¥ Of Wines & Spirits ¥

[jamesbond]

The Balvenie distillery is a Speyside single malt Scotch whisky distillery in Dufftown, Scotland owned by William Grant & Sons.

Balvenie Signature 12yo replaced the fondly-remembered Founders Reserve 10yo as the staple in the distillery's range. This is a marriage of Sherry, Bourbon and Refill casks and, as always with Balvenie, it's a polished, mellow whisky to relax with.

It’s rare to find someone in any field who has devoted 50 years to mastering their craft, but David Stewart, known throughout the Scotch industry as the ‘modest man of whisky’, has dedicated his entire working life to the art of single malt making, becoming one of the most respected craftsmen in his field. He began working at The Balvenie Distillery in 1962 – a year before single malt whisky was officially exported outside Scotland and served a lengthy 12 year apprenticeship before taking on the title of malt master.

This incredible devotion is being recognised, exactly 50 years to the day that David joined the highland distillery as a seventeen year old apprentice, with the release of a rare cask of The Balvenie single malt distilled in 1962. Just 88 bottles of The Balvenie Fifty will be available, with an RRP of £20,000 per bottle.

One of just a handful of malt masters in Scotland, David has an incredible natural talent for reading whisky with his nose and palate and during his career David estimates that he has nosed over 400,000 whisky casks. Also recognised as being behind some of Scotch whisky’s greatest innovations, David’s commitment to retaining traditional techniques as well as championing groundbreaking new methods have earned him some of the industry’s most notable accolades. Bestowed a lifetime achievement award in 2005 by a distinguished panel of experts from the International Wine and Spirits Competition, That year David was also awarded the Grand Prix of Gastronomy by the British Academy of Gastronomes.

Commenting on the release of The Balvenie Fifty, David Stewart said: "Cask 5576 and I have shared the last five decades together at The Balvenie Distillery and as single malt making is as much art and alchemy as precise science, the interaction between wood and maturing whisky means each cask will produce something entirely unique. It’s true to say I have a dream job and I’ve been privileged to taste a lot of wonderful whisky in my time, but it’s a great delight to discover how after half a century this unique cask has turned out a truly special single malt."

 The Balvenie 50 year oldThe Balvenie Fifty was matured in a European oak sherry hogshead, rarely used today in whisky making. Filled with newly distilled spirit in 1962, over the following 50 years, while David Stewart committed himself to perfecting his craft, the spirit slowly matured into an outstanding single malt Scotch whisky. The particularly long maturation has created a wonderful fragrant and floral whisky, which is velvety sweet with a beautifully balanced combination of sweet citrus notes and gentle hints of honey, spice and oak.

With an ABV of 44.1%, The Balvenie Fifty is presented in a hand blown glass bottle surrounded by a wooden case, created by Scottish craftsman, Sam Chinnery. Forty nine rings of seven beautiful Scottish grown timbers mark Malt Master David Stewart’s half century at The Balvenie distillery. Galloway Ash, Borders Oak, Lothian Walnut, Cherry and Yew, Fife Beech, and fittingly, Banffshire Elm from The Balvenie Distillery site and a closing layer in brass, echoing the fittings of the distillery’s stills and spirit safes.

The Balvenie Fifty is an extremely limited edition release with just 88 bottles available and has a RRP of £20,000.

[jamesbond]

The South Korean spirit is the globe's best-selling alcohol. But they're not just drinking it in Korea these days – you can try chilled shots or soju cocktails in New York and London

[Itachi101]

di naman malakas ang tama ng soju
para sa akin yun ah
limang bote niyan parang isang beer lang sa akin 

[lovemarie]

Cartier Champagne is a rare thing to find. Cartier have their own Maison making the champagne but never sell it. It is only used for their own events or as gifts. This bottle is the 100th anniversary crystal bottle perfect for collectors.

Unique bottle on the occasion of the 100 anniversary of the jewellers Cartier. These bottles were not for sale.

This is an incredibly rare champagne that you simply cannot buy, Cartier have their own vineyard and the champagne is gifted not sold. It is their 100th Anniversary and the bottle is actually made from Crystal.

It's made of mostly Pinot Meunier, which is pretty weird – Champagne usually a combo or Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and the PM fills in just a little bit. But I had an all-Meunier one a few months ago and it was so delicious with a beautiful lilac nose (Meunier traditionally adds a lot of perfumey scent to a Champagne blend).

[jamesbond]

Corona Extra Light Beer.... great with a slice of lemon....





just some cheesy nachos.......




or simply grab some crisp potato chips to go on with your beer....

[jamesbond]

 
bring along a buddy pack just in case of emergency . . . . . . hahahaha . . . . .

[naruto789544]

ooohhh... the buddy pack is a must... never leave home for an outing without it... 
thanks for sharing a million reason to cheers sir @jamesbond   

[jamesbond]

Grimm Double Negative



Grimm Artisanal Ales
Brewed at Paper City Brewery

Double Negative pours jet black with burnt orange highlights. A long lasting tan head leaves abundant lacing. Aromas bursting from the glass include coffee, bitter chocolate, caramel, black currant and blueberry. Creamy and viscous on the palate, the flavor initially follows the nose. A pop of smooth bitterness comes after, and then a lingering, roasty finish.

[tonistork]

sa gaya kung dating malakas lumaklak (ngayon kasi moderate drinker na lang) magandang post ito ni sir 007.

trivia sa mga wine and spirits ba.

[lovemarie]

The Experience
SAVOUR EVERY MOMENT
VANILLA
SPICE
CLOVE
CINNAMON
ORANGE
DRIED FRUITS
GINGER
WOOD
SMOKE
CITRUS

Colour        Light mahogany

ABV           43%

Nose          Dried fruits and ginger, with a hint of citrus,
                 vanilla and cinnamon

Palate        Rich dried fruits with spice, clove, orange and
                 rich wood flavor

Finish        Full and lingering with dried fruits and sweet 
                 toffee, ginger and a hint of wood smoke     


The Perfect Serve
BRING THE FLAVOURS TO LIFE

ICE
Add some ice for a refreshing drink


STRAIGHT
Enjoy with nothing added



WATER
Add a splash of water to release the flavors

[jamesbond]

GRAMPUS



Well here it is, the final piece in our series of massively malty double-mash beers: GRAMPUS. Historically there are other processes called “double mash”. The one you see the most of is the type of mash used to make adjunct lagers: literally two partial mashes that are combined later to create one mash. That one is all because those adjunct grains need a little more attention than barley.  We’ve also read other breweries referring to a “triple mash”, meaning three sequential batches of wort going into one fermentation tank: that’s three brews, not a triple mash in our lingo.  Our double-mash technique is much more special than those. 

Anyway, at the end of the second mash we have a very dense wort indeed (up near 40 plato in the past). The most incredible aspect of our double mash can’t be found in the numbers however – its tasted in the flavour.

GRAMPUS is the latest and potentially final beer we brew in this series of double mashes.  So far we have Our Finest Regards, a dark exceptionally malty Barley Wine.  Then we added Barbapapa, our Russian Stout. Another big dark malty beer.  So what’s missing? A pale hoppy double mash.  That’s our GRAMPUS!

GRAMPUS is 8,000 pounds of North American pale malt, pale German malts, and a wee bit of oats, rye and wheat.  All pale malts basically. But don’t go searching for those components.  In the brewer’s art the resulting maltiness should be greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what we strive for at Pretty Things anyway.  The visual result is a shockingly glowing orange beer with a tan or off-white head.  The flavour however cannot be described without talking for a second about hops.

GRAMPUS was hopped fairly liberally.  Frankly it needed to be quite hoppy to pull off its pale character and endemic sweetness.  Lots of Fuggle hops in the boil along with Bravo, then another big charge of hops near the end of fermentation containing El Dorado and Bravo.  To get as much as we could from these hops we made a sort of thick hop tea at high temperature and blasted it through the bottom of the tank of fermenting beer.

We used three yeast strains to get this down from its starting gravity near 30 Plato, but none of them are particularly important or noticeable in the flavor of the beer (as is true with our previous two double-mash beers).

The result as we taste it is quite like a strong glass of clementine juice with a bit of a 19th century strong ale personality lingering in the shadows, with a formidable yet forgivable sweetness lacing it all together. Perhaps that was a run-on sentence but if so that’s only because this is a run-on beer.  The citrus, berries and tropical fruit from the hops are almost like candied fruit or a purer fruit flavor than you normally get from hops. But those are hops!

[jamesbond]

Route Of All Evil Black Ale



Take the road less shoveled with this fantastic Black Ale by Two Roads Brewing Co. from Connecticut. A hefty Black Ale with profound malt and hop complexity. Neither Stout nor Porter, it will be its own thing – full-bodied, bold and black. Flavor characteristics of dark chocolate, mocha, molasses and dark fruits. Balanced by piney citrusy notes of Pacific Northwest hops. Full-bodied and uncommonly satisfying at 7.5% alcohol.

[Heathcliff]

Baka naman pwede natin lagyan ng twist? ....daanin naman natin sa COCKTAILS! 


Bottom's Up : Margarita




Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army’s 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War. While it’s a relatively minor holiday in Mexico, in the United States Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage, with parades and street festivals in cities and towns across Mexico and the United States. And what Cinco de Mayo celebration would be complete without a freshly made margarita? Let’s take this opportunity to revisit the history of this delicious concoction of tequila, Cointreau, lime and salt.

But let’s start things off with one fact—no one is really certain of the origin of the margarita. The drink name first appeared in print in a 1953 issue of Esquire magazine, and it contained just an ounce of tequila, some triple sec and the juice of half a lime (or lemon, either was apparently ok). But 15 years before, in his tome “Royal Café Cocktail Book,” William Tarling wrote the recipe for a drink called the Picador, which called for tequila, Cointreau and lime juice (not lemon!). And the margarita is certainly not a traditional Mexican drink, which is probably due to the fact that Mexico has never had a particularly strong cocktail culture, unlike the United States or Britain.

The most widely circulated margarita origin story involves a beautiful young actress with a puzzling allergy, on holiday in Tijuana in 1938. According to legend, Carlos “Danny” Herrera created the drink for a Ziegfeld showgirl named Marjorie King at his restaurant, Rancho La Gloria. King claimed to be allergic to every hard liquor except tequila, but she didn’t want to drink the tequila straight. Herrera created the drink to keep his customer happy, even giving it a Spanish version of her name, and it stayed on the menu long after King left.

Another story revolves around a totally separate drink, the daisy, that had its heyday in the late 1930s. Long gone from most cocktail menus now, the daisy included a base liquor like gin or bourbon, curacao and citrus. Tequila Daisies appeared in cocktail pamphlets from this period, and it’s not too much of a stretch to see how this morphed into the margarita: the word “margarita” is Spanish for “daisy”.

A final story comes from Acapulco, and a Texan socialite named Margaret Sames. Sames would throw riotous parties at her Acapulco vacation house, drawing screen stars, social butterflies and real estate magnates like Conrad Hilton, father of the Hilton Hotel chain. Sames claimed to have created the drink one party season, and Hilton then took it back to serve in his hotels. But, while a popular story, Sames’ claim doesn’t exactly add up: three years before she said she mixed the first margarita, Jose Cuervo was running ads for tequila margaritas in magazines throughout the United States.

[jamesbond]

  i had so much fun reading your share Ms. Schy. . .  nice cocktail really, a favorite among women. . . . you truly deserved my +like here. . .  thanks. . . 

[Itachi101]

nakaka uhaw naman yan
maka shot na nga
cheers mga ka-pt sa bottle ng BLUE LABEL
at takoyaki ang pulutan