What’s Tony Drinking? A Winning Whiskey, A Rare Rum, A Winter Cocktail, Glenmorangie & Ardbeg
Dedman Drinking
Dixon Dedman burst on the scene in 2014 with his Kentucky Owl whiskeys. It wasn’t exactly a new brand — Dedman’s great-great grandfather had run it from 1879 to 1916, when the gathering forces of Prohibition led the distillery to shut its doors. Dixon made a big deal about reclaiming the family legacy, so when he abruptly left Kentucky Owl, a few years after selling the brand to Stoli, it seemed to many — including me — like a pretty craven and tactless move. Turns out his exit was a lot more complicated than it seems, and his reasons for leaving are pretty valid ones. But he still wants to blend whiskey, and he’s back in action with his latest venture, 2XO (which stands for “two times oak”). We gathered with Dixon at the Flatiron Room to give his debut Phoenix Blend bourbon a try, and lo and behold, the guy knows what he’s doing. His gambit here was to blend two sourced bourbons, one with a high-rye mashbill and one more moderately rye-influenced, and then re-barrel them in new charred oak barrels for an undisclosed amount of time. You’d think the results would be tannic as heck, but no! It’s actually fruity, and lively and rather light on the peppery spice, a very easy drinker indeed (I should know, because I drank my share). The not-yet-released single barrel he tasted us on was even better. Stay tuned!
Odds are Ten To One’s Latest Rum is a Winner
It was worth trekking to Oceans in the Flatiron District just to check out Ten To One Rum founder Marc Farrell’s very cool pants, which I not only forgot to photograph, I forgot to even ask him where he got them. Because dammit I want a pair for myself. But the real star of the show was his lineup of delicious pan-Caribbean rums, with the star of stars being his new limited edition 26 Year Old Founders Reserve bottling. How rare? We’re talking 210 bottles. I’m not sure if the one he brought for us to try was one of the 210 or was counted separately. Anyway, it’s a blend of 26 year old Guyanese column still rum and 30 year old Guyanese and Jamaican pot still rums, blended 20 years ago — long before Ten To One existed — and left to age until now. What was the purpose of the blend and who was it originally intended for? Farrell doesn’t know, but he did know to snap up the lone barrel when it was made available. It’s a terrific rum, with more tropical fruit and baking spice notes than I’d have expected from rums of this provenance and age. The finish stops a little short on first blush, but it lingers longer with each successive sip, lightly tannic and with just a trace of smoke. At $450 a pop (suggested retail price — stores may mark it up excessively), I know two things. First, this is a steal — a whiskey of comparable age, quality and rarity would cost at least ten times as much — and second, Marc Farrell has great taste in pants.
My Winter Cocktail
It’s not often that I come up with a cocktail good enough to share, but I made this one for Thanksgiving and have been quaffing it regularly ever since. I’m not generally a fan of cold-weather drinks, because a lot of them — hot toddies, Tom & Jerry’s and the like — are served hot. Hot cocktails definitely have their place (I still wax rhapsodic about the Hot Grasshopper, introduced at the late lamented Golden Cadillac in NYC), but I prefer mine cold, even on the most biting days of the year. So my cocktail is warming only to the soul, but it tastes freakin’ delicious. And it’s easy to make, too — two ounces of calvados (I used Boulard VSOP Rye Cask Finish); a half ounce or so of maple syrup; and a couple of dashes of walnut bitters. Build it in a rocks glass, stir, add a nice big cube, and garnish with a stick of cinnamon. Does that not scream “cold weather cocktail,” I ask you? I’ve also tried it with American apple brandy, but for whatever reason the calvados works better, especially as the ice begins to melt and the drink gets more watery. It doesn’t have a name yet (“Cold Weather Cocktail”? “Big Apple Old Fashioned”? “Le Grosse Pomme”?) — but suggestions are welcome.
A Night Out With Dr. Bill
Nowadays, there’s a whole lot of great whisky out there that most of us don’t get to taste. I’m not just talking about the here-and-gone bottles that make it to store shelves for what seems like nanoseconds, I’m talking about bottles that never even make it to public release at all but are reserved for the most loyal of loyal customers and the biggest of big spenders. For reasons I have yet to figure out, a handful of my writerly peers and I got to crash a dinner at Aman in midtown Manhattan for these “private clients” hosted by Ardbeg and Glenmorangie — very different malts, but both delicious in their own way, and both overseen by the same man, the legendary Dr. Bill Lumsden. My boozy cohort Karla Alindahao and I were seated across from the good doctor, so we surmised that we’d been invited to keep him entertained while the high rollers peppered him with technical questions about the whiskies. We did our best — I think he enjoyed our banter, and we certainly enjoyed his, the best parts of which were sadly off the record. In between courses of a mind-bendingly good meal, we were treated to a rare release and a private bottling from each brand. It’s hard to relegate an unusually spicy and brawny cask-strength Glenmorangie (normally a soft and gentle Speyside dram) to second-best whisky of the night, but the 20 year old Ardbeg single barrel, with a lovely sweetness and a more subtle but no less intense smokiness, took our collective breath away and stole the show. My job is such that I don’t mind working late nights like these, on occasion.