Category: Suntory
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Whiskey Wednesday: Nikka Days of Our Lives
I love a good story and Nikka Whisky certainly has a good story. A story of both an excellently crafted whiskey but also a phenomenal story in the life of the company’s founder, Masataka Taketsuru. The month of January is especially important to the story of Taketsuru and his redheaded Scottish wife, Rita. So, I…
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Open Bottle: Yamazaki 18 Year Single Malt Mizunara Cask
In today’s edition of things you’ll never get to taste: Yamazaki 50 Year Old! On Friday August 17th 2018 a bottle of 1st edition Yamazaki 50 Year Old, one of only 50 bottles to exist, sold at auction for $312, 519.87. This is now the most expensive bottle of Japanese whisky ever sold at auction, beating the…
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Whiskey Wednesday: Overholt’s Bond
Bottled in Bond has jumped the shark. Before what’s sure to be Jack Daniel’s latest premium priced bottled in bond hits Duty Free shelves worldwide let’s look back to a much more innocent time when a BiB release truly excited me. A time known as six months ago… Before we jump in the Short Way…
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Whiskey Wednesday: The Declaration of Jim Beam’s 200th Anniversary.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the…
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Whiskey Wednesday: Hibiki’s Resonant Disappearance
Despite being a self avowed fanatic of American whiskey the thing I’ve found myself writing about and drinking the most recently has been Japanese whisky. The last time we spoke way back in December I was drinking poetic about the Hakushu malts and the fact that though they often seem to be in the shadow…
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Whiskey Wednesday: A Bitter-Sweet Hakushu
Life is a bittersweet balance. I’ve been hosting Whiskey Wednesday for going on six years now. It’s exposed me to more bottles and drams than I can count, constantly challenged me to stretch my creative muscles, and introduced me to some of the most delightful nerds/people that I’ve ever met. I’ve grown as a person, a bartender,…
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Drinking Poetic (on a Wednesday): Highballs
I’m a whiskey purist. Bourbon, Scotch, Japanese, Barrel Strength, it doesn’t matter, I drink it neat. For years I was determined that not even a drop of water would come between myself and my sweet, sweet barrel aged nectar. What’s changed me? The highball. The highball is nothing new. It’s a simple class of…
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Whiskey Wednesday: Traditional Yoichi Changes
After taking a look at what could be classified as one of the old school classics of Japanese Whisky, the new kid on the block, and the Americans jumping on the bandwagon I wanted to take a look at how things change. While the Japanese Whisky world is less than 100 years old it is still deeply…
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Whiskey Wednesday: The Yamazaki Price
What would you do with $130,000? Buy a house? A Tesla? Travel the world? Or maybe you decide screw it and go for the most expensive bottle of whisky ever sold: the Yamazaki 50 year old single malt 2005 release. In October of 2016 one of the 250 bottles of Yamazaki distilled in the mid-1950s…