my fridge.  Though I rarely partake, gin is still my white spirit of choice, and Hendrick's, with their lovely rosepetaled iteration, have a winner.  But I fell hard for the amber elixir, and it's nice to see that the whiskey that I considered top-notch before I knew a damn thing is still pleasing to me now.  Knob is big, and hot, and not for everyone- I might call it the Laphroaig of bourbon, for that reason.  That's almost certainly also why I like it so well.

Knob Creek 9-Year (Hollywood Barrel)

nose:  Tropical and green, like the freshly-torn outer flesh of a ripe coconut; 1980s-era elementary school textbook;  potpourri of dried rose and lavender, salty red-hots

palate:  Hits the tongue like a molten yellow gummi bear and immediately gives the lie to the notion that whiskey need ever be flavored.  The midpalate is lush with crushed peppermint leaves, caramel apple, and sweet, sophisticated maraschino cherries, with a long finish, warm as woodstove, of candied orange peel, savory herbs (bay leaf, thyme), cinnamon, white pepper, and cedarwood.

Laphroaig Triple Wood, 2012 ed.

Laphroaig Triple Wood 2012

Another salvo from the good people of Laphroaig, the Triple Wood is released without statement of age; I’d suppose it to be relatively young.  Basically an extra-matured iteration of their Quarter Cask, the whisky first ages in used Bourbon barrels, then in smaller, 18^th-century-style European oak casks, before finishing in Oloroso Sherry butts.  I was really excited to try this when first I read about it, but when I finally got my hands on a bottle, I was initially left a bit nonplussed.

I had expected an olfactory hybrid of Speyside and Islay, but this dram was something altogether different.  My first impression was that it was a little oddly put together, almost jangly in the mouth, like an awkward teenager, all knees and elbows.  The Quarter Cask is not my favorite Laphroaig, and upon opening, the Triple Wood clearly showed the same ashy, almost industrial smoke. 

That said, as I worked through the bottle, and it saw more and more air, it knit together and became quite delicious, just as the Quarter Cask eventually did.  The more overtly petroleate smoke notes faded to a cleaner ash, and the Sherried sweetness came to the fore, wrapping its silky texture around the whole.  All in all, a fine single malt, if a bit spendier than I’d like it to be, at around $75, and certainly not something to which I’ll return again and again like their paradigmatic 10-year.

nose: Ashy, mossy smoke, spicy maritime pierwood; banana peel, pumice, and sweet lemon caramel; smoked salmon and tart green apples; a hint of nutty chess pie at the finish

palate: Hits the tongue sweet and lithe, with coursing flavors of saddle leather, Meyer lemon, green papaya, blood, ashy heather, and salty flesh, with a long, ringing outro of bright citron, butterscotch, and seawater.  The muscular angularity of the 4er cask all done up in lemons and lace; a basket of apples and roasted nuts next an old campfire by the seaside

Slieve Foy 8-year (Irish Single Malt)

Slieve Foy 8 yr. Irish Single Malt

Irish whiskeys are so distinct from those produced in Kentucky, or Scotland.  They're lighter, brighter both in hue and taste, with characteristic herbaceous 'green' flavors, and an almost thirst-quenching quality unmatched by whisk(e)y from anywhere else.  Thinking of this, and looking in my cabinet, I realized that I needed an Irish, and lawksamussy did I find one!  Serendipity and an often-misplaced penchant for improvisation led this time to fine fruits.  This nondescript bottle had crouched in my periphery for long enough... my hand wavered over the Jamie's 12 (a favorite), and moved to the left.  A sheaf of great online reviews nudged it on its way.  I was not disappointed.  A must-try for aficionados of that island's golden whiskey, this is a dangerously drinkable single malt, bottled at cask-strength (two or three drops of cool water per dram help it uncoil a bit).    Subtle, feminine, beguiling.  Yummy!

Nose: immediately reminds of fresh-baked bread, and muscat, high-toned, verdant, and tropical: banana, papaya, passionfruit; grassy and floral

Palate: briny pine needles, raw almonds, and Meyer lemon, unctuous white tea and juniperskin, heather and chamomile, with a maritime finish; and just at the end, fading, fading, a breath of mossy smoke...sneakily compelling, with an almost haunting aftertaste like a gloaming echo in a steep valley, the bright blood in your mouth as you trudge up its side

Islay have another! (forgive me, please)

All right, y'all!

I haven't been up on here in a few, and i apologize for the lapse... I'll be posting the notes I've written over the interim, so's we can all catch up again!

Here's a taste-off of my two favorite affordable Islay malts... Both compare quite favorably to Lagavulin 16, head-to-head, and though the Laggy is unquestionably the superior dram, when price is factored in (~ $85 for Lagavulin 16, ~$50 for the whiskies below), the jury remain stubbornly out.

Caol Ila 12 yr

Nose: A wave of honeyed citric tropicality: Meyer lemon and papaya; fresh apple cider… Maritime clay, creekmud, and franjipani… All coiled ‘round with sexy, briny campfire smoke.

Palate: Sweet speysidey roasted walnuts burst apart in smoky delicacy, with a concupiscent, briny hit that makes one unable to resist waves-on-basalt imagery… This hit flows on into more tightly wound, smoked salmon flavors that finally leave one with the slightest echo of the taste of seawater and kisses on the tongue.  An after-echo almost like gruyere.  Complex and compelling.

Laphroaig 10 yr

Nose: A higher-toned, ashy smoke with the marked aroma of heavily roasted oolong tea; crushed shells and tidewater sand.  Sweet, soft saddle leather that fades to old books and black peppercorns.  Grand-avuncular and somehow reassuring; masculine.

Palate: Immediate sweetness of raw almonds that shimmers into sylvan, mossy smoke, the black earth under a rotting cedar hulk; a much woodier, ashy smoke on the finish, showing pepper and cherryskins and then, just at the end, iodine blood, before finally breathing its last as a waft of marzipan

Glenlivet 15-Year French Oak Reserve Review

Glenlivet 15 Year French Oak Reserve Speyside Single Malt

Speyside scotch has been an utter epiphany for me; like John Grady Cole's first glance at Alejandra, my world was altered irrevocably (you'll, I hope, forgive my gratuitous Cormac McCarthy references).  This Glenlivet was the final nail in my old idea that scotch must taste of campfire; on the countervalent tip, I also understood why some Bourbons are compared to Highlands.  Gorgeous, seductive, and plush, this is something you'll want to roll around on your tongue for awhile.  A truly sexy single malt.

tasting notes

nose: grapefruit marmalade, crème brûlée, lemon cake, and fresh pineapple; warm banana bread with butter; a few drops of water release riotous Muscat-like floral complexity and a sweet tropical minerality: papayas and peppercorns

palate: a lush texture of molten honey, a cascade of mountain wildflowers; coconuts and fir needles, sweet lemons and turkish delight; it flaunts a long, sultry, feminine finish, all candied walnuts, dulce de leche, and toffee; a breath of white pepper and cherryskins on the very end... and then, improbably, twenty seconds later... lemon jolly rancher?  yum.

Ardbeg 10-Year Review

Ardbeg 10 Year Islay Single Malt


I'd been circling around Ardbeg for some time, eyeing it on the list at the Sapphire Hotel, eyeing it on the shelf while walking to the register with my Blanton's... Finally I grabbed a bottle- and have been delighted with what I found.  The 10-year is a big, smoky whisky, though not as muscular as Laphroaig.  I find, like most Islays, it benefits from a few drops of cold water.

tasting notes

 

nose: Salty maritime hit over cedarwood campfire; seaweed, black pepper and apple cider; a leatherbound chair in a library of old books

palate: Round heathery honey and cloves, lavender flowers and calvados, long dry outro of beeswax and saddle leather, with peppery smoke on the finish

H&T no. 1

 

HEARTS & TAILS WHISK(E)YBLOG       #1

6/11/2012

Greetings and salutations to the thirsty hordes of the greater north Willamette area, and beyond! 

Mr. Riggs here, back from a long hiatus during which I a) got out of retail, b) married a beautiful Alaskan girl,  c) got a crazy Doberman puppy named Grace, and d) started a new band. 

One important thing that happened (and I promise this is going somewhere; I just can’t promise where) was that, having fallen for said Alaskan, I changed my domicile, moving into a nice wee flat in leafy Southeast Portland.  Garage space, garden box- perfect, right?  Well, except for one polydactyl little detail: my wife’s cat.

I’m horribly, cripplingly allergic to this cat.  My ol-factory is on chronic strike, only ever running on about 80% capacity, and that’s moments after a hot schvitz.  Long story short, the big Roman nose on which I’ve hung my winescribular hat these last several years has largely deserted me, leaving  the subtler, sexier nuances of the vine just out of reach.  Don't get me wrong, I still love wine, it's just that I can no longer appreciate it in all its multifaceted finery.

Enter Bourbon.  Well, re-enter, I should say.  Having been born in Kentucky in the mid-1970s, my blood is at least five parts-per-million pure limestone-water Bourbon.  Years after high-school excesses and plastic cup after plastic cup of Beam and Coke on Duval Street in my early twenties, I found myself ever so slowly rediscovering what I inelegantly called “Kentucky wine.”  Her sultry, honeyed aromas soared right up through my constricted nasal passages and liberated my sinus from dandric oppression.  #swoon.

A long courtship ensued, and when my wedding was largely conducted while floating on two to five inches of Knob Creek, I figured I’d tie the amber knot as well as the nuptial one.  My new wife and I roamed through the sage and purple hills of eastern Oregon on our honeymoon, and kicked up our heels on the screen porch at the Frenchglen Hotel, my l’il flask ever close at hand.   When we got lost on logging roads in the Ochocos, it was there.  When capillaries of lightning fanned out across the desert sky, and the cottonwoods whipped and hissed over our centenarian ranch-house bed, it was there.  Hell, when I stumbled steaming out into the cool night air on a setbreak outside Mt. Tabor Theatre, it was there.  Warm.  Naughty.  Expansive.  

By the time we spent a week on the southern Oregon Coast in January, and I’d made a few pilgrimages across the CA border to salivate over (to me) breathtaking, serried row after row of water-of-life, it was on like donkey kong.  I grabbed a bottle of Macallan 12, and one of Eagle Rare 10; and damned if they didn't grab me right back.

Since then I’ve gotten serious about my hooch.  I approached it just as I’d approached wine; I focus on a given region or style for awhile, I drink thoughtfully, and I take detailed notes.  I watch how a whisky will open up over a few days, and weeks.  I note how stupid yummy sharp cheddar can be with a rich Bourbon.  I taste a smoky Islay without, and then with, a few drops of water.  I listen; I pay attention to what the spirit is telling me.  I’ve found that, as I gain knowledge, I also gain palate, and now a creamy, tropical Speyside gets me off at least as hard as any mineralriffic Arbois ever did.  More, maybe, for I find the art of distillation itself to be of massive interest… More on that later.

For now, I just want to say howdy, and welcome y’all back into my prolix fold (which isn’t nearly as dirty as it sounds).  I believe I offer a unique perspective which will greatly benefit those who have not yet begun to approach their whisk(e)y in systematic fashion: I have an educated palate, and years of experience in describing organoleptic impressions in print, but I am also a relative neophyte to the world of spirits.  My beginner’s enthusiasm is only stoked by every new dram I try- and I mean stoked- and I’m finding the answers to the questions that have plagued me as I tried to learn and hone this new knowledge.  Questions like: 

• ·         What’s single malt mean? 
• ·         Does Bourbon have to be from Kentucky?  
• ·         How do you pronounce Bunnahabhain? 
• ·         Are Oregon whiskeys any good? 
• ·         Should I take my whisky neat, or on ice? 
• ·         Why the hell are there two ways to spell that damn word? 
• ·         Will drinking whiskey make me more attractive?  

So.  Look here during the week for tasting notes, announcements of exciting new arrivals to our market, reviews of whisk(e)y lists around town, recipes, and general overlong ramblings.  I’ve been a busy dad, bartender, musician, and husband lately, but it’s time I get my “pen” back out and put it to use.  I’ve missed you folks, and look forward to making many more friends as the weeks go on.

yrs, 

Riggs Fulmer