What's the Best Island Whisky

HOW AN IRISHMAN TAUGHT ME TO LOVE SCOTCH

In my early twenties, I moved from Hannover to Karlsruhe. Hannover is notorioulsy Germany's grayest city, so I moved to Germany's sunniest city. Supposedly, Karlsruhe was inspired by the sun's rays shining through branches as the prince napped beneath them. He woke up and planned "Sonnenstadt" setting up the streets to emanate from the palace like sunbeams. He called it Karl's rest, but many called it sun city and still do. Some even say it has ties to sun worship and the occult.

Karlsruhe 1721

There's a grave in the middle of the city that looks like a pyramid. Inside is the prince. It's one of those cities city planners, transit designers, and architects know about. I taught English around town and spent most evenings at a pub called Flynn's Inn.

Dave Flynn was a guy who traveled around the world opening Irish pubs for other people until he got sick of that and opened his own pub in Karlsruhe. Flynn's Inn was where every English-speaker in town congregated. It was home base. Dave was a whisky nut and had a secret stash from Kildare and other parts of Ireland he'd share with regulars and friends.

I think it's safe to say I knew almost nothing about whisky before knowing Dave Flynn.

One of the bartenders, Simon, a kind Irish poet, rented a room from me for a while. And even though I never had any money, Dave took good care of me and even let me take advantage of some whisky tastings. At one of those tastings I had a glass of my all-time favorite Scotch: Scapa 12-year.

It tasted like a little bit of peat mixed with the sea and grass of Scottland. I couldn't get enough. It transported me to windswept cliffs. I got really romantic about this Scotch. The host of the tasting told me they let Scapa Flow flood the distillery every year and do nothing about it. I can't find any evidence of this online, but I like the legend, so I'm going to keep repeating it until the distillers write me and tell me to stop.

My last night in Germany was spent in Flynn's Inn surrounded by friends I'd mostly never see again.

Stateside, I almost never found Scapa, but when I did I flipped out (I found it at the Franklin in Vegas and nearly drank them out of it). And when I was in Europe I usually sniffed some out. Their 12-year tasted like an 18 and brought me back to unknown shores. Little did I know Scapa produced no new juice from 1994 to 2004.

Now there's the Orcadian, widely available at least in the western states.

The Orcadian is a smooth and super-quaffable 16-year. It's all honey and salt and citrus, and so delicious it's hard to compare it to anything the same age. That seems to be the magic of this distillery: everything tastes much older than its age statement claims. That means it's a bargain because something of similar quality with an older statement is usually MUCH more expensive. Also, they claim that their angel's share is far less in comparison to other distilleries because of their location. Scapa is on the bank of Scapa Flow, and they're the second-most northern distillery in Scotland (Highland Park has them beat by half a mile).

The new packaging screaming for Americans to love them makes me think I'll be able to get this for a while into the future. And it's pretty and blue and has a little boat on it, and I love it. 

I miss their 12-year. That might be just my nostalgia. I love the Orcadian and want to drink more of it and tell my stories of my expatriate days when the only place I could speak English was with the other foreigners at Flynn's.

I don't know what happened to his spot in Karlsuhe, but Dave Flynn has a Flynn's Inn in Bonn now, and I hope to visit him some day. 

Which Bourbon Should I Buy My Pool Shark?

Reflections on 3am, The Hustler, and J.T.S. Brown
Guest Blog by Kevin Kunundrum

Sometimes there are surprises on the bottom shelf.

I’ve been thinking of the Paul Newman movie, The Hustler. Early 1960s—glorious black and white. The seedy stark monochromatic reality of life on the other side of the tracks. The anti-hero who gets so close but then self-destructs.

And then it’s that trip through the Underworld anyone who tries for something more must face: A landscape of fire and shadows and clouds of smoke.

And from one of those clouds, Paul Newman’s character Fast Eddie Felson says to the bartender “J.T.S. Brown.”

Time is out of joint. Civilized society is fast asleep or just waking up while Eddie lives a parallel life in a penumbral Purgatory. And sometimes he can see their world, he can almost touch it, but he can never break through. He’ll always be a part of life after dark and smoke-filled rooms and plaintive jazz by Negroes who still feel slavery and pool halls and prostitutes and 3am bars and men who swim about like sharks in the shadows looking for that next meal.

And there’s that hollowness they all share, that they feel but never stand still long enough to face.

They’re sharks after all. And they pull another Lucky from the pack shaped by their pocket and motion to the bartender with the tip of a lit cigarette, “J.T.S. Brown.” The poetry of this place, the economy of words as the drink appears, straight, no chaser.

And Fast Eddie gazes into the glass like temporary absolution. The hollowness is still there. The wound that never heals, what men feel for being alive, for being men. And Eddie looks at the bartender and once in a great while he’ll say,

“I’m feelin’ it pretty bad tonight, Joe.”

And the bartender offers a nod and pours another round. And now and then he’ll say, “On the house.”

And Eddie nods back as if he’s been given a reprieve. The promise of sunrise, straining, bleeding through the smoke-stained glass. Maybe today…

All this was on the bottom shelf in the liquor store in that bottle tucked away. This time traveler from 1960. J.T.S. Brown. Kentucky bourbon that’s smooth and strong and better with each glass. This companion to the hollowness. This poetry of shadows that somehow holds us together.

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I Found 52 Bottles of Belle Epoque

My boss gave me our dead stock list and said, "see what you can do with this, bud." It was divided into liquor/beer/etc., and I went straight for wine. One of my favorite bottles of Champagne jumped out at me: Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque. And you know what? 2004! 2004 was the first year they started painting the bottles since 1902!!!

I couldn't believe it. I wanted to just open a bottle and drink it. If this were my spot, I'd take one home and drink it alone and take pictures. I still got to taste it, and holy crap. It's 2015 now. So, it's about 10.5 years old, I'd say. That's about the perfect amount of age on a bottle of Champagne, and I have to say, this juice has done well. I mean, this is kept in MGM Grand's cooler, which is perfectly maintained.

Toasty almondy, appley gold, and just a touch of lees to make you know it's been done the old-fashioned way. This is an elegant lady the rougher beasts of this breathing world won't appreciate, but if you've got any finesse, any passing grace, you'll notice the subtle curves in her bubbly mouth. And the outside of the bottle is nice, too. It's hand-painted, designed by a famous Japanese artist, and inspired by Art Nouveau, which is one of my personal favorites when it comes to architecture and design.

Essentially, I found a treasure. I put it in the Mansion bar at MGM Grand a few days ago, and we've sold a couple bottles. I priced it at a seriously low cost because I was really excited about sharing it: $283. That's a steal... like, really.

Anyway, it's my dream that someone will come into the Mansion bar, find it through the high-roller casino, and ask for this very special bottle. Keep the bottle, take it home with you and put it on a shelf. It's special.

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Thoughts on the Napa 2014 Quake

By now you've heard of the 6.0 Napa Quake in August costing businesses there a conservative $80,000,000. It's probably a lot more. Firstly, let me just say to all those idiots out there who keep saying 6.0 ain't no thing: It is. I grew up in LA and went to school in The Bay, and I will tell you, a 6.0 is major. Half the structural damage you won't notice for years, and you're lucky to have lived through it. And if you're a collector of little glass figurines, and you've put thousands of dollars and years of your time into the collection, imagine how you'd feel picking up its shards. Now imagine if that was a massive cellar of aging wine you'd planned on selling as part of an investment strategy for your business, or worse, retirement.

But that's not even the worst of it. You might have harvested and crushed and aged for a year. You were about to bottle to make room in barrels for an October harvest. Too bad; you just lost your 2013 batch. And if you'd already started on your 2014, tough break, kid.

And all of that is why I think Napa wines will be 15-30% more costly from 2013, 2014, and maybe even 2015. And that is probably mostly going to be on the shelves because wineries have already maxed out what they can charge tourists in Napa (they've been fleecing visitors more and more each year).

On another note, I hope there will be a cool factor associated with 2014, maybe even collector's edition bottles commemorating the great quake. I personally would like to have a few bottles in my cellar like that, break 'em out at parties and have a story to tell.

But here't the other thing: If I were a winery in Oregon, Washington, New York, Virginia, or maybe even France or Argentina, I would DROP my prices ever-so-slightly. No one is taking down Cali any time soon, but I do think there is some brand development opportunity available to anyone willing to make a go of it next year. "Hey Napa's expensive this year, but check out this similar quality Cab from XYZ. It's usually more expensive than Napa, but they've actually lowered their price this year, and now they're CHEAPER than the Napa label." That's the pitch. EASY!

But I really do feel for the citizens of Napa and to anyone who loves Napa wine. It's a tragedy, it really is.

tragic