General Booze thread

[JWIV]

Gin is wonderful stuff.  Nice dirty martini, gimlets, aviations - all sorts of wonderful things to do with it.

[Numtini]

We are big martini drinkers. Gin is one of the few things I drink where I absolutely can't stomach anything except a few relatively expensive brands, mainly Sapphire and Tanquery. If it has that minty Christmas tree taste, I just can't hack it at all. I'll drink a manhattan made with the worst $11 plastic jug whiskey (on Cape Cod that's Kennedy's  ), but cheap gin, or even an expensive gin with the wrong flavor, and I'd rather pour it down the sink and drink a soda.

[apocrypha]

Bombay Sapphire is a nice one, not partial to Tanqueray myself but maybe I've just not found the right flavour to accompany it. Hendricks is one of my favourites - works really well with cucumber, in fact I made some cucumber cubes (whizz up a few peeled cucumbers in a blender then squeeze them through muslin and freeze in ice-cube trays) once just to go with it.

[CmdrSlack]

One of the best gins I've had in a long time was Death's Door gin. It's made in Wisconsin, and (IIRC) is made partially from wheat or potatoes grown on Washington Island. The island has a tiny community and was once heavily farmed. Death's Door distillery and Capital Brewing in Madison have been trying to help restore the farming community by purchasing their brewing and distilling grains from there.

Here's the story. It's pretty damn cool. Death's Door makes a tasty vodka and white whiskey as well. If you can get your hands on it, please support some craft brewers/distillers and an island community. /PSA

[apocrypha]

That does sound nice, and it's similarly priced here to things like the geranium gin and Hendricks (i.e. £40/bottle), I'll give it a go next gin order :)

Anyone recommend a good bourbon to start with? I've not really tried any and would like something reasonably priced but interesting. I've been mostly sipping whiskey as my non-Christmas spirit of choice the last couple of years and I'd like to broaden my taste a bit.

[CmdrSlack]

Knob Creek is my go-to for price and widespread availability. I just recently discovered one called Larceny which is my new favorite. The handle bottle costs as much as a 750 of most other quality whiskey brands. It is also quite awesome flavor-wise.

[apocrypha]

Cool, thanks, that's readily available here in the UK too.

I'm starting to foresee an expensive booze order in my immediate future ;)

[Paelos]

Makers Mark is probably my favorite starter bourbon before you delve into the single barrel stuff.

[Abagadro]

I've quit drinking cold turkey, so if I'm a bit grumpy this week you will know why.

[Sky]

Just drinking turkey with a dash of water now?

[Surlyboi]

The missus found a bottle of Salerno blood orange liqueur. Mixed with a little St. Germain vodka and actual blood orange juice, came out really well.

[Merusk]

Makers Mark is probably my favorite starter bourbon before you delve into the single barrel stuff.

That distillery is right down the road from me. Some day I'll have to make the trip.

[Sky]

Well, looks like the bottle of Jameson Gold Reserve was a lucky shot for my buddy. Yesterday he brought over a fairly vile bottle of Jack Daniels 'honey liquor', basically syrupy bourbon. The honey syrup just overpowered the bourbon, sticky and nasty. He loved it.

As is my usual rule, he will now be drinking that while I have something decent.

[Teleku]

That does sound nice, and it's similarly priced here to things like the geranium gin and Hendricks (i.e. £40/bottle), I'll give it a go next gin order :)

Anyone recommend a good bourbon to start with? I've not really tried any and would like something reasonably priced but interesting. I've been mostly sipping whiskey as my non-Christmas spirit of choice the last couple of years and I'd like to broaden my taste a bit.

Woodford Reserve is another good starter Bourbon I feel.  Good flavor, pretty smooth for a Bourbon, and not to pricy.

[Count Nerfedalot]

That does sound nice, and it's similarly priced here to things like the geranium gin and Hendricks (i.e. £40/bottle), I'll give it a go next gin order :)

Anyone recommend a good bourbon to start with? I've not really tried any and would like something reasonably priced but interesting. I've been mostly sipping whiskey as my non-Christmas spirit of choice the last couple of years and I'd like to broaden my taste a bit.

Woodford Reserve is another good starter Bourbon I feel.  Good flavor, pretty smooth for a Bourbon, and not to pricy.

Taste is funny stuff.  I reread this whole thread and found lots of hate for Makers Mark and love for Woodford Reserve.  I tried a bottle of the Woodford Reserve once, seeing as I live a couple miles from the distillery it seemed mandatory, and I found it not much better than Heaven Hill (ie turpentine).  They seem to put a lot more effort into marketing and snobbery than quality, IMNSHO.  But I find Makers to be pretty nice, if not as complex as it used to be.  Makers has barely recovered from being "discovered" a decade or so ago, going global, and growing faster than their ability to maintain quality, but they've put a lot of effort into refocusing on quality. Woodford Reserve is trying their best to copy that, without the refocus on quality.  Four Roses is another example of marketing snobbery over quality.

Buffalo Trace is a bit better than Makers, and a bit cheaper.  I also like the Old Weller Antique that Buffalo Trace makes, very nice for the price, but avoid the bottom tier of that label if you have any respect for your taste buds.  I used to like Ancient Ancient Age (AAA) but it started getting a too silty finish for my tastes a few years ago and I haven't tried it since.

Bookers and Bakers are the best bourbons I've found so far, but a good deal pricier.  I'm too poor (or maybe cheap) to try anything much beyond that.

I'll have to see how spendy Eagle Rare is and maybe splurge on it.  Though based on all the raves here I'll probably hate it! 

Just for calibration, I'm a sipper when I get my hands on the better stuff, sometimes with and sometimes without a splash of water or maybe a single ice cube in the summer if I absolutely must have something cooler than room temp. And I'm not a smoker but love the taste of smokey liquor in my mouth but hate it in my throat.  I'm not so fond of the peaty scotches, but love the smokey ones.  And what the difference is I cannot describe.  I didn't find a single classic Islay that I liked the aftertaste of, though some of them were pretty nice at the start.  Balvenie Doublewood was my favorite scotch back when I could afford it.

[CmdrSlack]

Corsair triple smoke whiskey. Cherrywood, beechwood, and peat smoked grains. Stuff is amazing

[eldaec]

We are big martini drinkers. Gin is one of the few things I drink where I absolutely can't stomach anything except a few relatively expensive brands, mainly Sapphire and Tanquery. If it has that minty Christmas tree taste, I just can't hack it at all. I'll drink a manhattan made with the worst $11 plastic jug whiskey (on Cape Cod that's Kennedy's  ), but cheap gin, or even an expensive gin with the wrong flavor, and I'd rather pour it down the sink and drink a soda.

If making a martini, the mistake most people make is basing it on a London style gin (ie most of them). What you want is Plymouth gin. It's much smoother than London gins, you'll probably get on with it well if you like the style of sapphire.

[Teleku]

That does sound nice, and it's similarly priced here to things like the geranium gin and Hendricks (i.e. £40/bottle), I'll give it a go next gin order :)

Anyone recommend a good bourbon to start with? I've not really tried any and would like something reasonably priced but interesting. I've been mostly sipping whiskey as my non-Christmas spirit of choice the last couple of years and I'd like to broaden my taste a bit.

Woodford Reserve is another good starter Bourbon I feel.  Good flavor, pretty smooth for a Bourbon, and not to pricy.

Taste is funny stuff. 

Hrm, I guess so.  Makers is OK, but it taste pretty cheep and low grade to me.  I wont say its bad by any means, but I've never really understood the love it gets.  Woodford on the other hand, taste pretty damn nice to me.  My go to bourbon lately has been the Elijah Craig 12 year, which I think is the best bang for buck around in Bourbon.  I just didn't mention it because it tends to be a lot harder to find than something like Woodford or Makers.

[Salamok]

Someone needs to start making A. H. Hirsch 16 year old Bourbon (and the 20 as well) again, I bought a bottle 15 years ago before the prices went insane and it is still the best American hard alcohol I have ever tasted.

edit - Note that the price on the page I linked at $399 is out of stock, current price is over $1000, I think I paid 75ish back in the day.

[Teleku]

Yeah, I'm hoping that with the boom in Bourbon, we'll start seen more aged varieties as the years go on.  There has been big expansion in the industry, but of course its takes decades for the aged stuff to start flooding the market.

[Goumindong]

I don't know why you would age a bourbon. Since the barrels are fresh you're not really getting anything out of it past a few years. If you're going to spend the time to age a whiskey it might as well be Rye or Barley, both of which have better profiles when aging (because they're not so sweet you don't lose as much of the wood you're aging it to in the sugar)

[Abagadro]

Ya, bourbon isn't really "aged' but it is "matured" and can be kept in the barrels longer to pick up more of the carmelized sugar and char, but if you leave it in too long it just turns woody. 

I'm anxiously awaiting High West Whiskey's actual first batch of in-house made Rye as it should be getting close to finally being done.

[Salamok]

Since the beer thread got a bump i'll give the boozers a bump too, why does it get to live in general discussion while we are stuck in serious business?

Anyhoo, my wife bought me a bottle of 120 proof 9 year old reserve Knobb Creek Bourbon for fathers day and in my opinion this is the best bourbon to mix with coke (or if you are like me diet coke).  Not sweet and fairly smooth with just the right amount of a vapory bite at the finish.  My only complaint is probably the plastic screw top cap (buried under wax) but in a way that also makes me feel like less of a dork for mixing decent booze with diet coke.

edit: to qualify my best bourbon with coke, I enjoyed this "Jack & Coke" better than Old #7, Gentleman Jack, Gold Medal Jack, Single Barrel Jack, Woodford Reserve, Hirsch, Basil Haydens, Knobb Creek, Knobb Creek Rye, Bookers, Bakers and Makers + Coke (and probably quite a few more I have forgotten).

[ghost]

Hrm, I guess so.  Makers is OK, but it taste pretty cheep and low grade to me.  I wont say its bad by any means, but I've never really understood the love it gets.  Woodford on the other hand, taste pretty damn nice to me.  My go to bourbon lately has been the Elijah Craig 12 year, which I think is the best bang for buck around in Bourbon.  I just didn't mention it because it tends to be a lot harder to find than something like Woodford or Makers.

Makers Mark is piss, really.  Knob Creek is a nice bourbon in that price range.  I seem to have lost my taste for bourbon lately, however.

[Furiously]

My parents got some Tequila in Mexico from some guy's garage. Every time I sip a shot of it, I cry a little knowing the bottle will be gone at some point.

[Abagadro]

I nursed a bottle of Herradura Tequila Hacienda Del Cristero for 10 years and then my wife dumped the last ounce and half into some juice to drink. 

[Teleku]

You mean ex-wife, right?

[ghost]

Yeah.  Where did you bury her body, Ab?

[Sky]

She's a giant tequila worm now.

[Surlyboi]

One of my local bartenders just introduced me to some amazing gin. Comb 9. Threw the gin in with some bootlegger 21 vodka and a little lillet for a killer Vesper.

[ghost]

Hendrick's gin is the nectar of the gods.   

[Surlyboi]

Ransom Old Tom Gin was my standby for a long time.

[Abagadro]

Been trying to ween myself off diet soda with iced tea. Brewed up a pitcher of a black tea with cranberry and some mint in it. Poured a glass and then just threw in some blackberry infused Junior Johnson moonshine. Let's just say: it's good.

[Samwise]

I've got a bumper crop of blackberries in my backyard and have been thinking about doing some sort of booze infusion with them.  The safe choice would be vodka since it's mostly flavorless, but I think it'd be more fun to pair them with something that has a complementary flavor.  Just not sure what.  Suggestions?

[Evildrider]

I've had a blackberry mojito before that was pretty good.  I'm sure you could probably do an infusion with a light rum maybe?