Anyone drinking tonight... or, today??

I’m finishing off this Acronym Cabernet from Kroger that the girlfriend didn’t like. It’s about $8 and isn’t too bad to me. She just opened a Valserrano Red Wine Crianza Rioja bottle that’s about $18. I like it as well and it’s better than the other one she didn’t like, but I’m still a big, big fan of Cortelunga Montepulciano D’Abruzzo found at Kroger. I bought 5 more bottles today I prefer these types of Italian reds over any others.

 

I make the best Old Fashioned, ha!

 

Cheers!

Them's fightin' words!

Just kidding! But, I do make good ones myself. I make them Wisconsin style (prohibition style) with Brandy, muddled orange and cherry, sugar, bitters, and 7UP, the way God intended!

I made some on a Tacomaworld outing a few years ago, and it has become tradition.

 

Just ice for me

 

The better the booze, the less stuff I add. If I have good Scotch, Rum, or Tequila, I generally add nothing.

 

This is our favorite inexpensive wine (all South African Shiraz is really good) it’s typically $13.99 but often times its on sale for $11.99.

 

Cheers! I'll definitely try a bottle of that!

 

Cheers!

 

I do not know what could cause this, but i am gonna have to polish it off to remedy it. Well I did put tape on it to make it stop, but what the hell.

 

Last night we did an Extra Anejo blind tasting. We chose 4 staples, plus 1 that’s a bit of a wildcard outlier.



Lineup (as shown left to right):
Tapatio Excelencia Gran Reserva Extra Anejo, NOM 1139
Cascahuin Extra Anejo, NOM 1123
Tears of Llorona Extra Anejo, NOM 1146
El Tesoro de Don Felipe Paridiso Extra Anejo, NOM 1139
Don Abraham Extra Anejo, NOM 1480

Process:
Morgan stepped away while I poured 1 oz of each tequila into matching glasses and recorded the order as I went, 1-5 left to right. Then I stepped away and without knowing what was poured in each glass, Morgan labeled each glass with different stickers (this time we used wire label stickers from a recent thermostat replacement) and recorded the order as she went, 1-5 left to right and then mixed the glasses around. The end result is I knew what order they were poured in, but they were mixed up now, and Morgan knew what order the labels went on, but didn’t know what was in any of the glasses she labeled. A true blind test. We took our time. We had coffee beans to sniff and water to sip to neutralize the senses a bit. We spent about 45 minutes going through these. At the end we used our 2 individual notes together to decode the labels and determine what was in each glass.

Notes:
-We tend to have very similar results in our blinds, this was again the case.
-We did initial impressions and then came back after a break for second impressions. It was interesting to see how much opinions changed. One of my initial favorites dropped way down the list on the revisit.
-it was obvious to both of us the top 2 were total standouts but we didn’t initially agree with which deserved the top spot. I felt the second place tequila was the winner by a small margin, but she felt strongly otherwise. In the end we used the stronger more definitive opinion as the tie breaker.
-We both agreed that 3rd place edged out 4th place.
-5th place was very obviously and unanimously the weakest entry in the group, the only one that wasn’t great. I originally tried a pour of this same tequila from a bar and it was fantastic, this didn’t taste similar. Having been opened about 2 weeks now, this bottle was the most recent of the bunch to be opened. It seems that longer aged tequilas have more to gain the longer they breathe. Or perhaps it’s just a different lot than what I tried in the bar.
-We really wanted to include G4 but the light color would have been a dead giveaway in a clear glass.

Rankings:
1st - Don Abraham Extra Anejo!
2nd - Tapatio Excelencia Gran Reserv
3rd - Tears of Llorona
4th - El Tesoro de Don Felipe Paradiso
5th - Cascahuin Extra Anejo

I never in a million years would have guessed Don Abraham had a shot at winning, this is why blinds are so great.

 

I’m not as high society as many on this forum, as shown in tonight’s drinking: good ol’ Budweiser and some Buffalo Sabres hockey. Happy Thanksgiving Eve.

 

Happy thanksgiving

Wife is getting the food ready and I’m getting tipsy with my brother waiting for the rest of the family hahaha.

 

While I don't sip anymore, I have to share.
Trader Joe's "simpler times" lager.
6.2 octane. Very tasty lager, and I think it's about five bucks a six pack out the door.
If you shop at Trader joe's, and you like lager beer, give it a try.

 

Siembra Valles Ancestral

November 23rd (1123) of November 2023 (1123) is the perfect time to open a special bottle we’ve been saving from NOM 1123.



This unique Cascahuin produced bottle is made using the most ancient, painstaking methods common to the earliest tequila distillers. The process is more aligned with traditionally made mezcal than it is with present-day tequila. They start with agaves created from natural pollination (vs cloning) which adds years to the timeline of reaching full maturity where they can be harvested. From there wooden coals are fired at the bottom of a pit. They get covered with agave fibers, then the raw agave is piled on top, covered with leaves and fabric, and then the entire mound is buried in the ground. After the roughly five days it takes for the trapped heat to roast the agave, it all gets dug up. Next comes the extraction phase. The agaves are hand-macerated with wooden mallets. Siembra Valles Ancestral is the ONLY tequila in the past few hundred years to use this process. The roasted agave is smashed with large wooden mallets until the sweet juices are extracted. Oak mallets add a unique woody flavor but there is nothing added and nothing lost through the use of machinery. 30% of the extracted juices are ambient yeast, bagasse-fermented in brick tanks. The other 70% is ambient yeast fermented in an oak tank with bagasse. Using no added yeast or inducement ensures that the tequila has no other flavors than its environment would have allowed thousands of years ago. Finally, there are 2 stages of distillation. The first is in copper and steel which separates out the toxins. The second uses a pine wood still that imparts a touch of flavor, and while getting distilled down to just over 100 proof.

If you’ve ever wondered what the first tequilas tasted like, this is the answer.

 

Cheers!

 

Cheers, y'all!

I'm taking it easy tonight, hanging out on the couch with my dog. He's visiting this weekend as my ex was visiting family for Thanksgiving and couldn't bring him with.

I'm drinking a New Glarus "Uff-Da" bock. Good stuff!

 

Trying to decide

 

That's a tough one! At a glance, I'd go for the Glenlivet, just because I haven't had that in awhile.

 

Gotta go with the Elijah Craig my man... Then I saw the Weller. Effing tough choice.

Also saw some bonded stuff. Point blank, ya can't go wrong with your options.

 

Met some friends for Lunch yesterday at the Lumberjack in West Branch, MI and my friends boyfriend got a butter beer?? I had never heard of it.... but it looked good, so I tried some of it. Dang that was good (but sweet!).

Tonight its KJ Chard.

 

finishing Apex Overland KDSS recovery pts while enjoying a variation of my classic old fashioned. I'm out of oranges which I like. Those cherries are nice sometimes

 

Had a few blue moon in the snow today.

 

It’s sipping a little El Tesoro today.

 

A couple of margaritas for a Tapatio 110 bottle kill

 

Morgan and I were running errands and found ourselves right across the street from our favorite bar/restaurant minutes before they opened. They specialize in agave spirits and one of their happy hour deals is BOGO mezcalaritas. The owner was there and recognized us, we ended up chatting tequila with him for a couple hours.

He gave us both a free pour from each of the 5 bottles! The Agave Azul bottle is a super low production batch from the guy that does Laws whiskey, very unique taste. That Caballito unicorn is epic though!

 

Had to go shopping today, i have given up on looking for Fortaleza for awhile, and i like trying new stuff so.

 

Is that Pasote the OG 1579 or the current 1584? 1579 is liquid gold.