Second Anniversary - Another Year of Booze Blogging

As per last year and in keeping with traditions, it seemed like a good time to reflect back on the previous year of blogging.

•I'm still really enjoying blogging, though there times when it feels like I've let its demands get ahold of me too much. It's funny, but I just don't drink fast enough or often enough. However, the liver transplant surgeons of the world would probably disagree with that assessment.
•It's amazing what a regular posting schedule has done for my traffic. It took about a year and a half to get my first 10,000 page views, but only four months to get the next 10,000. My one New Year's resolution was to post twice a week and I've pretty much stuck to that. And tried to make up for it when I've slipped. Hopefully I get can get to three times a week or more at some point, but there is that small matter of the rest of my life in the way. Time will tell.
•It's been very interesting dipping my toe into the world of whisk(e)y. From those first few tentative steps through rye and bourbon, I've since come to love grain-based spirits from across the globe. It's pushed me to think a lot more about the details of the spirits I drink, both on their own and in cocktails. However, it's also kind of an expensive hobby.
•On that note, it's been interesting to note the relative output of the cocktail and whisk(e)y blogospheres, as it feels like the former has been ebbing a bit while the latter picks up more and more steam. Admittedly there's a little confirmation bias there because I've been searching out new whisk(e)y blogs, which means they're more likely to be active, but the updates on the sidebar have definitely taken on a new pattern.
•With that said, tiki continues unabated (thanks, Doug). Sometimes with a vengeance.
•I've really enjoyed sinking my teeth into the world of rhum agricole. After a rough start, we are definitely good friends now.
•Still not much of a garnisher, but I'll dabble from time to time. Getting a channel knife for Christmas helped.
•Still enjoying making my own ingredients and looking forward to covering more of them in the future.
•Still thankful to the Horde for all the traffic and the booze conversation that comes my way via the OTAN.
•While there are some really excellent distilleries in the area, as I noted last year, some of the newer entrants are incredibly disappointing. I'm hoping they'll step up their game, but they're in a tricky position.
•I've found some great new places to get a drink and should be reviewing a few more soon.

Once again, thanks to everyone who's read my blog over the last year and here's to many more to come.

Drinking Whisky in Seattle

Over the holidays I returned home to Seattle to visit my parents. During those weekends I've found myself with some time in the evenings and decided to find a good place to get some scotch. As luck would have it, St. Andrews Bar and Grill is within walking distance of home and has one of the widest selections of scotch whisky I've ever seen.

To top off how great this place is for trying scotch, the pours are astoundingly healthy, probably as much as 2.5 oz, and priced the same as you would pay to get a standard 1.5 oz pour anywhere else. So you'll get more than enough to savor and discover the flavors and smells within each dram without it costing an arm and a leg. The staff were knowledgable and gave me good recommendations for what to try within a given style.

The ambiance is that of a fairly standard sports bar or local pub. There are numerous TV screens showing a variety of different games at any given time, but thankfully the volume wasn't too loud so it's reasonably easy to tune them out. Even on a Friday or Saturday evening, it wasn't too crowded and I never had trouble getting service. They have a decent selection of good beer, though their cocktails looked to be pretty standard fare (I don't trust anything with neon sour mix).

Overall, I'd say that it's a great resource for anyone interested in scotch. The selection is vast, the pours are generous and the prices are quite reasonable.

Local Flavor, Pt. III: Sound Spirits

© Sound Spirits

As per usual, I took a few days off to go visit my family in Seattle over Christmas. On Boxing Day we all decided to try the city's first distillery, Sound Spirits. Noticeable only because of the tentacles painted on the wall, the distillery is tucked in between two other businesses and is somewhat easy to miss while driving down W 15th Ave.

Started by Steve Stone about three years ago due in part to the fact that Steve met Christian Krogstad of House Spirits. After putting together a business plan, acquiring space and the necessary permits, the distillery is now up and running. So far he has put out a barley-based Ebb + Flow vodka and is also doing an Ebb + Flow gin, which was completely spoken for by the time we got there. The gin was, incredibly good and smoother than any other I've tried. While I like drinks a lot, straight liquor usually makes me sputter a bit, but that gin had barely any burn at all. The particular batch we had (the first production run) clearly still had some rough edges to work off as it was a bit cloudy, probably from the citrus oils coming out of solution when the gin was brought down to proof. But I'm not one to care so much about appearance, especially when the flavor is good. The E+F gin is definitely in the New West mold, with subdued juniper and a fairly citrus-heavy flavor profile. While none of the other botanicals jumped out at me, it seemed to be a nice and balanced mix. This is something that I could easily imagine drinking with a couple dashes of bitters and nothing else. While I'm normally loath to make the "this is too good for cocktails" claim, any drink you put it into would be better off highlighting the gin rather than swamping it.

We also got to try an experimental herbal liqueur that Steve described as harkening back to spirits like Chartreuse or Benedictine, so it's distinctly sweet, floral and herbaceous. While I didn't hear anything about a release date, I'm really looking forward to trying that liqueur again. Bonus points if the price point is a tick bit lower than either of those established products, which hopefully won't be too hard to do.

Overall, I was quite impressed with the products that Sounds Spirits is putting out. While it's clearly early days, there's a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do in the future. Here's to the expansion of distilling in the Northwest!