Since moving to Oregon there have been two beers that I’ve consistently missed, and curiously enough, neither are from Massachusetts. For someone who is a fan of bourbon barrel-aged imperial stouts, each is an iconic beer that sets the bar for others of its type: Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout and Founders’ Kentucky Breakfast Stout. As a result, I’ve been mighty stingy with the few bottles of these that I had with us when we moved  cross country. In the case of KBS that amounted to 5 bottles, and even fewer for Bourbon County Stout, of which I had only 3 bottles.

Here we are, nearly 3 years later, and I’ve been ever-so-slowly making my way through those few bottles. Let’s face it, beer is meant to be drunk, and even better is when you have the chance to share it with someone who’s trying it for the first time. The best part of having these bottles in the cellar – because neither is distributed in Oregon* –  is that I’ve been able to share them with friends who have never had the chance to try them before.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to taste Fort George Brewing’s recently released Rye Whiskey Barrel-aged Cavatica Stout (which, incidentally, is very good), and it inspired me to want to go back and try one of my two old favorites. Since I have just one bottle of KBS left (and am saving it for an upcoming tasting with friends), I opted to open a bottle of Bourbon County Stout.

You read a fair amount about the aging ability of beer. There’s even a forum at Beer Advocate dedicated to it. So it was kind of exciting to open a beer that in theory is very age-worthy, and has been laid down in our cellar for ~4 years. How would those years affect this beer? My memory was of an extremely unctuous beer, with an amazingly rich nose redolent with notes from the bourbon barrels it had aged in – whiskey, vanilla, caramel, smoke – and a near-overwhelmingly rich palate of flavors.

How would the aged version stack up against my memories of the beer when it was fresh?

Tasting Notes

A reminder that this beer weighs in at 13% and is aged at least 9 months in bourbon barrels prior to bottling.

The beer pours pitch black with subtle ruby highlights and a mocha colored head that quickly dissipates. The nose is deep and resonant, with rich notes of salted caramel, vanilla, bourbon, and cocoa. The palate is heavy and viscous, and still has plenty of carbonation. Very rich flavors of gingerbread, chocolate, more salted caramel and vanilla. The whiskey notes are more subtle here than on the nose. Underneath it all is – despite the age – a slightly hot alcohol note. The finish brings a lingering coffee bitterness coupled with caramel sweetness.

Still going strong several years after first being bottled! This isn’t even remotely an every day beer, and in fact I’d highly recommend sharing it with someone, even if what your opening is a 12-oz bottle. It’s just so rich, that a modest amount goes a long way. That being said, this is a special beer, and one that any fan of imperial stouts should make a point of tracking down and trying.** Then, throw a few in the basement and try them over the next couple of years.

*I seem to remember seeing bottles of Bourbon County Stout on shelves when we first arrived in Portland 2 years ago. Whether that is true or not, I’m sure I haven’t seen it anywhere around here since then. If anyone reads this and knows differently, it’d be great to know!

**It’d be interesting to try a bottle brewed after Goose Island’s 2011 merger with AB/InBev and see how it stacks up against a pre-merger bottling.

I don’t quite know what to make of Bruichladdich. I’m really not sure that I ever have. The first time I tasted Bruichladdich’s whisky was back when I began drinking scotch, at a time when I only drank smoky whiskies. Back then, it was all Islay, all the time. In that context, Bruichladdich was completely out of left field. Instead of being oily and smoky, it was light and sweet. I was dumbfounded, and it would be a while before I tried Bruichladdich again.

Over time, as my palate developed and I tried more whiskies, I came to appreciate Bruichladdich more. And I came to understand that the diverse array of bottlings that they were producing was partly due to the distillery’s history. It was purchased by its current owners in 2000, but before that had been shuttered for several years, with uneven production before that. Thus, the stock that the new owners inherited was a mixed bag. Alongside about 10,000 casks of older whisky, the new owners went out and purchased 2,000-3,000 casks of Bruichladdich whisky from blenders. They then turned this uneven collection of whiskies into an asset, and came out with a load of different bottlings, all exhibiting different expressions of Bruichladdich whisky, and scotch more generally.

So this was Bruichladdich’s personality at the time that I was first learning about scotch and tasting their whiskies. But then, they took a wholly different turn and began distilling a series of unique, exciting, challenging, and sometimes controversial whiskies. First came Octomore, then Port Charlotte, then the triple distilled whisky. Since then, I’ve generally lost track of their whiskies, with each new release taking place mostly on the periphery of my awareness. I’ve been lucky enough to try different vintages of Port Charlotte and Octomore, as well as some stunning older bottlings, but I haven’t kept close tabs on them.

And yet, when I heard that they’d released the first ten-year old whisky distilled by the new owners, I couldn’t help but be interested. Anytime a closed distillery has come back to life is an exciting event, and when they release their first ten-year old whisky, that’s about as exciting as it gets. Because a ten-year old whisky is really the baseline bottling for any distillery. How they perform on their ten-year says loads about the distillery (note that for some distilleries, they treat their twelve-year as their ten-year).

Distilled in 2001 and bottled in 2011, this whisky captures Bruichladdich at what I consider its most straightforward and honest. It’s very tasty, very drinkable, and has a subtle personality that grows on you over time.

Tasting Notes

In the glass, this whisky is light gold in color. The nose is lightly sweet, with notes of hay, wheat, and white grapes. The palate carries a thread of smoke amidst a healthy dose of sweetness, with caramel, kiwi, butter cookies, and almonds. Overall, it’s softly textured with a lively, drying bite. The finish brings lingering notes of marzipan and sugared lemon.

In reading these notes that I’ve written, I think that I make it sound sweeter than it is. In truth, it’s sweet the way a good, dry wine is sweet – more the impression of sweetness than outright sugary sweetness.

I began writing this review a while back, so I no longer know how readily available this whisky is any longer. But it’s a very good everyday whisky, and I’d heartily recommend giving it a place on your shelf if you get the chance.

In my last post about the Society, I discussed my curiosity about why Pip Hills, founder of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, left the organization in 1995, as well as some of the other changes that have taken place within the Society. The post was motivated by two things: 1) my sheer interest in the Society’s history, and in knowing more about its growth and development, and 2) my disappointment at learning that the members’ flats at the Vaults were being closed down. Ultimately, at the core of it all is the fact that I very much enjoy being a member of the Society, and so take a keen interest changes that are introduced, good or bad. I think the fact that I am a member in the U.S. and have not yet had the opportunity to visit the Society’s true home in Edinburgh only heightens this.

So while enjoying a dram or two, it’s not uncommon for me to ponder some of the many questions that I have about the Society. And recently, this speculation has brought my thoughts round to another idea that I’ve had for a while: I think that a comprehensive history of the Society would be fascinating, and that someone should write it. I’m sure that from its inception to the present day, it’s a great story, full of characters, twists, turns, and some good whisky, of course. Its history also parallels, and in many ways reflects, the story of the last three or four decades of Scotch whisky. At the same time that single malt Scotch whisky has grown and prospered, so has the Society grown and changed as well. Writing the history of the Society would mean, in many ways, writing the history of the industry’s this transformative time.

I’ve seen pieces of this history in different places, in Pip Hills’ Scots On Scotch, in a pamphlet handed out by the Society in 2001, and in fragments elsewhere. But my gut feeling is that this story has a lot more depth to it. Particularly in terms of the relationship between the Society and the broader world of Scotch whisky during these past three decades. There’s clearly been interaction both subtle and explicit, all of which is captured by things such as the gradual intersection of the Society’s mission (bottling single-cask, cask-strenth whiskies) with the greater Scotch whisky world, and the relatively recent purchase of the Society by Glenmorangie.

The story of how this small syndicate of folks led by Pip Hills in 1983 rose to be named the 2012 Independent Bottler of the Year by Whisky Magazine is surely a fascinating one, and deserves an ample retelling. In fact, here’s my recommendation: the Society should commission Charles MacLean to write this history for them. Of all the whisky writers out there, there is no question that he’s the one who should write this. No other whisky writer is able to match his ability to spin a great story about Scotch whisky while at the same time exuding such a love of his subject. The Society should commission and publish this history from him.

Here are some of the more particularly interesting questions and topics that I think this history could address:

• The Tasting Panel: How was the Tasting Panel first constructed, who were its initial members, and how has it changed over the years? Who have been the authors of the tasting notes over time? What are some of the more memorable tasting notes that have been written? A chronology of the membership would be especially interesting.
• What are they key moments in the Society’s history? What have been the inflection points where its direction has been changed, and what circuitous path has it followed to where it is today?
• What is the history of its relationships with the various distilleries and distillery owners? What distilleries were initially most receptive to the Society’s mission, and how have relationships evolved over time?
• Who have been the key players in the Society’s history and development? We know well of someone such as Pip Hills, but who else has been a key figure in the Society over time?
• How did Glenmorangie’s purchase of the Society in the early 2000′s impact the Society, and change its culture and direction?
• A pictorial history of the labels and other drawings that Bob Dewar did for the Society while he was their principal artist. His drawings for them were iconic, and many still are. It would excellent to be able to browse through a series of them.

There are a number of other such topics that wend their way through my mind at different times. A thoroughly researched volume by a writer as talented as Charles MacLean would be outstanding.

We recently took a flyer on a wine from Washington state which I ended up enjoying immensely. Every time you strike out into a new wine region or style, it can be somewhat of of a crapshoot as you select a bottle and hope for the best. You may conduct some research beforehand, but chance quite often plays a great deal in whether you happen upon a special bottle or a run of the mill one.

In this case, we were both lucky and had some good guidance in the process. We were perusing the Washington wines at one of our favorite local bottle shops, and asked the owner for a recommendation. He actually gave us a few recommendations, and left it to us to make the final selection. Here is where the luck part came in. Perhaps we could have selected any of the bottles and thought they were excellent, perhaps not. But we chose this Syrah from Pomum Cellars and could not have been happier.

Pomum Cellars is a young winery started by a husband and wife team in Woodinville, Washington, north of Seattle. The winemaker spent much of his life in Spain’s Ribera del Duero, and after returning to the states and working as a hobbyist winemaker in his garage for several years, made the plunge and founded Pomum.

The winery focuses on producing just a few cases, with their current offerings encompassing a Riesling, a Syrah, and a red blend. In the past they’ve also made a Tempranillo. Their focus is clearly on the specificity of the grapes and vineyards that they work with, as evidenced by the vineyards page of their website and one account that I read of how far and frequently the winemaker travels to check on the grapes and confer with “his” growers. Reading the descriptions of each site gives you a clear sense of how much value he places in each of the vineyards they work with.

The other notable element about Pomum is their use of 500-liter oak puncheons for aging some of the wine. In the case of this Syrah, 23% of the wine was aged in these puncheons, with the remaining 77% being aged in used French oak barriques. I haven’t heard of other wineries using puncheons before, and find it pretty interesting. I would guess that a winery would be motivated to use them in order to moderate the impact of new oak on the wine, since with the greater ratio of wine to surface area in the barrel, the wine would come away with less oak compared to if it had been aged in a 55-gallon barrel. While this Syrah definitely has a strong oak backbone, it doesn’t overpower the fruit itself that the wine is built on. Perhaps this is indeed a result of the puncheons.

Tasting Notes

The wine is a deep, opaque purple red. The nose has dark notes of black cherry, currant, licorice, and subtle tobacco notes. The palate is soft and velvety, and the flavors are a continuation of the nose, with prominent dark fruits coupled with pipe tobacco and vanilla bean. The finish is pleasant, lingering with notes of of sweet black cherry.

Take-away

This was a really enjoyable wine. It was sturdy and full-bodied while still expressing great flavors dark fruits and a nice presence in the glass. I suspect the age of the wine helped to calm down the Syrah a great deal, as some younger Syrahs that I’ve had have been much sharper and tannic, and less well-rounded. Having enjoyed this wine, I’d happily seek out others from Pomum in the future.

Scotch whisky distilleries can be famous for many things. For their history, their iconic status, their smokiness. But only one is famous for being the home of one of the most notable invention to ever grace a whisky distillery – the Doig Ventilator (see an example here). Dailuaine, a distillery that you may have never heard of, can lay claim to this honor.

In the early 1890′s, Scottish architect Charles Chree Doig redesigned Dailuaine’s kiln building to include a pagoda roof. The objective of the pagoda was to more efficiently draw heat and smoke out of the building, thereby cooling the malt more quickly, requiring less fuel and producing a less smoky malt. It was Doig’s first design work for a distillery, and he would go on to design 55 more distilleries during his career, with the pagoda roof/Doig Ventilator being his signature mark. To this day, the pagoda roof remains a classic element of Scotch whisky distillery design, and many still feature them even though they haven’t malted their own barley for decades.

Sadly, the pagoda roof at Dailuaine burned down in a fire in 1917, the first of two fires that the distillery experienced (the other happened in 1959). Perhaps more sadly, this distillery’s whisky is practically unknown today, as all but a sliver of its production goes into blends.

Thus, here is another excellent example of the critical role that independent bottlers play. All but 2% of Dailuaine goes into blends (principally Johnnie Walker). As a result, the opportunities to taste it as a single malt are quite rare, especially if you live in the US where we have access to far fewer independent bottlings.

This particular bottle, from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, is particularly unusual in light of its age. Not too many scotch whiskies are bottled at less than 10 years (although, the number seems to be increasing). So a 7-year old whisky is rather rare, and many of the young examples that I’ve tasted are of variable quality.

That being said, this whisky is stunning, and you would never know that it’s so young. It has depth, loads of flavor, plenty of body and presence, and a good, solid finish. It was bottled at 61.4% and given how full-bodied and flavored it is, I have to guess that it’s from a first-fill cask. The Society’s tasting panel named it “Bentley In Zanzibar”.

Tasting Notes

The whisky is lightly touched with gold, the color of sauvignon blanc. The nose is redolent with notes of toffee, butter cookies, poached pear, and almond cake. The palate is dense and sweet with flavors of marzipan, creme brûlée, shortbread, grapes, brandy, and malt. The finish brings a lingering malty sweetness

Absolutely delicious. Amazing that it’s so young. A true testament to the impact that a good cask can have.