Liquors!
 

(Thread renamed to liquors so it's a bit more inclusive ;))

I'm thinking there's probably a few here who have a taste for whisky. I acquired mine after living in the tax-free norwegian arctic where beer is cheaper than milk and - when a litre of Laphroaig Quarter Cask was 800 NOKs on the mainland, it only cost about 250 up there. There was also the Karls-Berger pub up there which is famous for it's selection of cognacs and whisky although they certainly knew how to make money selling it. Before on the mainland, real whisky was much too expensive - especially when I didn't even know what I was buying, but up there it was cheap enough even for a poor student like me to incorporate into his life and many of those bottles became good friends, especially in the dark time of the year when the sun never comes up, it's cold and perhaps a little lonely.

No, it's not a thread about alcoholism, it's a thread about passion!

As far as I know, we're not professional tasters and taste notes and the like are most likely way beyond most of us by far, but try and write a little about the whiskys you like and perhaps why you like them. I'd love to get some nice tips and maybe I can give some myself for others to pick up and try out.


I'll start out with one of my own favourites already mentioned in this thread :


Laphroaig Quarter Cask (Single Islay Malt)

http://www.vinolea.com/catalog/image...ter%20cask.jpg

Laphroaig is one of the famous distilleries from the south-west scottish island Islay, several of which distilleries are known for their intensely peat-flavoured whiskys. The first Laphroaig I tasted was the 10 year old which personally gave strong associations to bonfire on the beach by the sea. It's like you can taste the salty ocean in the whisky - and of course there's lots of smoke there. Having grown up in a marine culture, this had strong appeal to me. Laphroaig Quarter Cask is matured in small casks, a quarter of the size of the regular - and this increases the wood surface to volume ratio and gives an increased oaky flavour to the whisky. The 10 year old is good, but I slightly prefer the quarter cask.

The young whisky does pack a punch and my favourite way of enjoying it is with just a few drops of water in the glass and then a fresh tasting lager on the side. It's not too good if it's warm (so perhaps not at it's best at the height of summer), but somewhere between 15~20 degrees celcius, it is magnificent. Highly recommended!

Your turn :)

I'm a huge fan of bourbon, other types of whiskey not so much. Knob Creek is easily my favorite but it's fairly expensive so I don't drink it very often.

http://intoxicologist.files.wordpres.../knobcreek.jpg

It's made by the same distillery that makes Jim Beam, which is my primary bourbon of choice.

best name ever :laughing: sounds like slang for a flower :laughing:

Bringing bourbon into my whisky thread? ;) Just kidding, I think I'll use my mod powers and turn it into a thread about any kind of liquor. That might make it more inclusive!

Bourbon's not bad, but I've yet to taste one that actually excites me. Actually, the same goes for all whiskys/whiskeys not made in Scotland :laughing: I need to get my taste buds out there.

I don't get it. :confused: I guess there's some Scottish terminology involved that I'm not hip to because it just sounds like the name of a small river to me.

Well bourbon is a type of whiskey.

knob ;)

That I knew. I'm not getting the connection to flowers though.

Yeah, but it's not a "whisky" (without an "e") as that spelling implies only the stuff made in Scotland (okay - and Canada and Japan).

Anyways, since it's now about liquor in general, I can write about my favourite bitter which is Fernet Branca.

http://www.altacucinasociety.com/db/...caandshotG.jpg

It's an italian bitter made from a secret recipe that involves X amount of herbs. It's quite bitter to the taste and unlike sugar-infested gloop like Jägermeister, it's thankfully not sweet. It's sharp and fresh with a taste like aggressive, herby mouthwash. Like certain other bitters, it's rumoured to cure various ailments like headaches (duh), stomach aches and hangovers.

It's the kind of thing you either love or hate. A lot of people don't like it for it's bitterness while some love it for the same reason. Appearantly, it's immensely popular in Argentina and it's commonly enjoyed in a glass with cold coka cola.

I like it bare with a glass of cold water on the side. Lovely :) and it was also dirt cheap up there!

Wait... what? I think we're operating on completely different information here. To my knowledge "whiskey" and "whisky" are just two different spellings of the same word referring to the same type of alcohol. The word that specifies it being from Scotland is "scotch".