Fernet Branca is something that many readers might not have tried before. In fact, I’d bet that if you’re not in the industry or aren’t a fellow booze geek you may have never tried it before. So before I talk about what I mean by the bartender’s handshake, let me give a bit of background.
Continue reading “Fernet Branca is the bartender’s handshake”Author: Robbie
Nashville Barrel Company, the new brand on the block
In our last roadtrip report, I had to dash out of a tasting at Corsair’s headquarters that ran over. My destination was Nashville Barrel Company, a whiskey brand that’s exploded on to the scene in recent years.
Tennessee Legend Distillery at Marathon
My next stop on the tour wasn’t planned, and I’d never heard of this distillery before. I was actually at Marathon Village to visit Corsair Distillery’s first Tennessee location, but I got there quite a bit earlier than I expected and saw a sign for another distillery in the same building. Of course, I couldn’t resist checking it out.
Continue reading “Tennessee Legend Distillery at Marathon”A tour of Corsair Distillery’s Headquarters
The next stop on this summer’s roadtrip is in Nashville, and is the first of two visits to Corsair Distillery locations. This is their HQ location, the newer of their two Nashville distilleries and home to, well, their HQ offices as well as their whiskey and gin stills, bottling line, lots of cask aging space, and a cocktail bar. I’ll make a separate post about their Marathon location later.
Stopping in at Chattanooga Whiskey’s experimental distillery
If you’re keeping count (and you’re not), this is the third stop on my trip, and the first distillery outside of Georgia. Chattanooga Whiskey is another favorite distillery of mine. They call their bourbon style “Tennessee High Malt”, with each batch containing a minimum of 25% malted grain. They also produce rye and a series of limited edition spirits that have included amaros, aquavit, gin, single malts, infusions, and barrel finishes.
Continue reading “Stopping in at Chattanooga Whiskey’s experimental distillery”A taste of Lee & White in Atlanta’s West End
Atlanta’s Beltline project has driven some new developments in Atlanta, and the Lee & White warehouse redevelopment project near Adair Park is an example of the kind of thing that Beltline supporters hoped to see. This isn’t a real estate or urban planning blog, so rather than digging into those aspects of the development, I’m going to talk about some of the distilleries and breweries you might find there. Hop City calls Lee & White “Malt Disney”, and with three breweries, a bottle shop, a distillery, a kombucha brewery, and many restaurants and bars on site (along with open containers allowed on the property), it’s understandable.
Continue reading “A taste of Lee & White in Atlanta’s West End”Visiting Atlanta’s Old Fourth Distillery
The first stop on my distillery tour (here’s a full list of all the stops) was Old Fourth Distillery in Atlanta. Opened in 2014, they’re the first legal distillery to open in Atlanta in the post-Prohibition era. They’re in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, hence the name. Interestingly, they helped fund it in 2013 with a Kickstarter campaign, though with a low goal of $40,000 I think the crowdfunding campaign was probably more about marketing and outreach than raising funds, and I’ll have to remember that if I’m ever in the position of opening my own distillery.
Continue reading “Visiting Atlanta’s Old Fourth Distillery”Thinking back on my June and July distillery road trip.
After two and a half years without traveling outside Singapore due to COVID-19, the family and I took a trip back to the US in June to visit family and friends — and visit some distilleries! In all the time we’ve lived in Singapore, I’ve never really been homesick but after such a long time without being able to visit (or travel anywhere at all) I have to admit that it was tougher than I expected to get on the plane back home to Singapore. The distillery road trip portion of the visit took me almost three thousand miles through the southeast, and I’m excited to begin sharing details about the trip and what I saw (and tasted).
Continue reading “Thinking back on my June and July distillery road trip.”Rum Travels: 2022 New York Rum Festival and Congress
I missed out on the Miami Rum Congress earlier this year. I’m feeling a little less bitter about it now, but I still wish I’d been able to attend. Fortunately, the New York Rum Festival and Congress date coincided with my trip back to the US in June, and I was able to make a weekend jaunt to New York to attend.
Continue reading “Rum Travels: 2022 New York Rum Festival and Congress”Hello world! (Or, how I learned to stop bikeshedding and just start writing!)
Update: I’ve moved this blog to a new host, as the configuration on the previous one became too much of a burden. You’ll see me monkeying around with themes and designs over the next few days as I try to settle on something simple that I like and that will let the site grow painlessly.
This blog has been sitting here (well, actually under a different domain) for years and years. I’ve never really gotten around to doing much with it because I was bikeshedding over stupid things — what should I call it? What theme should I use? Should I make all about one thing or make it a broader blog about lots of stuff I’m interested in?
Yesterday I finally decided – I’m going to just write. I’ll focus this on adult beverages, so it’ll be all about booze geekery and what I’m learning. Eventually I’ll figure out how I want it to look and hopefully come up with a better title and theme, but for now I really just need to start writing and sort out the other stuff later. So don’t be surprised if the look and feel of this site changes from day to day, hopefully all of those changes will be for the better.
I first thought I’d set a goal to post something every day, but I know I don’t have time to do that right now. I could slap something up here every day, but the quality level wouldn’t be what it should be. So for now I’m going to try for one thing every week as a minimum.
Hello world! If you’re reading this, bear with me. I’m happy to hear comments and suggestions so please feel free to let me know what you think!