Bourbon report 2020

Thought I'd take a break from writing about wine this week and talk about some bourbon I've been drinking lately. In exciting news, my house bourbon has been upgraded from Bulleit to Eagle Rare 10 year old, above. This can generally be found at £30 a bottle so only slightly more than Bulleit which hasn't been on special offer much lately. It's fairly classic i.e. lots of vanilla, and I probably don't pay it enough attention but it seems to have more finesse, depth and intensity than the Bulleit. A good solid option for the money.

This isn't a bourbon as such, but a rye, and I bring it back from Pennsylvania every time I go, so stocks are having to be carefully managed. The delightfully-named Dad's Hat produce a number of rye whiskeys, but this is G's favourite at 100 proof and costs about $70 allowing for sales tax, which I always forget about until I'm at the till!

It's a dark amber colour and has a very distinctive nose - wood and varnish. It reminds me of an old desk, or possibly the school science lab. I think G likes it because it's dry, and he says the 100 proof is *way better* than the 90. I do recall that the first time we had it, it needed a couple of days to open up. It seems the distillery is just outside Philadelphia, so wrong side of Pennsylvania for a tour, never mind!

In order to eke out our remaining bottle of Dad's Hat, I went on the Master of Malt website to search for something new. This came up and at 13 years of age it appealed to me. It's the Big B from Tennessee, sounds like a rapper. This also needed a day open to show its full character, and at 53.7% needs some dilution too! G found a lot of fruit going on and mentioned mirabelle plums, apricots, physallis and kumquat, while I was struck by a hint of ginger on the finish. It's interesting and complex but at £75 I'm not sure I'd rush to buy it again.

I also bought this bottle of Koval, which we'd had before and enjoyed. I was a little taken aback to discover the bottle was only 50cl, and it cost £49, so again rather pricier than usual. Apparently 750ml bottles are available in the USA for around $50 so it definitely feels like a rip off over here. However, the bottle is very aesthetically pleasing - I love the shape of it, and the font on the label. G pointed out it's the font that opticians use to test your eyes not to be confused with the infamous Barnard Castle Eye Test.

For me, this smells of a hardware store or possibly a carpenter's shop, not in a bad way. There are some wood shavings and it's lighter and herbaceous, with notes of wildflowers, honey, and citrus, maybe even a little eucalyptus. It has a wonderful finish, and G detected a note of ripe pear towards the end. It's not aggressive and reminded us alternatively of an eau de vie de poire or a lowland Scotch. G actually said that it's the closest thing he's ever had to Pappy van Winkle 12 year old which we were fortunate enough to have a few years ago. Apparently it's 51% corn and 49% millet, and they make a number of other spirits including a rye which I may just have to try some time!

Three more reds

Catching up on my notes over the past few weeks...

First up, this Monthelie Le Mons Helios 2009 from Florent Garaudet. I remembered being very impressed with this when we went to visit Florent a few years ago. I decanted it for 2 hours and stuck it in the fridge for a while. It was glossy, with a deep colour and rich nose. On the palate, it was smooth and powerful with lots of berries and cocoa. G found it chewy and it did coat the insides of my cheeks. It was remarkable that this was from Monthelie, not renowned for top notch wines. This actually reminded me of an international-style Volnay such as Clos des 60 Ouvrees. For a village Monthelie to taste like this was a resounding success, and it would last another five years. Definitely a wine to share with others.

Now for something slightly different... a Sonoma Zinfandel 2012 from Quivira. I'm pretty sure this was a random pick from the booze store in Pennsylvania. Can't check the price there at the moment due to website limitations, but wine.com suggests it was around $22. It was a dark purple colour and very glossy. It looked like port, smelled like port... Tasting it, it was big, sweet, rich and jammy, with dried currants and hints of fruit cake. G also detected a citrussy note. "I don't think there's any doubt about which continent it comes from" he said. There was some doubt as to whether we would be able to finish the bottle, but in the end it did make an excellent port substitute to go with cheese. At 14.5% I'm not sure I'll be rushing back for more.

Finally, a Morey-Saint-Denis "Les Crais-Gillon" 2014 from Odoul-Coquard, which G bought at auction. We used to drink a lot of their wine back in the day and I always loved them, so was looking forward to this. 

It was a lovely ruby colour and very inviting to look at.The nose was classic MSD, which I always refer to as black forest gateau - here there was morello cherry, blackcurrant and chocolate cake. It was congruent on the palate, succulent, with a lovely weight. G said it was "not an unrestrained wine", not as flashy as some from this domaine. He thought one might mistake it for a Vougeot. At only 13%, this was a real pleasure to drink..

Strange times

Well, life has been very different for the past 8 weeks and there are no signs of anything changing very much soon, here in London at least.

The biggest disappointment is that we've had to cancel our wedding, which was supposed to be happening in September. The logistics now make it impossible to go ahead in the way we had intended, but we'll find some other way to do it sooner or later. I was looking forward to having a great celebration but ultimately I care more about being married to D than I do about the wedding day itself. No Bridezillas here 😉 No more counting days till my next trip to Pennsylvania either, as it's unclear when that will be. It's not the best time to be in a long-distance relationship, but we just have to be patient and WhatsApp helps a lot.

I probably spend far too much time at the moment reading about R0 numbers, quarantine restrictions, the future of the aviation industry and when exactly is Iceland going to reopen. A pagan Icelandic wedding sounds quite appealing although not if sheeps heads are involved.

There are plenty of things to be grateful for: family and friends seem to be managing all right, work has been keeping me busy (busier than usual in fact, in a good way - doing my bit to help the NHS) and the weather has been good so I've been able to get out for a walk most days and alleviate the cabin fever. My kettlebell has never seen so much action!

And I'm very fortunate to be well-stocked on the wine front. There have been some new arrivals lower down the scale, as well as some older stuff coming to light from the bottom of the wardrobe, such as this Barolo Broglio 2012 from Schiavenza. This is one of two Barolos which I brought back from a trip to Turin in October 2017, so we decided it had bided its time for long enough.

I shared it with G in a suitably socially-distanced way, of course. It was a lovely dark colour, and had what G described as a "big ass nose" of hedgerow fruits. We'd probably have thought it was American if we'd been tasting it blind, not least because it came in at a whopping 15% alcohol. It was big, powerful and polished with well-integrated tannins. Cherry stones, mint, cocoa and liquorice were all mentioned. We felt it had aged as much as it needed to, but I think I'll keep the other one (same year, different producer) for a future group event, as it was so big that one glass would be enough. Not that that stopped us drinking the whole bottle, of course!

Inevitably I couldn't remember how much I paid for it, but think it was in the 40-50 euro range, and Wine Searcher tells me that the going rate is now £47 although this particular vintage is not available from any UK stockists. I think that's fair value for money when compared to some other flashy red wines. This would be a real dinner party pleaser, and might go very well with a cheese course. Now we just need to be allowed to have dinner parties again...