What better way to spend a Thursday evening than sipping Laphroaig with the illustrious Simon Brooking? If you were here for his last visit, you know what to do already. If you weren’t, then plan to be here already.
It’s that time of year for our annual unicorn whiskey event. We’ll keep the instructions simple. There will be 3 separate tasting sessions. You can only sign up for one session. Each session is limited to 50 people. You taste 4 whiskies in the session you sign up for. When you arrive, you will be handed a wee Glencairn for your tasting. Hang on to and don’t try to make off with it. After your tasting, you will return it for a free raffle ticket. If your ticket gets picked at conclusion of the 4 tasting sessions, you will get a chance to buy one of the unicorn bottles at close to MSRP + a $25 Project Interrupted fee (this your donation to our local charity).
Each session will have 3 of our single barrel picks and 1 bottle that is has “Unicorn” status. The tasting list will not be revealed till the day of the event. Signing up for the last session might give you a shorter wait time for the drawing but you don’t know what unicorn bottle tasting you will miss in the earlier sessions. 😉
While you’re waiting your turn, there will be a food truck in the parking lot in front of the store. Bring cash and chow down while you wait in anticipation of getting that special bottle. At 2:30 pm we will start to call out the tickets. You have 30 seconds to pick your bottle.
It’s that time of year, you’ll need all kinds of beverages to make the holiday hustle and bustle tolerable, for some but for others, a joyous time. Well, whatever it is that drives you to drink, be it our incredible selection or other things we don’t need to talk about, come see us this weekend. We have wines and some Japanese whiskies you need to try. Besides we’ll be tasting and pre-selling our Kaiyo Single Barrel Whisky in Mizunara and Oloroso casks that should be quite delightful. And if you ask nicely, some Paul Sutton Heritage Bourbon also. So buckle up and cruise on in for some goodies.
Join us us this Sunday at Kings County Distillery for the official launch of Kings Code Batch 1 Riona. Colin Spoelman, owner of Kings County, Irene Tan, owner of Whisky Mentors and Laura Graham, owner of Drink With Food will be present to talk and taste whiskey with you. This limited edition (820 bottles) whiskey is an exquisite blend of American Single Malt and Irish Single Malt that has already won the palettes and hearts of those in CT and TX who had a chance to taste it.
Earlier in the year we procured a single cask of ex-bourbon and peated single malt from the Milk and Honey (M&H) Distillery called Bee in my Bonnet. I named it that because this is an absolutely delicious and powerful single malt whisky that we should all be talking about and sharing sips with, It is lightly peated, so it’s a great gateway whisky for those trying to learn about peated whisky. It’s not a phenolic peat so those of you who think peated whiskies smell like bandaids, you will appreciate this. In addition, being ex-bourbon casked brings loads of honeyed sweetness and vanilla as well as a good level of char from being aged near the Dead Sea. The massive diurnal temperature change in the area is akin to aging whiskies in Texas so we know this whisky is going to be flavorful despite its youth.
On October 12th, 2023, Thursday evening from 6 to 7 pm, stop in for a taste of our pick as well as the core range from the distillery and meet Tal Chotiner. the M&H VP of international sales with close to 25 years of experience in the world of whisky. Tal used to work for Diageo in Israel and was a Johnnie walker Brand ambassador for the Middle east and “single malt advocate” from Diageo. When Tal is in Israel his job is to interrupt Tomer’s (Head Distiller & Blender) work with crazy ideas and stupid questions… I’m sure he has cool stories for us.
Many of you came from far and near this past weekend to get a chance to purchase an allocated or unicorn bottle of whiskey. You were treated to a taste of 4 whiskies from our private barrel collection. Thank you for doing this to support our local community in Canterbury, CT. Some of you came because you already know about the care with which we select our whiskies and others came based on word of mouth. Regardless, you know we do not compromise on quality. Purchasing single barrels of whiskey, gin, rum, tequila and any other spirits seems to be something many retail liquor stores clamor to do. We stopped counting how many barrels we have purchased in the 4 short years we have been opened once we got past one hundred of them. It’s not because we are now jaded. Rather it’s because we realize that we are taking the top 1% of the distillery’s product when we do that. This practice tends to hurt the craft distillery more than it helps then in the long run. At the end of the day, what do we really want? We all want to drink good whiskey and great whiskey on occasion.
As part of this effort, we have started collaborating with various distilleries to bring you great whiskey by blending. The very first of a commercially available blend, Kings Code, is available this fall in the Northeast and it is in collaboration with Kings County Distillery.
Join us for a special whiskey event this Saturday. There will be 3 separate tasting events from 1 to 1:20 pm (Part 1), 1:30 to 1:50 pm (Part 2) and 2: to 2:20 pm (Part 3) . We will taste a bourbon, a rye, a single malt and an Irish whiskey for each event. There are only 50 spots available for each tasting. You can only sign up for one of the 3 tastings so everyone can get a chance to try some good whiskies. The whiskies to be tasted have not been determined yet but you can be sure they will be good. As part of attending this FREE event, you will receive a raffle ticket at the door which you want to hang on to for dear life for Project Interrupted 2 that will take place promptly at 2:30 pm and end at 3:30 pm. When your raffle ticket gets called, you will have a chance to select from over 100 bottles of rare and allocated whiskies. For that privilege, we ask that you donate $25 for each allocated bottle you purchase ( in case there are fewer people than bottles) and this donation will go directly to our local non-profit organizations ( volunteer fire department, school and library) as we have done in previous years.
QS04 The Rye’d Choice is a 6 year old Putnam Rye at 66 ABV from Boston Harbor Distillery is being released this Friday Aug 4th 2023. If you already know about my Putnam Rye picks, you know what to do. If you don’t, and you chase cask strength ryes of allocated status, then you might want to come see us. Also, to be perfectly evil, we are introducing you to another brown spirit category, barrel-aged gins.
QS03 Je Ne Sais Quoi is a gin we formulated a year and four months ago to become a great sipping gin and also to make an incredible gin Old Fashioned.
5 pm to 6:30 pm this Friday, Aug 4 meet the Founder, Rhonda Kallman and Head Distiller, John Stark, of Boston Harbor Distillery. They’ll be available to autograph your bottles and answer any whiskey questions you may have.