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Mezcal is getting hot, so maybe sell a couple of distilleries in exchange for some craft Mezcal companies, especially if they’re doing as well as my friend Ashley’s Mezcal – Kimo Sabe. The presentation included a cocktail specially prepared by the staff at Seven Grand’s Bar Jackalope, a taste of three of the main whiskies that go into the Toki blend (we had a grain, young single malt, and older single malt), and concluded with a sampling of the Toki. Chef was given the difficult task of prepping five courses to complement two expressions of single malts for each course. However, pairing two different expressions with each course (a 12 year old and an 18 year old, for example) made for a rather perplexed palate.

I would add it to Purplesaurus Rex Kool-Aid; it was my “call” for whiskey sours at happy hour; it was on the vanguard of the rye revival and the first rye I bought (a good one, at that); the until-this-moment secret ingredient in my Thanksgiving stuffing is Devil’s Cut; when Black Label went to no age statement, I bought enough bottles of the 8 year old to turn my office into a stock room. Appropriately, the request to review Jim Beam Double Oak came at a time of professional, personal, romantic, and spiritual flux in my life. The first is that my book, Distilling Rob, uses the whisky maturation process as a metaphor for how boys mature into men – taking the spirit and refining its essence within oak casks (or in the case of me – refining my spirit within life). In the case of Jim Beam Double Oak, this added dose of maturity (aged in the second oak cask “to taste”) successfully guides the whiskey to deeper places.

Stranahan’s whiskey distillery is the oldest in Colorado (license number seven – the first six went to the U. S. Army in World War Two During my visit, Rob decided to share six unique barrels with me and a few hundred passionate Stranahan’s whiskey fans at a Saturday night extravaganza the distillery called Cask Thief 2016. While the three-year-old and the six-year-old barrels evoked the flavors that are expected with Stranahan’s, a rum cask and an Oloroso sherry cask imparted unexpected finishing accents on the standard whiskey. According to Rob the barrel tasting event (which included a pig roasted over Stranahan’s Whiskey barrel chips and a great assortment of side dishes) was solely intended to give fans of Stranahan’s a taste, so to speak, of what he and the enthusiastic staff get to experience every day

In honor of this weekend’s Feis Islay Festival, which matches up nicely with today’s World Whisky Day, I give to you my thoughts on a new release from Laphroaig: the Laphroaig Lore. According to the distillery manager John Campbell, Lore is composed of whiskies between 7 to 21 years old, pulled from a diverse selection of casks including double matured first-fill ex-bourbon barrels, virgin European oak, first-fill oloroso sherry butts, first-fill and refill quarter casks, and refill ex-Laphroaig stock. Cask Strength, Quarter Cask, 10 year, 15 year, 18 year, 25 year : at first it is ashy; after sitting a few minutes, it turns bitter with the taste of old, dusty dark chocolate that is past its prime; let it sit a little while longer and some vegetative freshness returns