2013 Last Minute Gift Guide

So, you've let your holiday shopping go, and now you're behind the proverbial 8-ball, with Solstice and Christmas parties bearing down on you, with Christmas and Boxing day themselves just around the corner. Fortunately, in most places in the US and other developed countries, the local liquor offers a selection of gifts for the adults in your life. As an added benefit, if you choose wisely, you'll appear thoughtful and erudite, as opposed to desperate.

To that end, here are some ideas for good  gifts, and some that aren't even too dear.

A Bottle for the Party

Looking to bring something to share for the holiday party, that's distinctive, good, and not too expensive? Here are some ideas:

Old Weller Antique Reserve - Usually under $25 a bottle, and under $20 in some places, this is a great choice for parties where you know there will be bourbon drinkers.

Redemption Rye (not yet reviewed) - Price ranges from $22 - $30 a bottle. Youngish, but mature enough to be drinkable straight. It makes a great mixer for cocktails, like Manhattans (originally made with rye, before Prohibition all but killed it off) and other bourbon-based drinks.

Auchentoshan Classic Single Malt Scotch (not yet reviewed) - $28 - $32 a bottle, generally. This is the only single malt that's triple distilled. The results is a light, sweet spirit with honey notes and none of the divisive peat or smoke flavors that often divide whisky drinker. The resulting wide appeal makes a great choice for parties.

 A Bottle for Under the Tree

For starters, I've reviewed several scotches, bourbons, as well as a rye, a rum and an Irish whisky that I've labelled as good gift choices. They are mentioned in the list below, along with a couple of extra ones that I haven't had a chance to formally review yet.

For the Bourbon Lover

Angels Envy (not yet reviewed) - runs between $40 and $50 a bottle, and well worth it. Angels Envy is finished in used port casks. This has been done by scotch makers for years, but it's a rarity in the bourbon world. The resulting blend of flavors is excellent, and as gifts go, it's a real winner: rare, good, and not to expensive.

Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel  - runs $25 - $30 a bottle, if you can find it. A great gift for the bourbon lover, because it is quite good and honors the man credited with starting the bourbon revival. And the reasonable price doesn't hurt at all.

Woodford Reserve Distller's Select - runs around $30 a bottle, plus or minus a couple of bucks, depending on where you live. One of my top 4 bourbons of all time, and solid choice for the bourbon aficionado. Even if they have a bottle on their bar, they're going to need another one sometime soon.

For the Scotch Lover

Auchentoshan Classic Single Malt Scotch (not yet reviewed) - see above.  An excellent scotch, and one whose price has not yet gone through the roof.

Laphroaig Quarter Cask -  Moving up the price range a bit, the Quarter Cask will set you back between $50 to $60 for a 750ml bottle. As gift, you wan't to be a little more careful with this - you need to select a recipient who likes peaty scotch. However, for such a person, this bottle makes an excellent gift. Not only is the whisky excellent and relatively new to the market, it gives the enthusiast a chance to see how changing the wood/whisky ratio in the aging cask affects flavor.

The Macallan Cask Strength - Prices for this are all over the map this holiday season, ranging from $60 - $100 a bottle, and stock seems to be limited. If you can score this for $90 or so, it makes a good gift for the scotch connoisseur, assuming you love or need to impress somebody $90 worth.

Ardbeg Uigeadail - Running from $55 to $75 a bottle, and worth every penny, even at $75. Peaty scotch partially aged in used sherry barrels, the resulting flavors are surprisingly rich and well blended. For the scotch drinker with any taste for peat at all, this is a heavenly dram and thus a wonderful gift. Ever folks who find the standard Ardbeg too peaty and harsh like Uigeadail. However, if the maximum amount of peat a person can tolerate is zero, another choice, alas, might be better for them.

For the Rye Lover

WIllett Family Estate Bottled Single Barrel Rye - Around $35 a bottle, and simply the best rye whiskey I've ever tasted. Now, some folks simply don't like rye, much like some folks don't like peat. But if they like rye, and you can locate a bottle of this, it's a surefire winner of a gift.

For the Irish Whiskey Lover

The Tyrconnell - Runs around $35 a bottle. A rarity in the marketplace, this is a single malt Irish whiskey (most are blends).  That, plus the fact that it's plenty good whiskey, makes it an excellent gift for the person who fancies the lighter Irish take on whiskey.

For the Rum Lover

Zaya - About $25  - $35 a bottle, which makes it a little on the expensive side for rum. However, this is special stuff: quintuple distilled, aged for 12 years, and so sweet and smooth and rich you can drink it straight. And I've seen nice gift packs in the stores with excellent glasses for the same price as the bottle alone. You can mix it, but if you do, be aware of how sweet Zaya is on its own.

 

The Best Damn Rye - Willett Family Estate Single Barrel Rye, Rare Release

 

WIllet Family Estate Bottled Single Barrel Rye is simply the best rye whiskey I have tasted. All my whiskey-loving friends who like rye rave about it. Even those who don't like rye admit that it's the best rye they've ever had.

If you manage to find this, buy a bottle. It's not too pricey (around $35 a bottle in the US as I write this) and even if you don't like rye, it's a fantastic addition to your bar for your friends who do. It also makes an excellent gift to a rye whiskey drinker - I gave myself a bottle for my birthday, in fact. :-)

This is the whiskey that redeemed rye whiskey for me. My first taste of rye was horrid: astringent and unpleasant and completely off-putting. I was planning to give rye a complete miss, until a friend convinced me to try the Willet Family Estate Bottled Single Barrel Rye (hereafter referred to as Willett SBR).

That designation, detailed at length on the label, as a single barrel whiskey, makes this a rare bird in the marketplace. Most whiskies of all types (bourbon, scotch and so on) that are bottled are produced by mixing the contents of many, many barrels to produce the desired flavor and amount of product. This is necessary because different barrels of whiskey age differently, depending upon a host of factors, such as temperature, place in the warehouse, the wood of the barrel, variations in the quality of the grains in the mash and so on.

So, each individual barrel can have its own unique taste. However, successful branding requires a consistent product, and successful business minimizes waste.  So barrels are mixed to smooth out the variations and maximize utilization of the distilled spirit.

Willett SBR is one of a handful of whiskies on the market where the contents of the bottle came from a single barrel of whiskey: no mixing. Flavor consistency is maintained by the taste buds of the Master Distiller, which leads to an interesting phenomenon - WIllet SBR bottles don't carry a consistent age statement. I have bottles that were aged for 4 years, and bottles who had to spend another year in the cask to become "right".

This is also a cask-strength whiskey. The strength varies a little from cask-to-cask, but the bottles I've seen or drank have ranged from 109 proof to 116 proof ( 54.5% to 58% ABV).

In the glass, this has a rich reddish gold color. The aroma is of oak and alcohol and spice.

I occasionally sip this straight, which is frankly amazing for such a strong spirit, but I generally prefer it with a little water. That cuts the hefty alcohol content down and lets some of the other flavors come through.

WIllett SBR has a nice rich mouthfeel. I taste notes of mint and spice, maybe some oak, and a lovely sweetness that's not quite honey.

I think it's delightful. But rye, because of it's spicy notes, tends to divide folks more than a sweeter grain, such as barley, does when it is the primary ingredient in the mash. As an American Rye, WIllett SBR is legally required to have at least 51% of the mash grains be rye. I have found several places online claiming that the mash bill is actually 95% rye and 5% barley, but I haven't found what I consider to be an authoritative source for that information.

As I said at the beginning - if you can find it, buy it. If you don't like rye, buy it for your bar anyway. Trust me, you will find folks who do and will love you for introducing them to the Willet SBR.

Knob Creek Rye

Rye is a new type of whiskey for me. Before Prohibition, rye was the go-to American whisky - many of the cocktails we associate with bourbon today where invented with rye.

Long eclipsed by bourbon, rye is making a comeback in the American distilling scene. Lots of distillers, big and small, are producing rye whiskies, and the number you can find on the shelf of your local liquor store is steadily increasing.

What differentiates rye from bourbon? The main (51% or better) grain in the mash recipe. Bourbon is at least 51% corn, rye is at least 51% rye.

In general, what you get from the switch to majority rye is a spicier whiskey, drier, with punchier flavors, even a little peppery.

Which bring me to this week's dram, Knob Creek Rye. The label claims small batch and patiently aged, but includes no age statement. It's offered at 100 proof, which means it's not been watered down much from cask strength.

In the glass it is a lovely dark amber. To my nose, the bouquet is sweet, with a spicy and definitely alcoholic punch. WIth a splash of water, the alcoholic aroma recedes.

Sipped straight, there's spice and some sweet and then the burn of alcohol. This is not a whiskey that will sneak up on you.

I prefer this with a splash of water. The alcohol burns recedes, and more of the peppery spiciness balanced by corn sweetness (it's definitely not a 100% rye mash) comes out. It still has bite, but it sips so much more pleasantly.

I don't generally drink cocktails, but other reviewers have rate it as good for mixing.

My personal rating is that this is a solid rye whiskey. If you like rye, it's worth trying. Definitely drinkable, and it makes a solid addition to one's bar.

That said, it's unlikely that this will continue to have a place on my bar, once this bottle has been finished. I have found other ryes I like more, or that are as good, but cheaper.

Here in NC, this is  $40 for 750ml bottle. Not bad, but I'd like it more if it were a $30 bottle.