Federal Wine & Spirits

As I sit down to write, I think it will be quite impossible to describe Federal Wine & Spirits adequately. John had told me in the past about this unique store, but the picture in my mind’s eye was not even remotely close to the actual experience. Still, because it remains my responsibility, as this blog’s principal author, to describe unique and memorable whisky experiences, I’ll do my best.

Federal is found in the heart of downtown Boston, on the first floor of an otherwise nondescript office building, less than a block from the Old State House, and practically right along the Freedom Trail. In fact, with all the historical sights nearby, unless one looked closely in the window, and happened to see the forty year old Laphroaig sitting on display, one would hardly be inclined to enter Federal for any purpose, let alone for the purchase of malts which are perhaps otherwise inaccessible on American soil.

First the layout: Federal can’t be more than 150 square feet, including the area behind the counter, and the large cooler along one of the walls. There is a single rectangular wine rack in the middle of the store, displaying perhaps fifty wines, mostly moderately priced, and leaving room for no more than a single person in any of the tiny spaces between the rack and the shelves, spaces that hardly deserve to be called aisles. Half the shelves are stocked with wines, loosely organized; and the remainder with spirits, everything from the most ordinary everyday flavored vodka, to the most amazing inventory of malt whisky one can imagine. Behind the counter, the shelves reach up to the ceiling, with ever more esoteric and expensive whiskies as the shelves gain altitude. At the top, fittingly, there are forty and fifty year old malts, the likes of which I’ve never seen, anywhere. Not in any store; not on any menu; not even in any catalogue or web listing. I recall offhand the Laphroaig 40, and a Bruichladdich 40, and I know we saw more than one fifty, but the selection was so overwhelming that I could not keep track. On a shelf far from the top, indicating that these were nothing special, were two different Macallan 30s – one Fine Oak, and one Sherry Oak. Either one now sells for close to a grand.

The predominant difference, however, between Federal and any other store I’ve ever visited, was the selection of private bottlings. Dozens upon dozens of bottles of Blackadder, Duncan Taylor, Gordon & Macphail and Scott’s Selection. Because the private bottlings are usually shelved together, that means any particular whisky can be found in as many as a half-dozen locations. But that’s not even the most confusing thing about Federal.

Behind the counter, in boxes sitting on the floor, and on a couple low lying shelves, are dozens of open bottles, available for tasting, but thrown together with absolutely no organization. Which meant that every time the manager, Joe Howell, wanted to give us a taste, he had to search through anywhere from two dozen, to maybe one hundred open bottles of whisky, looking for that one malt we were seeking. It was the same process whenever we asked for something we wanted to buy – Joe would disappear for up to fifteen minutes, and then reappear, sometimes with a few malts to display, and sometimes empty handed. One can’t shop at Federal when there are any time constraints. It became the afternoon’s activity. Later on, we discovered why things went so slowly. Downstairs is Federal’s wine cellar, which they suggest you visit. So in one of the lulls, while waiting for Joe to return, we climbed down the narrow winding staircase, and found ourselves in a labyrinth of narrow aisles, with wine cases stacked to the ceiling, and again with little or no discernible organization. There might be a stacking of a dozen cases of some Bordeaux, each with a different name on it (John thought they were probably restaurateurs.) right next to a variety of Italian whites. In the back there was a cellar of sorts, with a half dozen wine racks displaying a wide variety of more expensively priced wines largely from Europe. But mostly, there were thousands upon thousands of cases of beverages, piled as high as the stone and cement walls would allow, leaving only a few inches of space for one wanting egress from this underground maze.

Once we had Joe’s attention, which took more than a few minutes, we told him we were looking for Bunnahabhain and Rosebank, but that we wanted bottlings we couldn’t find ellsewhere. He searched the shelves for a few minutes, and then disappeared downstairs for the first time. After ten minutes, he returned with two Scott’s bottlings of Bunnahabhain, both cask strength, one 16 years old, and one 20. He then found an open bottle of the 16, and offered each of us a taste. It was wonderful; only problem was that it was $160 for the 16, and who knows how much for the 20. (John says that Scott’s malts are always very pricey.) I told Joe that despite its quality, we couldn’t go $160 for a bottle. Sorry. He then disappeared for another ten minutes, and returned with the only bottle of Rosebank in the entire store, a 14 year-old Connoisseurs’ Choice, bottled by Gordon & Macphail. When Joe announced that we could have the Rosebank for $67, I knew our visit wasn’t a waste.

Over the next forty minutes or so, Joe searched for more Rosebank, which he couldn’t find; announced that he was expecting some cask strength Rosebank from Gordon & Macphail later in the week (This is the same bottling John previously located for me.); and gave us tastes of a few more malts. The first was Bladnoch, another Lowland malt, which has apparently resumed production after a decade long hiatus. It was actually quite similar to Rosebank, and wasn’t badly priced. But as our quest was for Rosebank, of which there is only a limited supply left, but which apparently hasn’t yet become overly fashionable, leaving the price moderate for a spirit of limited supply, and not just for a lowland malt, we had to decline the Bladnoch. Still, it’s worth noting that Jackson reviews several Bladnochs quite favorably, so perhaps sometime in the future, we can branch out. Later on, we were given a sample of Glentauchers, another very esoteric malt, which was notable mainly because Joe poured it from a little lab bottle with no real label – only a handwritten postage stamp listing the age and bottler. All in all, we had four or five whiskies to sample, in the seventy five minutes we spent at Federal, and not one of them can be located, at least to my knowledge, within a hundred miles of Rochester. John asked Joe about tastings, and he said that they don’t run them in the summer time; check back after Labor Day. But really, who needs a tasting when one can try four or five or more malts, none of them available elsewhere, just by visiting, and buying a bottle or two.

And oh, by the way, in the time we spent at Federal, we saw some guy buy a single bottle of beer for $175. For real. So next time you need a 40-year scotch for a gift, or perhaps a bottle of malt from some distillery that’s been closed since 1992, try Federal Wine & Spirits, in the heart of historic Boston.