Beverages

US denizens,

your guys should try yourself a stone imperial russian stout. if you can enjoy a stout, i'm seriously sure you'll enjoy this one.
 
slo crostic said:
where do you get that one from jake? I've never seen it before
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and you wouldn't have slo. i found it whilst in the states in '97 and have made sure i had some everytime i went back. i'm sure i told you about it... ?

i was able to get the carnegie bootleg liquor store to locate me two bottles of it back when i was with Colorbus but since then they say they can't.
 
slo crostic said:
They look like some mighty tasty beers there GIANT, looks like I'll have to get over to America one day and do a microbrewery tour as none of these beers seem to be available in Australia...
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The quality of beer and ale brewing in the USA slowly but surely went to hell in a handbasket over a long period of time, until it more or less snapped out of its funk in a big way beginning in the late 1980s. There is now a thriving ale and beer brewing industry in the USA for the connoisseur. There really aren't any truly heavy duty (alcohol-wise) ales like one can redily find in British Isles or Germany -- the ones that'll sneak up on you and make you go cross-eye in a hurry.

As for the St. Arnold's ales that I occasionally drink (the four I show above in my earlier post) the two things I like about them are:

1.) They've tweaked these 4 to be just ever so perfect for what they are supposed to be -- the Stout is an honest STOUT, the Weizen is a rich wheat-y ale, the Brown has a nice chocolate-y ambience much like the Jamaican-made Dragon Stout, and the Amber has a very addictive light citrus-y flavour and just loves to foam up if you don't watch out.

2.) They don't cost much at all.

As for the rest of the St. Arnold's ales, I haven't had a couple of them (yet) and I don't care much at all for Pilsner anything.

As for the art of brewing in Texas, there has been a lot of competition between various Slovak, German, Bohemian, and Czech traditionalist brewers here for decades.

¹ Footnote: It was verified a while back that the "Shiner" name I mentioned above was the inspiration of a codename for the first G3 Apple Macintosh -- likely an alcoholic manager-type working at Apple's computer design complex over there in not too distant Austin. 8)


 
The pleasure of tasting a new and delicious beer has been mine this evening. This past weekend I did a little beverage shopping (sort of what Tannin does in a bookstore, but with alcoholic beverages) at nearby liquor store. One of the items I picked up is labeled as: Harviestoun Brewery, Old Engine Oil, Dollar Scotland. My first impression of the label was that this would be a think, dark beer. So, what ideas came to my mind? Perhaps the creaminess of a Guiness Stout on tap? Maybe the smoothness of a Samuel Smiths Oatmeal Stout?

The back label reads:
An unusual name for an unusual beer! A superb, rich, full bodied beer derived from a traditional Celtic recipe. Wickedly smooth chocolate dominates the flavor, which is nicely balanced by the bitterness of the hops, making Old Engine Oil a delicious “after dinner” beer.
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This beer turned out to be a superb buy in my opinion. The flavor is full-bodied, yet very smooth, and only the least sign of bitterness. This is worth sipping. Cheers!
 
Nothing new for my tastebuds, quite enjoyable nonetheless, I just went through a four-pack of Tetley's (it took 5 days; I'm not a drunk), and now I'm sipping on some Froach Heather Ale. This past weekend a German friend and I went through a six-back of Paulaner Oktoberfest Maerzen bier -- that was fantastic (not to mention the lamb we ate after that for dinner).

Slo, that Cooper's still looks great and don't mind the Bartender, he's a bit tight with money.
 
In the last week I've had three different beers. The Original Flag Porter (English) was marvelous, the Peroni (Italian) was pretty good and the Amber Bock (American) was sufficient but better than any domestic I've tasted.

I also ran across a helpful site recently. The beer advocate.
 
I had a very nice drink over the Christmas/New Year period. A Belgian white beer. I forget the name now, Hager something IIRC.
 
I have over-looked this thread for some time now, so I find I can add some personal experience.

Slo crostic, for the past two years a refined Absinthe called “Absente” has been available in the US market for about $35 dollars. The dealer told me that it is a non-addictive version of Absinthe. I buy it regularly since it is the driest of the anise class of liqueurs that I have experienced. I would approximate its flavour to a drier version of Pernod. It comes with a perforated spoon which you place on top of the glass containing a serving of Absente. On this you place a sugar cube and dissolve it with an equal serving of water. I personally drink my Absente straight.

Prof. Wizard, I share your enthusiasm for Chivas Regal. I also am a fan of Cognac. The Italians have tried to mimic it with a product whose name I have forgotten, but it fails to approach the quality of the French product.

Buck, I also enjoy Gin and Tonic, especially in the patio on a hot day; however, I only use Schweppes tonic water. In the US a more prolific tonic is made by Canada Dry, but it does not yield as satisfying a drink. Like a martini, this drink also is sensitive to water dilution. To minimize dilution I fill a tall glass with fresh, ultra cold ice and use only 1.5 oz gin. To this I add a squeezed, generous wedge of lime and fill with tonic to the top of the ice.

Dozer, I share your opinion of US beer, but there is one I consider to be excellent. Try San Francisco Steam beer.

It is now possible to consume reasonable quality wine with every dinner without over-spending. You can buy Charles Shaw Cabernet, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot for $2 a bottle at Trader Joes. Charles Shaw built a winery in Napa Valley, so can feature Napa on its label. However, rather than pay up to $2000/ton for Napa grapes, they truck in their grapes from cheaper regions of California. This has been a year of over-production of grapes, so in the central valley they can be purchased as low as $60/ton. It is my understanding that to make a profit on wine at $2/bottle, you must buy your grapes at $100/ton or less.
 
Excellent information JSF, thank you for sharing. Living near you in Southern California, I can fully appreciate the variety of products and the reasonable prices offered by Trader Joes. I recently purchased six bottles of St. Peter's Old English Ale beer for a mere US1.99 per bottle when a well known liquor store (Hi-Time) offers that same product for US3.19 per bottle.
 
Thanks for the information on Absinthe/Absente JSF but I am interested in finding out more about it's mind altering properties, as experienced by Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe, Pablo Picasso, and many other artists, writers and poets, but I might just have to wait until I get to the Czech Republic where it's cheap and legal.

In Australia there are many good wines on the market for under $5 too. Somerton Shiraz Cabernet is AU$3.90 a bottle and IMHO as good as a $12 bottle. There is an excess of wine grapes on the market here too. DeBortoli, probably Australia's second biggest winery, had to dump a few hundred tonne of grapes because nobody wanted them. A few years back every man and his dog bought a plot of land in the Yarra Valley and planted it out with grape vines because "everyone" thought it would be the next big wine region in Australia. Nobody thought to build wineries and cellars though, did they?
 
Indeed Slo, Australian wines are sold at the chain of stores that JSF mentioned at very reasonable prices, and apparently, the taste is good. I never realized that one of Australia's largest exports is wine. Which I hear is critical at the moment, because wine consumption and wine sales are down in Australia.
 
The last published statistics I can find show Australia as the fifth largest exporter of wine in 2000, just barely behind the US. However, this has been improving strongly every year, so presumably Australia became number four in 2001.

Mind you, Spain exports nearly three times as much, and Italy and France have 50% of the world export market between them, whereas Oz is somewhere under 5%.

The overall standard of Australian wine is now very high. You still have to lay out some cash if you're really into wine, but AU$20 (US$10) buys some nice examples. Personally, I tend to prefer the fruitier, more rounded Australian styles to the French, as apparently do many other people.
 
BBC NEWS World Edition
_38218873_wine300.jpg

In line with the Australian wine theme, BBC News
has a nice article stating:

"Wine exports totalled A$2.3 billion dollars
(£822.9m; $1.3bn) in 2002, an increase of A$531m
on the previous year, the AWBC figures showed."

Australia is the world's fourth largest wine exporter,
supplying about 7% of the global market behind
France, Italy and Spain."

The complete article can be found here.
 
It's interesting to read the other links on that BBC page, including the one about the unwanted wine lake in Beaujolais. While Australia's exports to the US continue to increase, I don't think they will have the same problem.

Australia already matches France in wine exports to the UK, so so there's a lot of scope for them in the US market.

I also noticed a reference to Foster's (the company) success and the fact that they owned the Wolf Blass wine label (one of the five major producers in Australia is already French owned).

Wolf Blass (the man) is a larger than life character who, apart from being a great winemaker, is infamous for creating Rene Pogel sparkling burgundy.

The name bears some scrutiny. :wink:
 
BBC NEWS World Edition
_38670147_vineyard-300-mahne.jpg

Woes plague the small Australian wineries as
they battle drought and the high cost of doing
business. Because of these troubled times,
small wineries are going out of business.
However, local ships in the United States have
taken advantage of this situation. Although not
mentioned in the BBC article, the U.S. chain
Trader Joes, will buy up large quantities of wine
from wineries that are going under. This usually
avails us of good, Australian wine at bargain
prices.

The article related to the winery woes in the Hunter
Valley can be found here.

For reference, here is the world wide web location
for the Hunter Valley Vineyard Association. A
general map of the area can be found here with
more information on the Hunter Valley wine
industry here.

No, I do not have any affiliation with this region,
this is only referenced because of personal
curiosity. My family imported wine from
Germany for over 10 years.
 
I thought I would resurrect this thread based on some personal enjoyment. Tonight we opened a nice bottle of Jim Beam bourbon. This isn’t your average Jim Beam (which is just fine in my book), but this is the Anniversary edition. The bourbon was already aged 75 months (just over 6 years) before it was sold, but I decided that as an anniversary edition for 1995 it was special enough to age a few more months. So, I waited another 120 months, and voilà, I tasted some tonight – delicious. Now, I can’t tell you if it tastes better tonight then it did ten years ago, but the flavor is outstanding in my opinion. That wonderful semi-sweet flavor of aged bourbon, with delicate buttery undertones is nice. I don’t know what it is about my two favorite whiskies (Scotch and Bourbon), but they seem to stand far above all other varieties. I think after this small taste test it’s worth offering it to all of our patrons, even for you Buck.
 
I would like to appreciate the fine taste of an aged beverage such as your Jim Beam bourbon, but I can't get paste the taste of alcohol. Cheese is about the next closest thing I can relate to an aged-consumable product, but even that I have a hard time distinguishing the difference.

Coke with lime is a little better IMHO.
 
Why thankyou Buck.

Doug: it's easy to tell the difference. If you hold the container upside down and nothing happens, it's cheese. If you hold it upside down and it flows out onto your shoes, it's alcohol. (Or possibly very runny cheese.)
 
Diet Coke with Lime. Better than the DC w/Lemon. I don't care for Pepsi cola products.

On the alcohol front, I've been making margaritas lately. I use Cuervo Tradicional + a mix I can't find anymore :cry: + some lime juice for extra tartness.

Otherwise I'm mostly a wine drinker. I favor semi-sweet and sweet whites like Reislings. My wife & I mostly buy from these folks. They run tastings where you can sample 10+ wines, from dry to sweet, red & white. They also offer specialty liquors like a brandy-fortified wine (very good), various liquors, and some intersting light fruit-flavored sparklings that are nice for a party on a warm evening.
 
Fushigi said:
On the alcohol front, I've been making margaritas lately. I use Cuervo Tradicional + a mix I can't find anymore :cry: + some lime juice for extra tartness.

Otherwise I'm mostly a wine drinker. I favor semi-sweet and sweet whites like Reislings. My wife & I mostly buy from these folks. They run tastings where you can sample 10+ wines, from dry to sweet, red & white. They also offer specialty liquors like a brandy-fortified wine (very good), various liquors, and some intersting light fruit-flavored sparklings that are nice for a party on a warm evening.
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I must admit, that after the post from our resident bartender, I did not review the follow-up posts very much. However, Fushigi, I can appreciate your taste for Tequila and Riesling. Neither are my current favorite, but there was a time when my list was pinnacled by commemorative and sweet white wine.

Commemorative was great as a shot. It had that clean smooth taste that begged to be drunk alone, and not adulterated by anything but perhaps ice. For wine, a Riesling or Gewurtztramiener would do, but an aging Auslese, Beerenauslese or Eiswein was the bomb. Trockenbeerenauslese was nice, but it had the tendency of blending in with the rest of its pack far too easily. I had some very nice 1976 Beerenauslese from the Wilhelm Bonnet estate in Rheinpfalz, Germany that aged well into the mid-80s. But after that, the undesirable loose corks spoiled the wine.

Recently, I had the privilege of receiving a special bottle of Scotch. My friend and his family visited Scotland for their first time, and he primarily went because of his love for golf. He does not drink alcohol, yet was kind enough to think of me during his visit. He returned with a bottle of Campbeltown Loch Scotch for me as a gift. This is something that is not sold in America, and it’s a beverage that the Scotch curator recommended based on his personal taste. It is an unassuming bottle, with very few markings. Nonetheless, it contains a unique Scotch with similar tasting notes to Johnny Walker Black Label.
 
mmm Scotch. I am just about to sit down and watch the Rugby--Aus v Sth Africa--and I think I'll have a glass of Balvenie Double Wood 12yo.

Cheers!
 
Bartender said:
For wine, a Riesling or Gewurtztramiener would do, but an aging Auslese, Beerenauslese or Eiswein was the bomb.
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Auslese is probably our typical, actually. Riesling is what we find in restaraunts, along with the occasional Gewurtztrammiener. The Beerenauslese we save for special occasions and the few bottles of Eiswein we pick up are a glorious dessert in a glass. I mentioned Riesling because most folks are familiar with it, by name if nothing else. You're actually one of very few I've heard mention Auslese & beerenauslese outside of the folks I meet at the tastings.

Most of my of Beerens are from 1999. It's not inexpensive stuff, so we don't drink it every day. Auslese, a Kabinett, or perhaps a Spatlese would be considered our 'table wine'. As for reds, well, since we don't care for dry wines, we still wind up towards the sweeter end of the spectrum. This Travicello, for instance, is my wife's favorite red.

Here's the fortified wine I like. Cognac, not brandy; sorry for the mistake. Tango Cream is good when served in chocolate shot glasses, as is Framboise.

To toast, we again avoid the dryness of a Brut in favor of a Demi-Sec.

And, of course, the Eiswien. Delicious.

Hmm. We're attending a wedding this evening; I wonder what they'll be serving.
 
I'm not much of a drinker. But a couple of times recently I was offered "Blue Label" whisky, and accepted. Very smooth. I understand it's quite expensive.
 
Don't know, Buck, sorry :(. I understand Costco is the cheapest place to get it, at ~$170 a bottle (unless you buy it at a duty free airport store abroad, like Taipei). When I find out for sure, I'll post back here (will be a while, though).
 
After reading Buck's link on Johnnie Walker Blue Label, it sounds like it should be $1000 a bottle! Have you ever tried the Johnnie Walker blue label? Just curious if it's as good as they make it out to be.
 
Handruin said:
After reading Buck's link on Johnnie Walker Blue Label, it sounds like it should be $1000 a bottle! Have you ever tried the Johnnie Walker blue label? Just curious if it's as good as they make it out to be.
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Where is the drool emoticon when you need it? Be careful Handy, whether or not someone likes it is very subjective. Although still on the subjective side, the tasting notes listed are reasonably accurate. It would be best to follow that as a guide. Than again, if you have not idea what those tasting notes actually taste like, don't bother. Spend your money on things you like, or start with a lesser expensive Scotch for experimentation. Some liquor stores sell the miniature bottle sizes for almost every mainstream item they sell. That's also a good place to start -- inexpensive and low quantity.
 
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