Balvenie

Lost in the shuffle, because these last few weeks have been so busy, was the Balvenie tasting at Good Luck. Let's talk about the whisky first, and then the venue.

Balvenie is often overlooked in a discussion of good malt whisky, but these folks make a very fine highland malt. One interesting thing about Balvenie is that each age statement is made by a slightly different process, so no two Balvenies taste alike. Another interesting thing is that Balvenie is independently owned, apparently still by family members. The guy running the tasting, an ex-pat who now works for the distillery, was proud of the fact that the family business does everything from growing the barley, to bottling the malt. Not only that, but they employ over 140 people, whereas some of the more famous malts (think of the Diageo brands), employ no more than a handful of workers, whose chief responsibility is to monitor the equipment that runs the stills through automation. The measure of any whisky is what it tastes like coming out of the bottle, so perhaps who cares how many people are employed in the process? Still, it's nice to think of whisky as a product made the old-fashioned way.

We started with the 12 year old, known as the "Doublewood", because after 12 years in bourbon casks, the malt spends about a year in sherry casks, so it has that smooth, slightly sweetened, easy drinking character similar to Aberlour 12, or Macallan 12. Next we moved to their 15 year old, single barrel. Most age statements are vattings, mixtures of all the 12 year old barrels that ripened in the year the malt was bottled. That vatting process creates a homogeneous whisky, one that tastes the same, at least for everything put up in a given year. But a bottle of Balvenie's Single Barrel will taste exactly the same as only those few bottles that came from that exact same barrel. The next barrel will have a different taste, and even though the difference may be hard to discern, it's nice to think about drinking a totally distinctive malt -- one that has its own unique characteristics. The 15 is bottled at 47%, so it's not chill filtered.

Next we tasted the 21 year old, Portwood, finished, as you might guess, in port casks. This is a full rich whisky, with a wonderfully long finish, and a good buy for a 21. (I once got a bottle at an in-store tasting for only $75; it was up to $110 at this tasting.) And last of all, we had this year's version of their 17. I guess the deal with the 17 is that each year's production is finished in a different manner, so every year there is a new whisky. The deal this time was Madeira casks, and they gave the malt a light fruity character, reminiscent of a good cognac. Some participants found the 17 too sweet, too soft, on the feminine side. I don't know about that; it's hard to think of any 17 year old highland as feminine. My only beef was the price, about ten bucks more than the 21. It was enjoyable, but not that enjoyable.

Finally, I've got to compliment Ben and the folks at Whitehouse for holding this tasting at Good Luck. Fun spot for a whisky tasting; plus the kitchen sent out four courses of tiny plates during the evening. I had wolfed down the gigantic Good Luck burger just before the tasting, all sixteen ounces worth, so I really didn't need the additional food. But whether I needed it or not became irrelevant. Good Luck's kitchen does a great job for moderate prices, and the fare was far better than the usual crackers or breadsticks one often finds at these events. I told Ben to hold all his tastings at Good Luck, and he didn't argue. I think everyone, the Balvenie guy included, found the venue just about right. And oh yes, Susan had to drive me home again.

The Deconstructed Old-Fashioned

Last night, the Chophouse held a Fritz Maytag dinner, which was a multi-course affair, where each course was paired with a different beverage from Maytag’s empire. Now I had never heard of Fritz Maytag before last night, but he’s apparently famous throughout the food and beverage industry. In the early 70s, he bought the Anchor brewery in San Francisco, to save it from bankruptcy; recreated Anchor Steam as a quality beer; and in the process kicked off the whole microbrewing craze. In the years since, he bought vineyards in Napa and Sonoma, started the York Creek winery, and opened the Anchor Distillery, which apparently inaugurated the current craze for artisanal spirits in this country.

So somehow, Jeannine met Fritz, worked at his vineyard, and put together this dinner, which was a blast, because instead of the more typical wine pairings, we had pairings with beer, wine, and spirits. And those pairings accompanied about six courses from the Chophouse kitchen, including slow roasted pork served over kale and smoked onions, and Buffalo rib eye steak.

But the best course of the evening, at least from where I sat (right at the bar, schmoozing with Ben all night long), was the intermezzo. They served a scoop of cherry sorbet, and a scoop of orange sorbet , and a tiny scoop of lemon sorbet (all homemade of course), along with two little gelatin cubes made from a bitters and sugar mixture. All of the above came in a martini glass. And then on the side, they served a snifter of Old Potrero rye whisky (from the Anchor Distilling Co.). And so the idea was to take a taste of all the sorbets, and a tiny bit of the bitters gelatin, and then wash it down with the Potrero – the combination of tastes recreating the Old Fashioned, not in the glass but right inside your mouth. And they called it, appropriately, the Deconstructed Old-Fashioned. What a fun idea! And how often is the intermezzo the star of the evening?

Jeannine served the 18th century Potrero along with the sorbet mixture, and if I had any criticism of this course, it would only be that we should have watered the Potrero, because it comes out of the bottle at cask strength, over 63 percent. However, Jeannine also brought me a pour of Potrero’s single malt rye, bottled at ninety proof, much mellower, but also much more flavorful, perhaps the best tasting rye I’ve ever had. (I think all the Potrero’s are actually single malts, but this one whisky carries the name Single Malt Rye, and whether that’s merely for marketing, or describes some difference in the distillation or aging process, who knows? Whatever the distinction, it was a superior whisky.)

For the record, the three York Creek wines they served were all wonderful. The best of the table wines was a Meritage called MXB. Jeannine says it’s made from a blend of obscure grapes, many no longer grown commercially, that Maytag found growing on the land he purchased for his vineyards. Instead of uprooting all these old vines, and replanting with something more popular such as cabernet, he kept everything he found there, and then created a big luscious blend – a wonderful steak wine, in my humble opinion. We finished the evening with York Creek port which was delicious, even if I was a tad bit loaded by then. Susan drove us home.

My Prediction

Well that was worse than I could have imagined. First, Boston played eighteen innings in LA, and managed to score a single run. They came back to Fenway, having batted .148 in those first two games. Then in Game Three, they scored five runs early, and staked Buckholz to a lead. He pitched as well as anyone could have hoped against the Angels’ lineup. And even after the bases had been loaded early in the sixth, Bard held the Angels to a single run; Boston led 5-2 going into the eighth.

Over those last two innings, the unthinkable happened. Papelbon let in five runs. I know he was charged with only the three from the ninth inning, but really, he was responsible for the two inherited runs in the eighth. In the first half of 2009, the bullpen was close to perfect, but after the All-Star break, how many huge leads did the pen surrender? In a way, he might have done us all a favor, painful as it was. Because it just hasn’t seemed over the past couple months like this team was going to put all the pieces together. Whether it was the recurrent losing streaks, or the way they backed into the playoffs, or the way they couldn’t win on the road, but since the All-Star break, I never had much optimism for the end of this season. So Pap put an end to all that dread, and the season came to an early, if abrupt, even shocking, end.

I have received G-Man’s predictions for the rest of this season, and as long as we’re looking into the future, I have had some visions of my own. Here’s the biggest one:

Sometime this winter, G-Man will move to Portland, Maine. That’s not really a prediction; it’s more like a fact, even if you can’t look it up on Wikipedia. That will mean that next February, when spring training starts, in fact on the morning that the pitchers and catchers report, G-Man will wake up in the heart of RedSox nation. Really, the fans are even more rabid in Maine than in Boston, where there are many distractions, and too many visitors from foreign lands. Like all those college kids from the New York area. Maybe it won’t happen next spring, or even the next year or two, but sooner or later, surrounded by all those Red Sox fans, G-man will gradually be pulled into the Nation, just by pure gravitational attraction, or whatever other cosmic forces work on the hearts of anyone who has seen the insides of Fenway Park. And then one day, I’ll get a message, perhaps a voicemail, or a postcard, or even Morse code, and G-man will confess allegiance to the Sox and contrition for all the years he rooted for the evil empire. On our next visit to Boston following that message, after we drink Hirsch at the Last Hurrah with John, we’ll drive over toYawkey Way, and have John take pictures of the two of us standing beneath the 2004 World Series banner. (In case anyone can’t remember, that was the year when Dave Roberts stole second base.) Then we’ll laugh about how funny it was back in the day when G-Man was a Yankee fan, just like we now laugh about the time we got our butts kicked at Carvel. On our drive up to Portland, we’ll stop at the New Hampshire store right off 95, and buy a few bottles of scotch to share with all the other Sox lovers. And it will be like one big happy family. No more Haters. That’s my prediction.

Cold October

Cold. It’s looking like a cold October. There’s a threat of a frost tonight, and how fitting is that? After two games when the bats were so cold, that the Sox could manage to plate a single run—forget about a frost; it’s the start of a new freakin ice age.

Of course, in October, it can’t be cold everywhere, and things have been hot of late in LA and in the Bronx. Apparently LA was just napping, not hibernating, these past few weeks, when their lead over the Rockies dwindled. The Dodgers were helped by Matt Holliday, who pulled a Manny in left field, bungling the last out of game two. But sometimes, when you’re hot, those kind of things just happen. Like when the Mets gave the Yankees that spark way back in May, and their season then caught fire. Speaking of which, it’s been so hot in the Bronx that Bloomberg has declared a state of emergency. New York and southern California are just about the only places where anyone needs to worry about global warming.

Generally speaking, when the Sox are eliminated, I lose my interest in the post-season. But an old school series, between the Dodgers and the Yankees – that would be worth watching. At least I’d have a rooting interest. Hate! Hate! Hate!

Only good news on the sports page this week was that my plans to see the SU-West Virginia game changed at the last minute. I was planning to go with my friend Rickey, but he got a catering job at the last minute and had to cancel. Lucky for me. 27-0 at the half; Paulus benched by the coach. At least I didn’t have to sit through any of that. And I guess maybe it's been hot in Miami too- not just that it was 92 in the shade yesterday, but that Jacory Harris seems to have started a new heat wave of his own.

I’m posting today before Game Three. All season long, the RedSox have played much better in the friendly confines of Fenway. Can Buckholz hold that lineup in check? The old Angels were tough enough, but with Abreu and Hunter added to the mix, they are almost as dangerous as the Yankees. And even if he does hold the Halos down, will the bats warm up enough to score a few? I remember when Koufax could win World Series games with a single run, but Buckholz isn’t Sandy Koufax. So how about they make it a little easier on the kid, and give him some run support?

So once more, all together now: Go Sox.

Treasure Hunting in the Berkshires

We went to visit our friend Mickey, who has moved to Albany so his family can care for him. He's the one with ALS who persuaded Major League Baseball to get behind the idea of supporting ALS research because, after all, it's Lou Gehrig's disease. In any event, we weren't far from the Berkshires, so we paid a visit to our friends in Great Barrington.

Because it was a rainy day, and we were mostly going to sit around eating, as always, Andy took me on a field trip -- a tour of Berkshire liquor stores. We visited Domani's in Great Barrington, which carries a nice and varied inventory of all spirits, including an OK selection of malts. Better than average, but nothing really unique or special. Only after we had left did Andy mention that the owner has an upstairs room, with fancy wines and spirits, and probably some pretty nice malts that we didn't get to see. Next time.

Before returning home, Andy drove me to South Egremont, a town of some 16 or 18 residents, where we had eaten dinner once, and where they have a modest looking liquor store called the Spirit Shoppe. That's the English spelling, and maybe it should have been a clue. The place is tiny, and the inventory of spirits modest, so at first it seemed as though we had driven all the way to South Egremont for nothing. But then Andy pointed out the glass cabinet, and I noticed that both the cabinet, and the shelves beneath it, and even the shelves next to it, were stocked with a remarkably varied inventory of malts. After shopping in Federal, I'm not easily impressed with a whisky inventory, but I have to say that these guys, out in the middle of nowhere, caught my attention. They had a fine collection of high end stuff, many whiskies thirty years of age and up, including HP30, reputedly the world's finest whisky, Macallan 30 for several wheelbarrows of cash, a Bruichladdich at 30 plus, and I can't remember what else.

But aside from the eye-catching big numbers, the Spirit Shoppe stocked a wide collection of unusual malts. Just for example, they had three age statements of Jura. Now Jura is not a whisky one sees every day; in fact, there are very few days when one ever sees Jura. It's not one of Scotland's stars, but it's a pretty good malt, and a bit distinctive besides. And to have three age statements, very impressive. There were a number of private bottlings, always a good sign that you're in a better than average whisky store. And there were a number of malts one doesn't see every day, even if they were not big favorites. The owner told us that he often has as many as 200 different malts on sale, although he claimed that his inventory had fallen over the summer, so that he had no more than 85 in stock at that time. He says the current inventory can be viewed at spiritshoppe.com. So check it out.

After much deliberation, I settled on a couple bottles. They had Ballechin no. 2, for the very reasonable price of $99.99. Now I know that I had just picked up a bottle of Ballechin no. 2, courtesy of G-man, but I've decided that when I have a chance to buy whiskies that are no longer produced, I'm buying. Imagine if I had bought all the Hirsch I could have a few years back. Or the first edition of Bruichladdich 15? It's like when we picked up those Talisker 175s last summer for a song, and they're now selling in Union Square for almost $400 a bottle. So an extra bottle of Ballechin can sit in the basement, and wait for the perfect occasion to open it up, and pour out a few drams. In addition, I got a Macphail bottling of Bunnahabhain 14. Very very nice. Wonderful nose, and big, full flavor - much more flavor than the 12. Not as smooth as the 18, and it lacks that luxurious texture that makes the 18 so unique. But still, a distinctive malt, and a great find for our Saturday morning field trip in the Berkshires.

Some people travel all over hell to buy antiques, which to my mind are just someone else's junk that happens to be real old. Other people drive up to the Berkshires so they can look at leaves. That's nice, but what's wrong with the leaves in your back yard? Me, I travel to new places to see what whisky they have on sale. It's kind of like the antique thing, except after we find the old whisky, then we take it home and drink it. With friends. What's better than that?