Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt Rises Again

The legendary Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton once said, "if I had not some strength of will I would make a first class drunkard." His storied adventures in the South Pole speak to the scope of the man's willpower but, make no mistake, Shackleton also enjoyed his whisky.

In 1909, severe weather conditions and dwindling supplies forced Shackleton and the crew from the Nimrod to abandon their two-year quest to be the first to reach the South Pole. In their haste to get the hell out of there with unfrosty nads, they left behind a few provisions including -- and we can only assume this was inadvertent -- three crates of fine Scottish whisky. One hundred years later, the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust found the abandoned booze, perfectly preserved in the ice beneath Shackleton's hut. It was later identified to be whisky from Chas Mackinlay & Co., produced at the Glen Mhor distillery in Inverness.

And since we live in an age when no good marketing opportunity goes unexploited, the Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt has been reborn. Of course! Now, there's an interesting story surrounding the Mackinlay's brand, the company that has owned it since 1995, and the palingenesis of the Shackleton whisky. Rather than recap all that here, I'll direct you to Tim F's blog at TheWhiskeyExchange.com, in which he lays it all out quite succinctly.

I'm here to tell you how the stuff tastes: Really, really good. So good, in fact, that I am prepared to bestow the coveted Imbiber Imprimatur© upon it DESPITE what I would normally consider a prohibitive suggested retail price of 200 bones. It's a blend of whiskies ranging in age from 8- to 30-years-old, and the most seductive aspect of the finished product is the sweetness. Not cloyingly sweet, mind you, but smooth and delicious -- certainly as dessert-like as fine whisky comes. Caramel. Apple. Nutmeg. I tasted all of that right up front, with some pear and lemon on the finish. All of it balanced perfectly, a credit to master blender Richard Paterson, who hailed the discovery of the whisky under the ice as “a gift from the heavens.” Indeed it is.

Oh, and you're going to need a cigar to accompany this spirit, as I'm sure old Shackleton would have wanted it that way.

For more visit http://www.enduringspirit.com

Barrels & Drams: The History of Whisk(e)y in Jiggers and Shots
By William M. Dowd

My friend Bill Dowd knows an awful lot about spirits. So, too, do the estimable scribes he's included in Barrels & Drams, an outstanding collection of writing about that most beloved and oft-quaffed fortified liquid, whiskey. Tom Wolfe, David Wondrich, Jim Murray and Daniel Okrent are among the 20-plus essayists included in this fun, conversational ride through the history of bourbon, Scotch and Irish whiskey.

There are profiles of colorful industry icons such as Jack Daniel, John Jameson and the Beams, along with instructive articles on home vatting and distillation. Wondrich's ode to Jerry Thomas, the Father of Modern Mixology, is essential reading for anyone who appreciates a finely crafted cocktail, while "The Case of Capone's Whiskey" by Scottish journalist Jim Leggett is a compelling look at a salvage diver who unearthed one of the Prohibition era's long-lost liquid treasures. In "The Mathematics of Prohibition," Okrent - whose Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition is the definitive account of the 18th Amendment - offers a concise breakdown of the demise of that ghastly statute.

And Dowd's no slouch himself when it comes to spinning a yarn. His essay "From Forest to Flask" tells you everything you need to know about the interaction between wood and new-make whiskey. In it, he solicits expert opinions on the essential role cooperage plays in production from the likes of Glenmorangie master distiller Dr. Bill Lumsden and Bob Russell, who oversees the barrel-making operation at Brown-Forman.

The great Mark Twain famously opined that "Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough." As Dowd has shown here, the same goes for good whiskey stories. Already looking forward to the next edition. But for now...order Barrels & Drams by clicking here

To your health!

Three of the country's finest bartenders whipped up some delicious original cocktails at the Black Grouse’s Distinctive Bartender Tour last week in Los Angeles. Alas, I couldn't attend the event, but I did manage to get my hands on a few recipes courtesy of "Friends of The Imbiber" Jason Bran, Joe Brooke, and Lindsay Nader:

Como Whisky Para Chocolate (created by Joe Brooke, Next Door Lounge)

2oz The Black Grouse

.5oz Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur

.25oz Marie Brizard Creme de Cacao

2 Dashes Celery Bitters

Stir all and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with small lemon peel.

Like many of you, I'm stuck living with expensive tastes in an insolvent pecuniary state. What sets me apart is that I'm a shameless bottomfeeding whore important member of the international media whose job entails getting loaded on liquor companies' dimes scrupulously sampling adult beverages provided as bribes gratis and without condition, so that I may curry favor with the brand and get offered an all-expenses-paid trip to the distillery in Europe offer an unbiased report to you, the consumer. On occasion, the spirits I am fortunate enough to sample are insanely fucking expensive a bit on the pricey side.

Such is the case with the Glenmorangie Pride 1981, an extremely rare limited edition 28-year-old whisky (only 100 bottles were made available in the U.S.) released last April that comes in a Baccarat crystal decanter housed inside an elegant wooden coffret from the Netherlands. Retail price: $3,600 a bottle.

Now, look, I'm not gonna sit here like a pompous asshole and tell you the Pride 1981 is worth every penny, because I happen to appreciate the fact that a penny's worth differs greatly across this great Land of Economic Disparity. I can tell you this, though, if anyone ever offers you a dram of the stuff for free, get down on your knees, pucker up, and kiss their arse. For sipping the Pride 1981 must surely rate among the most sublime and satisfying experiences of any Scotch drinker's lifetime. It's just so... intense. A myriad of flavors, from apples to melons to chocolate milk. Coconut and leather and lemon meringue, too. And it's got more backbone than Paul Bunyon. Doesn't overwhelm the palate, though, because Master Distiller Dr. Bill Lumsden is as adept at creating balance in a whisky as anyone in the business.

So cheers to the Glenmorangie, for hooking up me up like a muthafuckin PIMP giving the world (or, at least the top 1% of it) a truly magnificent fortified liquid.

For more on the Pride 1981 visit www.glenmorangie.com

Stretch and I dropped by the posh Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills for the grand opening of 10 Pound, the very first dedicated The Macallan Single Malt Scotch Whisky bar in the U.S. We talked single-malt Scotch with Paul Ross of The Macallan, and enjoyed a few drinks with the one and only Jimmy Yeager of Jimmy's in Aspen, creator of the event's signature cocktail, The Jimmy Mac. Have pen and paper ready, cuz Jimmy divulges the recipe in the podcast!

Ran into my pal Joel Stein of Time magazine at the event. Didn't get him for the show, though. He's shy. Seems our friend Alison Brie of "Mad Men" and "Community" (pictured), with whom I was on a panel with recently, was there as well, but didn't run into her. That's a bummer, because she's kinda dope. Did spy a dude named Jesse who's on "House" though. He was surrounded by adoring female fans, so we left him alone.

I'm still giddy at the memory of all the delicious Macallan we had that night (and still a bit hungover, too!)

Funny show, this one. Give a listen. Links below.

And please pass along the link to your friends, so that we might make some new ones ourselves.

Recently, four Americans and four Canadians ran, swam and go-karted around the South Pacific islands of Tonga in search of a missing case of Canadian Club whisky hidden there in 1991. After four days of racing against each other and the clock in various Amazing Race –styled challenges, it boiled down to Kristina Beall, a tri-athlete grad student (and the only woman competitor), who made it to the finish line at the lake’s edge first and came home with $100,000. These lucky and brave souls were part of Canadian Club’s revival of “Hide A Case,” the famous and longest running marketing campaign in the spirits industry. Check out photos of them biking, yachting and hanging off buildings at www.hideacase.com.

This all started back in 1967 when the company hid cases of whisky in remote locations around the globe, like Mt. Kilimanjaro, Loch Ness and the Great Barrier Reef, and left clues for adventure (and booze) seekers in print advertisements. Every decade or so, CC would hide a few more cases and  folks would set off for foreign lands to hunt for the booty – no cash prize, just a case of the sweet spirit. Of the 25 cases hidden, nine were still waiting to be discovered and last May, CC set its eye on Tonga! 

This week's Imbiber post in FoodRepublic introduces the Bareback, a variation of the Pickleback that is all the rage in the cocktail community. Here's a teaser:

It’s my understanding that the “Pickleback” — a jigger of Old Crow chased with a shot of straight pickle juice – was invented at the Bushwick Country Club in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And were I not, at this writing, on an uncomfortably heated train bound for the Scottish Highlands while what feels like a pack of yapping hyenas practices skateboard tricks between my ears, perhaps I’d be a bit more motivated to make inquiries in the interest of verifying that information.

I do recall reading something in The New York Times last year about a controversy involving the makers of Jameson Irish Whiskey taking credit for the Pickleback craze. But T.J. Lynch of the Breslin in the Ace Hotel in New York — the very bartender Jameson claimed had invented the drink — called bullshit on that claim. There are some folks in Texas as well who assert that truckers have been downing pickle juice with whiskey for decades, but again, I cannot personally verify that information. (And it ain’t unlike a Texan to tell tall tales, after all, now is it?) Then there are the Russians, who’ve been chasing vodka with pickles since the days when Ivan the Terrible was calling the shots.

Point being, I don’t rightly know who really invented the Pickleback.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE POST AT FOODREPUBLIC.COM

In our latest Imbiber Exclusive Video, I lead you through a rather overindulgent tasting of six fine single-malt Scotches, including Springbank, Glenmorangie, The Glenlivet, Laphroaig, The Singleton and Bowmore. I'd like to think that had he lived to see this, the great Michael Jackson (the esteemed booze critic, not the freakish pop singer) would have been proud.... although, that almost certainly would not have been the case.

In the latest installment of my "Civilization and Its Discontents" column for Mutineer Magazine, I sing the praises of Jameson Irish Whiskey. A snippet:

Let’s face it, the Irish are no strangers to misery — witness the Great Potato Famine and Sinead O’Connor’s entire musical catalog, for instance — but they sure have developed an effective method of coping with it. John Jameson began producing his signature whiskey in Dublin way back in 1780, and for the past 230 years his people have been drowning their considerable sorrows in its toasted woody goodness. But in recent years, Jameson has become quite fashionable worldwide at the trendy watering holes of the breezy beau monde, where it’s not uncommon to see happy hipsters shooting it straight or enjoying it in a gimlet or sour. In places that cater to manly men such as myself, you’ll often find Jameson being used as one of the three ingredients in that most leg-wobbling of grog-shop concoctions, the Car Bomb.

Mutineer Magazine covers all things fine beverage with an emphasis on wine, beer and spirits. It is the mission of Mutineer Magazine to introduce fine beverages to the millennial generation and take fine beverage culture from niche into the mainstream using a cultural rather than commercial approach across a range of mediums. For more information about Mutineer, or to subscribe, click here.