What’s Tony Drinking? Bourbons, Classic Cocktails at Dear John's, Scotch & Wild Rums

Kentucky, By Way of Japan

Kentucky Owl released a real head-scratcher last year with their “St. Patrick’s Bourbon.” Um… excuse me? Turns out it was a bourbon that had been blended in collaboration with an Irish whiskey bonder (the person in charge of aging and blending). And it was actually pretty delicious. So when I was recently invited to try their new Takumi Edition Bourbon with Yusuke Yahisa, the master blender at the Nagahama Distillery in Japan, I had an idea of what they were getting at. Yusuke did his thing with six sourced bourbons, aged 4-13 years and containing rye, malt and wheat as secondary grains. The finished product doesn’t taste like a standard Kentucky Owl bourbon, nor does it taste like a Japanese whisky. In fact, it reminded me most of a dry, elegant apple brandy. But I love a good apple brandy, and I enjoyed the hell out of this bourbon as well. I also enjoyed meeting Yusuke, who is far younger than the more grizzled master blenders I’ve met previously. He was also an aspiring baseball player before whisky’s siren song led him astray. I just wanted to throw that in there because I’m a huge baseball fan.

30 Years of Small Batch Bourbons

It’s been 30 years since Jim Beam master distiller (and Mr. Beam’s grandson) Booker Noe unleashed the Small Batch Bourbon Collection into an American whiskey landscape that had been stagnant for decades. Today, the quartet — the 80 proof, high-rye Basil Hayden’s; the mammoth, cask strength Booker’s Bourbon; the 100-proof, pre-Prohibition style Knob Creek; and the bold, 107-proof Baker’s— are cornerstones of the category, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that they helped change the entire bourbon landscape (along with my taste in bourbon) in the 1990s and 2000s.

A few of us writer folks celebrated the anniversary at Blackbarn in NYC with Beam Suntory (as it’s now known) master distiller Fred Noe, his son and heir apparent (and the creator of the excellent Little Book blends) Freddie Noe, and Kathleen DiBenedetto, who helped launch Booker’s, and who had a bottling of it named after her a few years ago. A lot of us hadn’t seen Fred or Freddie except on Zoom calls since Covid began, so it felt like a family reunion of sorts, with lots of stories, lots of laughter, and of course lots of great bourbon, including the legendary (and rare) Booker’s 30th Anniversary. I’m not ashamed to say I had seconds on that one… and perhaps even thirds. Did I overdo it? Maybe. Do I regret it? Not in the slightest.

A Dear John’s Love Letter

Thanks to my daughter the actor, I recently found myself in southern California as her on-set guardian for her latest project. And thanks to my wife, I found myself with a reservation to Dear John’s. A Culver City fixture since 1962, Sinatra is said to have been a regular, but the real draw was the outstanding food and drink. I started off with a spectacular Manhattan made with their exclusive Maker’s Mark Private Selection bourbon, Carpano Antica, Punt e Mes, and allspice dram, while my wife enjoyed an Aviation with the delightful and oft-overlooked Martin Miller’s Gin. Later we shared a Martin Miller’s martini with a twist, which was also all aces. Even my daughter’s Shirley Temple was a cut above. And as for the food… well, Lobster Thermidor. Need I say more? When in the area, quench your thirst and extinguish your appetite at this emporium of retro delights.

Bruichladdich: It’s What’s For Breakfast

It was a dreary, rainy Friday morning, and my head was just beginning to clear from the previous night’s revelry, when I stumbled into the Remy Cointreau offices in midtown Manhattan to drink a bunch of whisky. But this wasn’t just any whisky — it was the latest offerings from Bruichladdich, the iconoclastic Islay distillery and one of my favorite Scotch single malts. And my boozing companion for the morning was none other than master distiller Adam Hannett. So I was ready and eager for some hair of the dog, which Adam delivered and then some. 

We sampled half a dozen drams in all, including the newest Islay Barley 2013 bottling, which asks the question, “Can terroir exist in whisky?” (Answer: depends on who you ask) and all three of the new Octomore 13 series. If you’re not acquainted, Octomores are the peatiest single malts, as measured chemically, on earth — but weirdly enough, they’re also soft and fruity underneath all that peat, and quite quaffable despite being aged a mere five years and bottled at cask strength (between 58-62% ABV in this case). But the one that really blew me away was the latest Port Charlotte, the pithily named 2012 SC:01. A heavily peated whisky finished in Sauternes casks, it’s one of the best Islay malts I’ve ever had — tropical fruits like melon and pineapple complemented by big yet gentle barbecue smoke. As I sauntered out, suitably fortified to face the rest of the day, the rain miraculously stopped. I don’t think Adam had anything to do with it, but I’m giving him credit anyway.

A Rum That Tastes Like… Sun-dried Tomatoes?

Speaking of Bruichladdich, the fellow who spearheaded the distillery’s 2001 reopening/reinvention, Mark Reynier, has branched out recently, opening the Waterford distillery in Ireland and, more recently, the Renegade Rum distillery in Grenada. Reynier is a big proponent of terroir in spirits, and with rum, it seems like he’s really found his niche — there’s no barrel aging to dilute and alter the flavors of the distillate. Renegade is an agricole-style rum distilled from individual strains of local Grenadian sugarcane (most rums are distilled from molasses, a cane byproduct), and they are making some wild stuff. Their un-aged “Pre-Cask” Single Farm Origin series is terrific — my favorite is the “Hope” expression, which like the rest of the series is quite polarizing. I think a rum whose funky, weird, vegetal aroma fills the room, and tastes for all the world like sun-dried tomatoes, is a wonderful thing, while my wife thinks it’s disgusting and needs to be poured down the nearest drain as soon as possible. It’s definitely not for everyone, but if you respect rum in its myriad styles, at the very least you’ll find it eye-opening, and who knows? You may wind up, like me, totally converted. It makes a hell of a daiquiri, too!