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Of the three B's of Dominican rum it seems like Bermudez is the one I see the least in the States. It is reportedly the rum used by 35 Maple St in their Kirk & Sweeney rum but I can't recall the last time I saw it on a shelf under it's own name. It could be here but just not where I am. I might look for the Bermudez Anniversario, a 10 or so year old rum. Pretty affordable in the DR I am told. The liquor I always here about from the DR is Mamajuana, some sort of local blend or rum and local herbs and spices I think. I have seen it here in the US on occasion but never bought any. Like many of these types of things it is supposed to cure what ever ails you and of course is also an aphrodisiac!

Working up an order for things I have to get online since they aren't available locally and saw Lillet Reserve. It was a bit intriguing. http://www.lillet.com/intl-en/range http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/05/new-lillet-reserve-vintage-jean-de-lillet-2009-review.html Anyone tried this?

Thanks. The PF 1840 and Amaro Nonino isn't a problem, have plenty of those. Will keep an eye out for the Abbott's.

Sounds interesting. Is there a something I can sub for the Abbot Bitters? I am not familiar with them but from what I can find it sounds like they are in the angostura family. Will have to sub in Nux Alpina as well.

I went a slightly different direction with my first attempt. Put a liter of unaged 100 proof Okolehao (a relatively new product that is a cane based reproduction of the classic Hawaiian "moonshine" that is traditionally flavored with ti plant root) into a 1 liter barrel and let it sit for about 4 months. It got rotated a quarter turn every week and for a brief period (maybe two weeks) it spent time in my garage in the August summer heat where I quickly realized it was much too hot. The rest of time was spent indoors in a more or less climate controlled environment. I don't know what the distillation proof was for the Okolehao but it wouldn't surprise me if it was at or near GNS level. A bit of history here for those interested: http://inuakena.com/misc/okolehao-then-and-now/ I would love to try that 22yo version that apparently sat largely forgotten during prohibition! I lost over half of my Okolehao ( I got about 400 ml out) and it got quite deeply colored so I am thinking it might have gotten a bit "overbaked" and even three to four months might be too long although its brief stint in my garage/rickhouse probably didn't help. I realized if I didn't get it out of there I was going to have little more than a tar ball at the end! This is the website of the distiller: www.islanddistillers.com (not 100% sure this distillery is still functioning to be honest) It is pretty vegetal tasting to begin with and the barrel seemed to emphasize that a bit. It also had a bit of that varnish like quality I tend to get in small barrel aged spirits that are only briefly aged. But all in all it was still interesting. I think I will have another Kauka* cocktail! It is my favorite cocktail so far using Okolehao although this aged version changes the profile pretty substantially from the unaged version. I always use about a half ounce of lime juice in place of the orange and lemon juice. *Kauka is the word for Doctor in Hawaiian.

An interesting contrast. Lowland whisky, like Bladnoch, tends to be a bit lighter and more delicate while Islay whisky is generally anything but! In any case it looks like Chris and others have you pretty well covered but I certainly second the Springbank/Longrow suggestion. Not exactly Islay or Lowland but practically the best of both worlds.

As I had feared this was a predominantly Kangaroo Cocktail crowd with one enthusiastic Moscow Mule drinker in the midst. I did try to branch out a bit with the Vesper as well as making a few variations on a Manhattan (with the Washington Post version of the Black Manhattan one of my personal favorites). Any effort on my part on Tiki drinks, even the Mai Tai, seemed like it would have been wasted so glad I didn't make much of an effort in that direction.

Isn't the Tanq Old Tom one of their "limited release" bottles? May not be around forever I suppose. Would be good to have a couple of newer options that become always available. But as long as I have Ransom to make my Martinez I don't worry much about it!

Prices for our egulleteer friends north of the border tend to be 2-3 times what we pay for most everything. Sometimes even for the local Canadian hooch! Gotta love the joys of social engineering through taxes! Not that we don't do our fair share of that here...

Good thought! That was the Tiki heyday. Will have to see what will work for this relatively novice cocktail crowd.

Celebrating a friends 60th soon. Was trying to come up with a few cocktails from the 50's. Other than "not real rye" Canadian whisky and bourbon-y Manhattan's and overly dry Martini's is there anything characteristic of that period? Any cocktails that were created in the 50's that were noteworthy? Best I could come up with is the Moscow Mule which was originally created in the early 40's but seemed to have gotten popular in the 50's in the early days of vodka's unfortunate domination of the cocktail culture for the next 40 plus years. Not my favorite cocktail (I tend to go with a "Guadalajara Burro" instead) but nothing else is coming to mind. Thoughts welcome! I can only make so many "Kangaroo cocktails" in one night before I start throwing bottles...

Plantation 20th Anniversary is certainly a nice one. Dictador is a curious one. Some years back it seemed to appear out of nowhere primarily in Europe (although it is in the US and elsewhere now) with its slick looking package and largely made up story about Severo Arango y Ferro, the "Dictador" in Cartegena. Made by Destileria Colombiana in Colombia this brand appeared about the same time their primary brand of rum, Ron Baluarte, disappeared. Coincidence? Probably not! Some speculation that the story of good old dictator Severo is a complete fabrication as well. Its one of the "solera" style rums and rather like Zacapa the number on the bottle reflects the oldest rum in the bottle and doesn't indicate the real age of the rum. I have only tried samples a few times but I was a bit underwhelmed with it. At $45-50 a bottle for the Dictador 12 and $60 for the Dictador 20 it isn't one I look for. Give me El Dorado or a nice agricole everytime. Its slick packaging and largely fabricated back story probably don't help much either.

Sacré Bleu! And other colors as well! I am sure that is lovely but to not be able to pick through the rhum agricole availability (among other things!) in Paris would be disappointing indeed.

OK. I know that my friends in Hawaii never use a microwave (although I am not sure that makes any difference). They warm the sake using the equivalent of an electric tea pot looking appliance.

Did you try this one "un-nuked" (this doesn't mean time in the microwave does it? That is what I think of when I think of "nuking" something!)? If so was it any better? I rarely drink sake but when I do (usually in Hawaii with friends of Asian background) we do little more than gently warm it to luke warm or perhaps slightly warmer.

Tyrconnell was an older brand name from a now closed distillery that was resurrected by Cooley as a single malt which is now owned by Beam Suntory (and renamed the Kilbeggan distillery by Beam Suntory) and as far as I know is still being produced. Cooley was unusual for distilling only two times (more like scotch) instead of the typical three times of the two other major distillers of Irish whiskey. I don't know that it ever carried an age statement and it isn't one of my favorites (although I do have a couple of AD Rattray releases of older barrel proof Cooley malt that I like). There is supposed to be a 15yo version but I have never seen it. However there are three finished Tyrconnell's (port, sherry and my favorite, madeira) that I do like more than the regular single malt. Don't see those quite as much as I used to since the sale so not sure if they are still made. Like most basic Irish whiskey the NAS version tends toward the light side with some grain character and I agree that the regular single malt tends to have an unusual apple/pear fruit note that tends to stand out a bit.

Just so! The top label says Kyrgyz cognac"y" in Cyrillic and the full name of Kyrgyzstan is on the main label. I have forgotten what the guide says is written after where it says 6-7 but basically it was referring to the age as best I recall.

Just part of my annual meanderings. A 3 week tour of the five Stans that included a brief visit in Almaty, Kazakstan as the starting point and then down through Kyrgyzstan and across the Fergana Valley to Uzbekistan and a brief trip through the northern edge of Tajikistan and finally into the somewhat bizarre world that is Turkmenistan and the Land of Oz (and I don't mean Australia!) that is the marble covered city of Ashgabat before returning home. Lots of uninteresting (to me) vodka, mostly imported from Russia I think, but not much in the way of locally made spirits except for generally young brandy (which as I noted they typically call cognac). Some better pics of the "cognac".

About the only other one that readily comes to mind is the Louis Royer "Force 53" VSOP Cognac which is 106 proof as the name suggests. But I have never tried it. I find the Ferrand 1840 works fine for me and isn't bad as an occasional sipper to boot. In fact it was part of a recent Wednesday tasting that included a couple of oddities I brought back from a recent trip to Central Asia. One was a "cognac" (their typical term for local brandy) from Kyrgyzstan which was 6-7 years old, 84 proof and not bad with some nice young raisin-y fruit and the other was a bottom shelf cognac from Turkmenistan that was young thin and unremarkable. We also tried a 5yo Armenian brandy, Asbach from Germany along with the Ferrand 1840 (which was totally different, not to mention better, than everything else).

New York and London aren't much easier than traveling to the Chartreuse mountains of France in terms of availability compared to here in the hinterlands of Atlanta! Have to fight and scrape to find what little interesting oddities I can amongst the limited selection, the near limitless lack of knowledge amongst distributors (not all, but many!), the labyrinthine limitations on bringing in new products and the lack of desire among distributors to be bothered if it can't sell as many cases as the latest bubblegum vodka and the puritanical restrictions on getting alcohol shipped here from just about anywhere. The few places that still do are doing so while dancing around the edges of legality but I bless them for it!

I would second both of these. Green and Yellow are not interchangeable as the yellow is much lower proof, has honey added and is much sweeter and blunts the subtle herbal notes of green. The Division Bell is excellent but must be made carefully as too much or two little of any one ingredient seems to have an impact out of proportion to what you might expect. And for me at least it should be made with Aperol rather than Campari. But I admit to not being a huge Campari fan.

Well OK, it will do in a pinch!

Nope, nothing quite so "titanic". As to the other variations I expect I will have to go to France, if not the monastery itself, to have a decent chance to try them.

The Neisson price is pretty absurd even for Martinique. JM has had a 15yo and it is a comparatively economical at $250!

Egads!!! Despite what the recipes may say and perhaps even the bum himself (don't have his book handy) this is much better with curacao (Ferrand is lovely) than with OJ, as is the case with many cocktails. Clement Creole Shrubb is another option that has worked well. And while ED5 is nice the newer ED8 is even better! And I wouldn't hesitate to use ED12 in a pinch. As to the agricole sometimes you just have to use the good stuff to make the best cocktails. And being in San Diego, unlike the damned puritan controls that #%&@ up liquor shipping in Georgia, presumably all the stores in Cali will ship to you if you get desperate for a source for more aged agricole, right?