What's Tony Drinking? Whiskey & Rum and Some More For Good Measure
No Woodford Reserve? No Problem
It’s not often that you meet up with the master distiller of Woodford Reserve to drink Jack Daniel’s, but that’s what happened when Chris Morris and I met for lunch to talk about Woodford’s $1,000 Mint Julep, which they sell at the Kentucky Derby each year (the proceeds go to various charities). Much to our dismay, the private venue where we met up was one of the few places in NYC that didn’t stock Woodford, so we settled for Manhattans made with fellow Brown-Forman brand JD. At least I got to look at the julep cup, which is pretty swanky and justifies the price tag. Many years back, Morris told me, they tried to make the ingredients as fancy as the cup. “We got the mint from Morocco because the Moroccan ambassador was going to the Derby,” he said. “And we got Arctic ice, shipped to us by UPS.” Alas, things began to go awry. “Before the Derby, the ice melted, and whatever microorganisms were in there came back to life and made the water cloudy. We filtered it, we put it in a microwave…. and now we just use ingredients from Kentucky. The slogan is, “The finest of Kentucky for Kentucky’s finest day.” Works for me. Who needs Arctic ice, anyway? (And actually, this year’s julep is made with fancy honey from Versailles — in France, not the town of Versailles in Kentucky.)
Slane Slays, Especially with Cookies
Cookies and milk? Sure. But cookies and Slane Irish Whiskey… now that’s really something. I was having a day-drinking session at The Spaniard on West 4th St. with Alex Conyngham, co-founder of Slane, whose family also holds an annual rock festival at their castle in Ireland. Hey, it’s nice work if you can get it. We were a few whiskeys in — we tried Slane’s flagship triple cask expression (aged in ex-bourbon, ex-Oloroso sherry, and virgin oak); a special edition that ups the virgin oak quotient; and an unreleased version that is entirely virgin oak-aged. It was like drinking a toasted marshmallow, though much less goopy. And when we got fantastic, melt-in-your-mouth, slightly undercooked, ridiculously buttery butterscotch cookies, one of us — I don’t remember who, but I’ll gladly take the credit — said, “I’ll bet these would go great with the virgin oak.” A couple of dunks later, we were sold. If it becomes the next big trend at bars, remember you read it here first. In the meantime, if you like Irish whiskey at all, give Slane a try. It hadn’t had it in a few years and I'd forgotten how good it is.
Drinking The Clean Sweep
I got invited to the bar at the Baccarat Hotel for a midday tasting of a whole bunch of rum, and being no dummy, I said “Sure!” The rum in question, Dictador, is notorious in rum circles for its “2 Masters” editions, a series of very limited edition (and very expensive) vintage rums finished in casks that have previously held everything from armagnac to wheated bourbon. The brand is also infamous among serious rum nerds for its curious lack of transparency about how the rums are aged, how they’re made, and even where they’re made. Ken Grier, longtime creative director for the Macallan who now works with Dictador through his own consulting firm, was there to answer my questions… and have a nip or two of Dictador with me. I must confess my eyes glazed over just a bit as he waxed rhapsodic about Dictador’s being on the cutting edge of booze-related NFTs (a subject I try to avoid whenever possible). But he gave me a lot of info about the brand … and a lot of rum. In fact, Ken said I was the first writer to do a “clean sweep” of all ten 2 Masters editions as well as the flagship 12 Year Old in one sitting. And to his credit, Ken matched me sip for sip. All eleven samples were quite good, and none of them had the telltale syrupy vanilla notes that signify sugar added after distillation. The one that stands out most in memory is a 1977-vintage rum matured for 7 months in Hungarian tokaji wine casks. Not something you try every day, that’s for sure.
I Wanna Rock and Rum, All Nite
Another surprisingly legit rum of questionable origin comes from the self-proclaimed “hottest band in the world,” the one and only KISS. They’ve plastered their name and likeness on just about everything you can sell over the years, from comic books to “KISS Kaskets,” so it only makes sense that they’d hawk their own wines and spirits, as well. And it’s a surprisingly large line, too. Monstrum, the band’s third rum, is, I’m told, a blend of rums from Jamaica and Guyana, aged at least 14 years in — get this — arrack barrels, without added sugar or flavoring. Sadly, founding band members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley aren’t doing press for Monstrum, so I had to try it myself, with my vintage copy of Rock & Roll Over playing in the background. It’s a strange one (the rum, not the album, which is a straight-ahead hard rawk classic) — a mix of Jamaican funk, Guyanese leather and meatiness, and that distinctive arrack flavor that my wife likes to describe as “an old sock.” I can’t imagine what hardcore KISS fans whose rum knowledge doesn’t extend beyond Bacardi will think of it, but I think it’s a cool change of pace.
“You Put Your Fruit in My Rum!” “You Put Your Rum in My Fruit!”
I would not have given fruit-infused rum a second thought, were it not for my friend and personal rum guru Kate Perry (whom my daughter describes, accurately or not, as “the Katy Perry of rum”), of La Maison & Velier fame, raving about how terrific Arhumatic is. And tasting is believing. This isn’t just any old rum and any old fruit. It’s the best of the best — rhum agricole from Damoiseau, Jamaican expressions from Worthy Park and Hampden Estate, Clairin Casimir from Haiti, to name a few — with the highest quality fruits and herbs, inserted by hand into each bottle. All four expressions I tried were terrific, but my favorite was Basilicum Exoticum, with pineapples and basil. Terrific chilled or on the rocks, and creative bartenders are gonna go nuts with them. Alas, there are only a few hundred bottles of each expression available, so jump on ‘em while you can.