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No Bull Been sitting in the Humi for nearly a year and today is the day

Magnolias are beautiful trees. But raking leaves in the summer, is punishing. If you’ve been doing that, you deserve 2 cold ones Cheers

Made this last night with Rhum Barbancourt 8yr and it was excellent.

Love this! You guys enjoy!

Two reasons that I can see. 1) - due to the enormous popularity of Van Winkle and BTAC, BT is considered to be the most premium and desirable brand. Not necessarily to us here and other old timers but certainly to the new blood that have come into bourbon in the past 11-12 years. What I've noticed about this cohort is that they are not interested in (at least not right away) trying a broad range of bourbons to determine what they really like. Instead they want to be know "what is the best?" and they then want to go straight to the top no matter the cost so they can be seen on social media and get all the virtual kudos. Along with this group are the flippers who recognize what is going on and cater to them. 2) - when this many people come into bourbon with that mindset and find out they can't get VW and BTAC they do exactly what I did back in 2012 - I would buy anything else from that same distillery because it must be the best of what's regularly available. When that many people have that mindset it doesn't take long for everything (including even standard BT for a while) become just as hard to find as the allocated products. In 2012 to 2013 I could buy any of the standard BT bourbons including all the Wellers. By 2014 only BT and ER10 were regularly available in Washington State. From 2014 on every local facebook group was full of dudes posting their crotch shots of Wellers, ETL, etc. Never saw those on the shelf at TW again. In those early days I was sure that I was a BT guy. Over time as I branched out I eventually realized I was a Turkey and Four Roses guy. While GTS remains my singular favorite bourbon with PVW15 up there as well, I don't really miss the BT range any more. Great for me but it sucks for guys like Joe who were all in on BT long before the boom.

GeeTen is visiting PR. We are having quite a bit of fun - hard not to with him and his beloved. We've tried a good bit more than this pic, will post more later <hic!>. He and I both like SFTB. So we tried the contrasts - 120.2 vs 134.4 proof. My, my what a difference 14 proof points make. His take shall surely be more nuanced. Mine starts with commentary on the 120.2 in Modern Valley Girl aka "Tik Tok Standard English": "Like OMG. This Moscow Mule is sooooo good and has sooooo little alcohol. Goes down smoooooth and eaaasy. Let's have more! <Thud!>." Good people here on SB dot com. Grateful.

It's not easy for anyone.

Just a bit o yard work today, so I’m finished early. Sittin’ out front smelling the magnolias that flowered for me, with some tunes on, and a Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA. Great balanced IPA. And, here I thought that Black Butte Porter is all I needed from this brewery!!

I am here for 15 year old Barton. The 14, 15, and 16 year old Calumets were all excellent. Now of course we need to see the price.

Every once in a while huh.

I will be joining you later today after my own yard work is complete! I have three in the fridge right now.

I usually dont like OF, but I was picking top a salad recently and they have a little liquor display, and a bottle of OF BIB caught my eye, so I took a flyer and it ended up being fantastic.

Nice write up. I've not used any of these. I've ordered a lot (mostly scotch) from Whisky Exchange in London and have had 100% positive experiences. They even refunded me when a 20+ year old Clynlesh leaked in transit. Lost about an 1/8 of the bottle, which was still perfectly fine to drink, but they stepped up and gave me all my money back and let me keep the bottle. I generally order contemporary releases, not duties, because I don't trust anything that old to be genuine. (In the old days, 10-15 years ago, you could order BTAC at retail prices in unlimited quantities from them when they dropped - It was like a cheat code!!) Also ordered a few WT101 12 year olds from Bourbon Concierge and they were fine to deal with. Yes, it's secondary prices, but I don't travel to Japan, so it is what it is. My trust in buying scotch online is much higher than bourbon. I think there's more incentive to counterfeit bourbon, and it seems like a shadier secondary market. If I remember correctly, there's been a lot of fakery with Blanton's and some brands have no security whatsoever, like FR who still just use a one cent plastic shrink wrap anyone can buy in bulk on Amazon. Just my .02 cents tho.

Need pics!

The one in the picture was a gift and it's pretty durn good and very approachable if you're new to rye whiskey. I love rye and Mrs Skinsfan prefers rye over bourbon.

I'm getting into the habit of opening bottles the instant I acquire them. The difference between "just opened" and "open for x months" has been consistently stark. The Rebecca Creek is MGP. The ADHD bourbon guy (he is freaking hilarious and our palates tend to align) tried it blind and went wacko over it. So I wanna try. Cats. curiosity, etc. The Bowman is for comparison to its low-proof BT cousins. The Michter's Ft Nelson Rye just to see "is it really that much better than their excellent 10y/BP ryes".

awesome to hear. I'll be at a tasting event tonight at the local Total Wine. I may just pick one of these up.

I have a Redskins t-shirt in my collection. They'll always be the skins to me notwithstanding why they changed the name of the team. By the way, I think the Jack Daniels Bonded is excellent at its price. I would imagine the rye is equally good.

How is the Widow Jane? I am starting to warm to ryes. Historically, I could only tolerate them in an old fashioned or Manhattan but the Sagamore and Peerless Double Oaked have me starting to enjoy what they have to offer.

We built a pizza oven in our outdoor kitchen. Having that light airy, bubbled crust, lightly coated with some stewed tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and basil, drizzled with a bit of olive oil makes the perfect margherita pizza on a late spring, early summer Friday night! Let me see these pizza ovens take time. Like a fine bourbon, it takes time to adjust to it but once you do, you're hooked.

Happy fRYEday. I decided to crack open my HH GtG Rye. I purchased this back in February after resisting the urge for months to buy another expensive rye. I had read positive tasting notes from fellow SBers that were encouraging and tempted me. Then I think the price dropped at my local store by ten to $90 for awhile, ... which proved to be just enough to entice me to pull the trigger. Hah, ... I know we've all been there before My initial tasting feedback... If I tasted this blind I'd imagine that Four Roses finally made a straight rye whiskey that some have been clamoring for. Very strong minty notes, mixed with spicy rye bread. This is only my first pour, so take with a grain (no pun intended) of salt. This is right down my alley for a rye whiskey. Now I can understand why this is priced the way it is. I'm going to enjoy this bottle, and time will tell, ...might even pick up a backup.

For me, the “right” beer can definitely quench my thirst. Unlike other liquids though, it is a one bottle/can kinda thing for me. After one beer, it tends to make me thirsty again. Cheers

This reminds me of my father. He had a fridge in the garage full of beer and some soft drinks. I was middle school aged and one day I was pounding Pepsi’s in the Texas heat. I was probably annoying him with my lack of production in helping him in the yard. He glared at me and said, “if you want to quench your thirst drink a beer goddammit!” So I have been since that day 30+ years ago. And I used to drink that fridge dry and have my own fridge full of beer to this day. Tonight I drank a Maine Beer Company Lunch IPA and a Deschutes Hazy on a little east coast holiday.

For what it's worth, I couldn't resist buying the HH Grain to Glass Rye, based solely on tasting notes from folks here on SB that I have familiarity with and have some level of trust in. I tried to resist buying it (trust me, I do try, lol). I didn't buy the GtG Bourbons simply because they didn't sound interesting enough to me to shell out around a Benjamin for one. I can't explain it, but sometimes a unique rye whiskey makes me pull the trigger (even though I have more ryes than I need, plus I still prefer bourbons over rye, lol). The BIG caveat here is ... I haven't opened the GtG Rye yet. So I don't know whether I made a good choice or not! EDIT: Scratch that last caveat. I've been trying to decide what to have for my weekly fRYEday pour and I think I've just answered my own question. I've been meaning to open the GtG rye and now I have a reason. New bottle crack to be posted over the in American Rye thread in a few.