Monthly Archives: February 2018

All in the Family: A barrel aged gift from one of my brothers



In September my youngest brother gave me a lovely gift of a custom logo-ed barrel for aging custom cocktails [Bitner Brothers Cocktails!], along with similarly branded double old-fashioned glasses – and a bottle of one of his own barrel-aged cocktails, a Sauternes-finished Italian American (Basil Hayden’s Bourbon, D’usse cognac, Cocchi americano, Amaro nonino, and Luxardo)!

As my schedule started to get fuller than usual beginning in late September including (but not limited to):

  • Catching up on work post vacation,
  • Extra singing work (Bach!) that would stretch through into one of his busiest Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday singing seasons (9 holiday services over 48 hours in two cities).
  • Entry into (and continually moving on up) Glenfiddich’s ‘World’s Most Experimental Bartender’ competition
  • Life in general

It took until late October for me to even get around to tasting his beautiful creation. We thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to creating our own with his generous gift.

Cheers!

 


Prelude to our Manhattan Project: Sweet Vermouth – Woodford Reserve Rye



For those who enjoyed our BTWOE* series** Christopher Rhodovi (from The Whiskey Room) and I return with a prelude to our first Manhattan Project Series – Manhattan Project: Sweet Vermouth (MH:SV). Given in this project we will be tasting both Bourbon and Rye based Manhattans, we felt it only fair to ourselves and all of you to taste the Rye we will be using on its own first. Since the #1 whiskey in our  BTWOE series was Woodford Reserve, we decided to go with the Woodford Reserve Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey for its companion in our upcoming series.

With strong notes of rye, intermingled with cherry, black & green peppercorns and core tones of vanilla and honey – we both felt this will be an excellent choice/companion to the Woodford Reserve Bourbon for our Manhattan Project: Sweet Vermouth Series.

We encourage you to grab a glass, pour a dram, and join us.

Cheers!

 

*-“Best Tasting Whiskies On Earth”, order from the UPROXX article “These Are The Best Tasting Whiskies On Earth, According To Twenty Thousand Whiskey Drinkers

**-Baron of Beverage (BoB) will run several series interwoven through their regular podcasts, rather than run all contiguous/uninterrupted.