Beam's "Throwdown Challenge"

[StraightNoChaser]

Last night timd and I went to a big Beam event downtown here in Dallas. It was hosted at a rather trendy nightclub, full of pretty neon lights

They had all the Beam brands out for you to taste the small batch collection, Laphroaig, Canadian Club, el Tosoro tequila, Maker's, Sauza, Thatcher's liqueurs, Courvoisier, Skinny Girl. Each table also featured a brand ambassador or master distiller, as well as a few other high ups from the company.

Anyway, the most fun part of all this was the Throwdown Challenge, a blind nosing of 8 spirits. They were:

Sauza Gold

Courvoisier Exclusif

Maker's Mark

Canadian Club sherry cask

Jim Beam

Knob Creek

Laphroaig

Cruzan

You are given 60 seconds to place them all correctly on a branded mat by aroma and color only! Happy to say I nailed it on the first try. I was apparently also the first person that night to accomplish it!

My prize was a 2L barrel signed by all the distillery reps present, including Fred Noe! And that was just the beginning of the night!

[StraightNoChaser]

I'm linking this from twitter, hope it works!

[Tucker]

Congrats!

Did they also give you something to put in that nice little barrel?

[StraightNoChaser]

Sure, but I drank it :grin:

[DeanSheen]

Nice.

Some of those seem rather easy to pick out. Still with 60 seconds I could see where people would get flustered being on the clock.

[Parkersback]

Thanks for sharing that, and congrats on the barrel!

[chefnash51]

Congrats! Sounds like my kind of throw down!

[StraightNoChaser]

Nice.

Some of those seem rather easy to pick out. Still with 60 seconds I could see where people would get flustered being on the clock.

The only real challenge was picking between Knob Creek and Jim Beam since they smell so similar. But as you can imagine it's fairly easy to pick out Laphroaig, a tequila, a cognac, a rum, Canadian whisky and Maker's Mark

[StraightNoChaser]

A shot of some of the signatures

[BourbonKiller]

You lucky lucky bastard!

Green with envy!

[p_elliott]

Very Cool One of our own showing how it's done!

[macdeffe]

Very well done. 60 seconds is quite short time

Steffen

[Bourbon Boiler]

Congrats. I'm not sure how I would have fared, particularly if I would have started sampling on my own tab beforehand.

[PJFZ1]

Very Nice - I particularly like the "Stay on the Beam" from Fred Noe - as a retired Sailor, It has extra significance.

[wadewood]

I attended same event held the night before in Houston. I tried it twice, each time I missed by swapping Makers and Knob Creek. The Jim Beam White you could tell by color, but Makers and Knob Creek were the same color and I thought close on the nose.

The event was called Spirit Confidential by Beam Global. It was a very nice event - big props to Beam.

[timd]

I attended same event held the night before in Houston. I tried it twice, each time I missed by swapping Makers and Knob Creek. The Jim Beam White you could tell by color, but Makers and Knob Creek were the same color and I thought close on the nose.