The Famous Grouse

Blended Scotch
Purchase Price: $24 (1.75 ml)
Place of Purchase: Roma Liquors - New York, NY
Rating: 8.2

For the longest time, Roma Liquors on the Upper West Side was selling a 1.75 glass jug of The Famous Grouse for $23.99, a price point that in any other store nabs you exactly 750 ml of this same fine blend. It was, as they say, the bargain of the new millennium. The price has since gone up and when I asked the owner of the store what happened, his only words were, “It is the end of an era.” Lofty words for such a silly, trifling thing, but I am in full agreement. I’ve heard through various news agencies that The Famous Grouse is the best-selling scotch in Scotland, but as I’ve mentioned before in my Powers review, that means very little to me. Can it stand on its own, out of the home country, is a much more relevant question. Well, The Famous Grouse (and please don’t ever, ever forget the “The” when ordering) is one of the best blends out there. Complex but still creamy, it’s as soothing as a night at the symphony.

Brinley Gold Vanilla Rum

Rum
Purchase Price: $18
Place of Purchase: Astor Wine and Spirits - New York, NY
Rating: 1.0

My first "drain pour" ever and thus the lowest score ever, this stuff is so syrupy-sweet and hard to swallow I can't even get a handle on it four months later. It should be elementary--I like rum a lot and I like vanilla. And I especially like when vanilla is added to some everyday item to produce something of lasting culinary value. Some of my favorite “treats” are vanilla ice cream, vanilla Coke, and even the ultra-rare vanilla-flavored Sour Gummi Bears. So I was expecting this vanilla-fortified rum to be a drink for the ages—a Shawn Kemp slam-dunk. Well, what’s being peddled here is more like a Craig Ehlo airball. I just can’t deal…

Ardbeg 10 Year

Single Malt
Purchase Price: $40
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.3

Classic Islay, you know what you're getting when someone slides a glass of this straw-colored whisky in front of you. It’s rousing stuff with wispy tendrils of campfire smoke, pitchforks full of peat and a stiff briny breeze. It all falls together quite nicely. Perfect for autumn days, winter evenings and maybe even a chilly spring night, but I wouldn’t advise carrying a bottle of this around on a stifling hot June day at, say, the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. It’s just not meant for that.

Ancient Ancient Age 10 Star

Bourbon
Purchase Price: $8 (375ml)
Place of Purchase: ABC Store - Asheville, NC
Rating: 8.5

I’m not sure what to read into it, but one of the small joys in my life is visiting liquor stores whenever I’m on the road, always on the lookout for a.) some obscure and never before seen brand or b.) a known and loved brand being sold at some ridiculously low price. Yes, it’s sad but true--I have basically memorized the price of almost every scotch, bourbon, vodka, gin and rum sold by Warehouse Spirits in NYC. Warehouse doesn’t have the lowest price in town on everything but it’s close enough to serve as a benchmark of sorts. In any case, this example has more to do with a.) than b.) , anyway.

The place was a state-run Asheville, NC ABC store. Time was pressing--I had a plane to catch and only about 5 minutes to scan the shelves for anything out of the ordinary. And there it was, a 375 ml bottle of Ancient Ancient Age Ten Star priced at 8 dollars. I’d heard of Ancient Age but hadn’t seen a bottle of it in almost 20 years. I remembered it being a “low-end” whiskey, but I figured 8 dollars wasn’t much of a gamble, so I grabbed it and headed for the airport. And like the money I placed on Greece to win the Euro ’04 back in the day, it was a casual, almost flippant bet that paid off handsomely. AAA 10 Star is quite simply one of my favorite bourbons ever. Sweet without being cloying, fiery without being molten, it’s almost like a dessert wine, robust and complex beyond anything else in its price range. Highly recommended!

Georgievskaya

Vodka
Purchase Price: $12
Place of Purchase: Gotham Wine and Spirits - New York, NY
Rating: 8.0

This well-nigh unpronounceable vodka comes packaged complete with an onion dome cap and it really is a more than decent vodka. In fact, I was mentally and physically prepared to buy another bottle at the low price of $11.99 when I noticed the one bottle they had left had a bunch of strange-looking sediment at the bottom. I don't know what it was, but it resembled shredded Kleenex. My hand immediately moved over to the Kutskova fortuitously placed a couple bottles over. Sometimes things are a genuine bargain and sometimes things are "priced to go" for a reason. A horrifying reason. UPDATE: Two months later, the bottle is still there and it’s now been reduced to $8.99 and put on a different shelf with other “Close-out” specials. Sooner or later someone on a budget and with ready access to a strainer will snap it up.

Kilbeggan

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $18
Place of Purchase: Astor Wine and Spirits - New York, NY
Rating: 7.7

Another outsider in the always competitive Irish stakes, Kilbeggan is distilled by Cooley, touted by their own website as “Ireland’s last independent distiller.” In fact Chrissy Hynde wrote an entire album about this place entitled, appropriately enough, “Last of the Independents.” I think it sold about as good the follow-up to “Pac-Man Fever” did. In any case, Cooley produces some really interesting whiskies, the most famous of which is probably the Connemara Peated Single Malt. Well, Kilbeggan is a blend and not a very interesting one. It tastes like watered-down Powers to me and that’s drinking it neat. Irish whiskies are sometimes put upon for being a bit too airy and listless and Kilbeggan does little to provide a line of defense for that argument.

Oliphant

Gin
Purchase Price: $15
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 7.9

Sometimes gin is a damn hard drink to review. Oliphant (Dutch for elephant—in Swahili these large animals are sometimes called “Jumbe” or “chief” which is where the name Jumbo was derived) is pleasant enough as one half of a gin and tonic, but I can’t think of much to say about it beyond this simple truth. It’s from Holland, whose national drink is a similar spirit they call Jenever, but Oliphant gin isn’t nearly as interesting as that. This distillery also makes a vodka and both it and this gin are reasonably priced and easy to drink. Just don’t expect to get trampled by any rogue “Oliphants” of taste.

Pinch

Blended Scotch
Purchase Price: $32
Place of Purchase: Gotham Wine - New York, NY
Rating: 8.0

Pinch has been on the market a long time in the U.S. and is generally known as a premium blend. The whisky itself is known as The Dimple everywhere else but the States. Both names are a play on the shape of the bottle itself, which has achieved iconic status all over the world, no matter what they call the stuff inside. James Bond drank this scotch quite frequently, and he did it before such things were done as bought and paid for movie tie-ins. That is all well and good but I find this scotch lacks a sense of drama and depth an international spy deserves. It is well-balanced and well-behaved but seems to take an early exit long before the femme fatale gets seduced and the villain sent to his just rewards. I like Pinch, but I’m afraid it’ll never be love.

Ron Abuelo

Rum
Purchase Price: $12
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.3

Ron Abuelo (his portrait graces the label of this rum) reminds me of someone but I can’t quite put my finger on who. (An engagingly gone-to-seed Vladimir Lenin? The Monopoly Man’s symphony-conducting older brother?) Bottles of his namesake spirit started turning up around NYC about six months ago at a price point generally associated with bus station favorites like Ronrico, but make no mistake--this is really classy stuff. It’s got some great notes to it--banana, mango and even some cream soda. In sum, this drink is as enchanting as the secluded beaches of Playa la Barqueta and quite possibly the best Panamanian export since Roberto Duran!

Buffalo Trace

Bourbon
Purchase Price: $22
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.0

I don’t know exactly why Ancient Age distillery had to be renamed The Buffalo Trace Trading Company or whatever it’s called now but the new moniker has always sounded a bit gimmicky to me--the kind group-think “brainstorming” that's given the world silly names like Bearing Point and Ambien. Okay, so buffaloes once used the distillery’s back yard as a thoroughfare, great. The name Ancient Age had tradition, gravitas, and an indisputably keen sense of alliteration. Buffalo Trace just sounds like a McMansion-studded subdivision outside of Charlotte, NC. As far as the bourbon itself goes, they are obviously serious about it since they’ve given it their flagship name, but I find it merely a solid and quite unspectacular sipper.