whiskey wednesday tree

in hindsight, i shoulda broke up that “retro week” with this bit, but what’s done is done…

…so we’ll go back to right when things went to shit, at the end of march:

week four (mar 29-apr 4) samuel gelston’s old irish whiskey (single malt)

this one has an odd taste to start, but if you push through that it’s nice. seriously – each time i sat down to drink some the first sip was a head turner, and not because it wasn’t smooth (it really was for 86 proof!) but it had an odd “start”. cigar reviewers and whiskey reviewers always talk about “the finish”, but with this one the opposite is worth mentioning. don’t let it scare you off, though – it takes care of you nicely after that rough first impression.

bonus week (apr 5-11) knockmore irish whiskey

since i ran you this late i figured i’d give you a bonus (it has nothing to do with me wanting to try something different during a pandemic or anything). it’s a strong whiskey flavor-wise, but not where it counts (alcohol content). a buddy recently bought a whiskey “smoker” where it supposedly infuses smoke flavor into whiskey, but for my money you don’t taste much of a difference (and fortunately “my money” wasn’t used to purchase this contraption, ’cause they aren’t cheap!). this stuff tastes like bushmill’s if you used that smoker thingy AND it performed as advertised.

(side note: i know taste and smell are interlinked, so my theory with this thing is you smell the wood smoke smell while it’s supposedly “infusing”, and that gets in your nostril hairs and makes you kinda taste it? i base this on the fact that we did this out in the backyard of the shop and somebody had to stay in the building during “the process” to field clients and calls and shit, so i did and therefore didn’t ever smell smoke, i was just handed a glass, which for all the world just tasted like good bourbon to me…)