Brandy Review: Alfonso I, Tres Cepas, Captain Apple Jack

Three new mystery brandies were sampled recently.  In order of price they were:

Alfonso I - A brandy de jerez, this clocked in around ten bucks.  A bit harsh around the edges but mellowed a bit in ice.  The flavor is consistent with Jerez brandies, and taste wise not bad.  Buy.

Tres Cepas - Around fifteen bucks, also a brandy de Jerez.  Less bite than the Alfonso.  Also a buy, but only nominally so.

Captain Apple Jack - This is a bottled in bond apple brandy.  The same stuff as Laird's apple brandy, but marketed for Virginia.  The label features an androgynous looking pirate.  I call it "Pat".  On closeout sale for 20 bucks.  Harsh around the edges, not as strong of an apple flavor as I recall from the Laird's.  Good for mixing but a bit too pricey for a mixing brandy, even at closeout prices.  Pass.

So there you go.

Booze miscellany

Here are two brief liquor reviews:

Laird's Apple Brandy (bottled in bond) - This is a bit pricey at 25 bucks a fifth but it is something different.  It is made from apples and that comes through in the flavors.  I am guessing that they use the little green apples.  It is rough at first, at 100 proof that is expected.  Let is sit in ice and mellow out.  I like this a lot.  Wish I could say more about this but it was a rough weekend.

JTS Brown bourbon (bottled in bond) - I didn't drink much of this but what I drank and remembered I liked.  Surprisingly good.  Wish I could remember more but I had one glass.

Also, if you are low on sleep don't try mixing 100 proof brandy/whiskey and a cigar, you will probably not finish the night how you planned.

Sorry no pics.

Winners and Losers

Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.  In life there are winners and losers.  Today's triumphant gladiator is tomorrow's disgraced pro-wrestler.  Such is life, and such is booze as well.  There are only so many drinkers in America, and while the number might increase gradually with demographics it is a slow churn.  So if there is a big shift somewhere in booze, it probably comes at the expense of somewhere else.

So it should be no surprise with the rise of craft beer, the vodka crazy, the whiskey renaissance, and the wine discovery that there are losers in this equation.

Beer shipments declined 2 percent in 2009 and 1 percent in 2010, the first consecutive-year slide since the mid-1990s. U.S. shipments are expected to be flat or slightly down in 2011. Another down year would mark the first three-year slide since the 1940s.

and not just Miller is suffering

No. 2 Budweiser has posted consecutive years of sales declines and accounted for 8.5 percent of sales for the year ended May 15. Coors Light made up 7.7 percent of sales over the same period. Beer Business Daily, however, reported last month that Coors Light is on the verge of surpassing Budweiser in sold cases this year to date.

So there are winners and there are losers.  In Wisconsin you can even find microbrew scumbag beer.



Yup, it's a micro.  Well sorta not really.  But still.

So if there are less reasons to drink big beer brands, what about the rise of these small batch whiskeys?  I present to you the most heritage of all reconstruction whiskeys:  George Washington rye.

Talk about a patriot and brewer.  Old GW was the nation's biggest distiller at one point.  But 90 bucks for unaged rye whiskey?  I can get Old Overholt (and put it in my old overcoat) for 15 bucks.  And it at least spent time in a barrel.  Besides, it isn't like they have GW's original still or anything.  Weird.  So if people spend their money on this, what booze are they not spending their money on now?

Booze enthroned triumphant

Good news on the booze front.  Fast food is going to start selling alcohol.  Take that, teetotalling scoundrels.  And as you know, Mr. Booze has been pioneering the art of mixing cheap food with cheap wine.  Now my army expands as snooth gets in on the review game.  I'm wondering which Wendy's menu item goes with Carlo Rossi's wine selections.  Anyone?

Bottom shelf treasures

Mister Booze crossed the horizon and reached through the fabric of the space time continuum and pulled some treasures from the bottom shelf of yesteryear.  I hope to have a full report after the weekend.  Cheers!

Smokey and the Bandit

Right now my life is the plot of Smokey and the Bandit.  I'm stocking up on liquor to take over state lines.



Eastbound and down!  Right now I have five bottles of Osborne's Magno, two bottles of Osborne's Veterano, one bottle of the ironic false cognate Soberano, and one bottle of Terry Centenario.









The boys are thirsty in Grand Rapids!  And there's beer in Texarcana.  No, wait, there's brandy in Logan's Square?  Help me out here...

Also this:

The James Bond survey

James Bond was the creation of Ian Fleming through a series of novels and short stories.  Ian Fleming's James Bond is probably most well known to people through the movie franchise, and his portrayal by Sean Connery.  While I do appreciate the Connery Bond, I much prefer the books.  The James Bond of the books is a different sort of animal from the movies.  A good primer on James Bond is to be found HERE.

According to the late, lamented website Make Mine a 007, Bond drinks no fewer than 317 drinks throughout the series of books authored by Ian Fleming (the cinematic version lags considerably behind despite there being more movies than books). One hundred one of those are whiskies or whiskey cocktails, with Bond heavily favoring bourbon over scotch — not an accident that Bond champions the American drink over his closer-to-home companion, really, since Bond also rails against the vileness of tea and expounds at length about why he prefers coffee. But scotch need not worry. Bond’s usual drinking buddy, the American CIA agent Felix Leiter, seems to have two functions in the novels: to slap his forehead and exclaim, “James, you’re right! Why didn’t I think of that?” and to order Haig and Haig scotch whiskey.

I suggest you make your way through the Bond series chronologically, since they tend to, especially as the books progress, become episodic.  My favorites are actually the Bond short stories.  I wish there were more of these.  They can be, at times, like a travel story in a contemporary lifestyle publication from yesteryear.  He travels overseas in every book except Moonraker and in almost all the short stories as well.  The Caribbean is a popular assignment destination.  He advises you on what to wear and what to drink.  For example when in Jamaica wear Sea Island cotton shirts and drink Red Stripe beer.  When in the Virgin Islands I advise you to wear 100% rayon shirts and drink Cruzan aged dark rum.



Funny when I look at this picture and read the reviews I really wish I liked Scotch whisky.  If only they didn't have that bitter flavor.

James Bond really is a lifestyle.  His tastes are exacting, but not necessarily lavish.  Eggs and toast for breakfast, pink champagne after dinner, and a woman who was strong yet vulnerable and probably carrying some emotional baggage.  Bond liked them complicated.  But I must warn you that you may end up with a craving for specialty cigarettes after reading the books.  As Bond says never smoke habitually; It is a pleasure, not a habit.

If you do find the quirks of Mr. Bond to be fascinating, you'll want to bookmark the Commander's Club for reference.  It aided me in my aspirations to excellence, and filled me with the resolve to be uncompromising with my tastes, no matter the variety of snobbery that pushes me.

Hat's off to the Wikipedia booze photographer

Have you searched for booze brands on Wikipedia lately?  If not, you should check it out.  Someone out there has purchased and photographed stock pictures of all kinds of booze.  They are all the same sort of picture.  The bottle on the left with a snifter full on the right.  Check it out.







See what I mean?  Whomever this person is, I admire their work.  Buy a bottle, pour a snifter, and take a picture.  It works.  He or she has made it through a lot of whiskey too.

Brandy Review: St. Julian brandy

St. Julian is a winery in Michigan. They have billboards in Michigan advertising Grey Heron vodka. “Vodka made from grapes”. WAT? I thought that was brandy. I thought vodka was from grains. Well I guess you can make it out of potatoes, so why not grapes? But labels are subordinate to taste.

Anyways, they do have brady. Hey, if they have a still they might as well put some of their “vodka” in a barrel for a few years. Each bottle is hand numbered, and if memory serves me correctly costs about 35 dollars. I can’t remember if they sourced the oak someplace special like in the state of Michigan. They might.

Unfortunately I left my bottle in Michigan, so no pictures. But I did drink a fair amount. The verdict?

St. Julian has a good base for the brandy. It doesn’t have a lot of fusel oils and it won’t give you a hangover. It has a peculiar sweetness that is a bit different from other brandies. It is hard to describe, but almost an acidic or citrus sweetness. Unfortunately the best way I can sum up this brandy is “needs more time in the barrel”. The flavor is rough around the edges, a bit thin, and a rough finish. I think they have a good start, and if this were priced more reasonably – say ten to fifteen dollars a fifth – I would call it a buy. But priced around Hennessey I am going to say that, until they age it more, it is a pass. Hopefully in a few years they will have a product that is worth the price tag.

The spirits diffusion

So it looks like the wine boom across the US is starting to generate a brandy boom. The first step is to learn how to make a good product, which comes with time and experience. But they are laying the foundations in Wisconsin:

Wollersheim Winery, the state's largest winery, located in northwestern Dane County, has begun making brandy.

That's not all.


At the Door Peninsula Winery between Sturgeon Bay and Egg Harbor, a distillery is part of a $1.5 million expansion project. The German still is scheduled to begin operation in May for the production of vodka, cherry vodka, gin, brandy and whiskey, said Rob Pollman, chief operating officer of the winery founded in 1974.

The craft spirits movement is taking root across America. In other news, Fortune Brands, which owns Jim Beam and various other liquor brands, is splitting off the liquor business. So while you might see consolidation, if say Diageo decides to buy it up, but also diffusion as new brands pop up. So it goes.

This is not medical advice

So apparently Lemmy is a diabetic.

When I got diabetes they said you better stop drinking

No surprise, really. Just look at his breakfast habits



Now I'm not a doctor, so don't in any way interpret this as a medical diagnosis or medical advice. Always consult a licensed medical professional for health matters. Howevah...

Do you know how much sugar is in Jack Daniels and Coke? 39 grams of sugar! Health experts recommend no more than 40 grams of sugar a day. So if Lemmy has more than one (highly likely) then he is getting way more sugar that he should in a day.

Maybe this isn't the cause of his diabetes. But why take a chance?

Also I found this to be a curious habit here:

I drink milk everyday at some point; that’s my insurance against the dreaded disintegration of the stomach

First, what is the dreaded disintegration of the stomach? And how does milk help? Is there any medical basis for this?

Season's greetings

I invented a new drink for December. Mix:

some brandy (Christian Bros VSOP is my mixing brandy of choice)
a bit of hazelnut liqueur (is there anything besides Frangelico?)
a pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon
some milk

As usual use your own discretion in making the ratios to flavor.

I've had it cold and it is good; and the next step is to try hot milk to make it a hot, soul warming drink. I haven't come up with a name yet. Sound off in the comments.

Regional treats

Yesterday I forgot to post the "regional treats" I mentioned in the header. Muh bad. Apparently there is a new Chicago whiskey:

The organic whiskey, named for the distiller's son, is aged in American oak barrels and comes in four different varieties: rye, oat, dark rye, and dark oat

Of course I won't be able to go to Chicago and have a drink and report. Fuck. I'm getting married that weekend. Also, I haven't researched to see if they are related but there is a new distillery in Evanston.