Tuesday, January 31, 2012

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Drink Whisky



Well I hope all of you are enjoying your journey into the wild wonderful world of whiskies etc.
I have been back working full time since November 14th of 2011 and this next Friday is my last day (Feb 3) for a while. I am a contract hire now having retired from my long time job last July after the mass lay off of space workers happened. So what does one do when one is out of work? One enjoys their hobbies and of course my hobby is whisky and whiskey so I am going to try some new whisky. I am really not sure what we will be trying but one of my friends and I have plans to visit a local liquor store and search for new and different interesting malts or blends to try. I am really looking forward to it.
I have noticed a trend towards new and different whiskies these days. As you may already know when the freshly distilled spirit comes out of the tap there is not a lot of taste to it so that taste must be infused into the spirit via time spent in various casks. Sherry casks give one flavor and port casks another and some distillers blend those two together for an additional treat and call the outcomes double wood or even triple wood. They are usually outstanding so please try them all. But lately I have seen a Balvenie Caribe which is put up in rum casks for a Caribbean flavor and I just saw that Grant's is using ale casks to age some of their whisky in. I think this is a new trend and a very positive one that will give whisky drinkers the world wide an even broader and more substantial pallet from which to paint one's soul. I regret I have yet to taste any of these new kids on the block but I will remedy that in the near future and provide you with a full report on each one as I am able to acquire some of the new whiskies. Should you acquire anything wonderful and wish to share it with me just comment to the blog and I will get in contact with you. :-)
I did tally up my stock of whisky (ey) the other day and I have 26 different ones. A sad tale when you realize there are many hundreds out there. :-( But 26 is better than 0 for sure.
Stock up now for St. Patrick's Day, its just 7 weeks away and it is my favorite holiday of the year with most of the rest tied for second. Enjoy and please let me know what you like to drink I would really like to know. Thanks
The Whisky Warrior