I will never learn how to take a good photo of one of my beers. I don’t really like BA or high abv sours but I can make an exception for this one. My mixed case of younger gets here tomorrow so it’s going to be Russian River week at my house.
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pliny the younger milkshake
I’m gonna need you to send me one of those Pliny the Youngers
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last year i waited in line outside a bar at 2 PM to get one 6oz glass of pliny the younger.
at the time waiting in line for a beer felt crazy. now being inside a packed bar seems unreal.
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I’m already mad I decided to be nice and send 2 to the friend that bought me the damn case. Even worse I said I’d wait till he gets his and we’d drink one over zoom. hops will probably already be faded, carbonation gone, beer ruined by then. Who knows they shipped it warm it could already be ruined and I just don’t know it yet.
I can’t imagine what it would take for me to sell one of these and have live with myself for passing up a chance to drink one this year. Probably at least $1000 haha
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Ya I was lucky enough to be off work both days they had it at my restaurant last year. I didn’t get one the year before
They specifically mentioned on their website one of the reasons they did it this way was because of covid and they knew if they released kegs it would draw a crowd.
Haha, don’t worry, I wasn’t serious, I’ve just been meaning to get my hands on one for years and it’s never been realistically possible. I can get the STS Pilsner here but I think that’s about it.
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Yeah younger is impossible if you’re not in the right location. I’m surprised you can’t get elder, happy hops, or row 2 hill 56 with a little effort though. But ya probably the same problem if they don’t distribute to your area and you can’t get them quickly then it’s not worth the effort for an IPA anyways.
Ever since they opened a larger brewery a few years ago it’s been very easy to get there beers in San Diego, but it does seem to arrive everywhere at once and then sit on the shelves for way too long.
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Back on the subject of Cristalino tequilas, I was hanging with a friend last week and we picked up another bottle of the Maestro Dobel. Both the ones I have are the “hand selected by the liquor store” types, and the old one I have is aged in American oak but the new one I got is aged in French oak. So I’m gonna have a taste test tonight and see what the differences are.
This advice is aging pretty well, imo. I’ve been buying a variety of gins for the last little while to see if I can find something mid-priced and still pretty good, usually keeping the tail end of a previous one or two to compare double-blind with the new contender. Tanq’s holding up well. Notable dud: regular Bombay (not Sapphire). I had Sapphire as one that was good but a bit overpriced, but I don’t think I’d ever tried the regular brand before, so I decided to give it a go. Definitely pass.
I don’t know a lot about port, but I do know the two major types are ruby and tawny, so, uh, maybe get the one that wasn’t what that was.
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British shipping companies played a huge role in the expansion of the port trade.
The British-owned port houses with British names are probably going to be more likely to have sweeter, fruitier offerings and those are probably also the ones that appeal more to American tastes and so be imported to the US, but I’m sure they have both sweet and not-so-sweet options.
You probably want to avoid port that is described as “not overtly sweet” and maybe look for something described as a “dessert wine”. You might also want to consider other fortified wines, such as sherry or Madeira. All of those should have different offerings ranging from dry to sweet. I don’t have experience with all the options, but I do know that I find a cream sherry to be an acceptable after-dinner drink.
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Ruby port is kind of a cheap option, if you’re talking quality ports it’s vintage vs tawny.
@goofyballer do you know the difference between vintage and tawny port? If you’ve had random ports out at dinner they are probably tawny, because tawny is fully oxidised, so you can keep it open for weeks without a problem. Vintage port is like fortified wine, with a similar shelf life once opened. They’re very different. It’s probable you can find this Australian tawny in Cali:
My ex wasn’t into wine at all when we met and her entry was via tawny port. We had what we called the “Para test”, which was like, is a port we try good enough for the price to beat this yardstick that we measure against?
Seppeltsfield have been making port for a long time. If you visit their winery in the Barossa about an hour’s drive north of here, you can try (or buy, if you want to pay $1,000 a bottle) 100 year old port.
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I don’t really rate regular Tanq. Sapphire is underrated I think. I didn’t even know regular Bombay was a thing. Bombay Sapphire is considered a base spirit here.
I like port, I guess it doesn’t even get a 2% slice of my drinking pie chart but I think a glass or two of tawny can be super delicious at the right time. In general 10-years are fruitier and they get less tannic and more finespun & expensive as you ascend through 20s 30s and 40s. I’ve had a couple of vertical flights and for my caveman palate the 20s are usually my favorites.
my go-to bottle is Graham’s 20, it just hits me right, it’s not jammy but it’s a good combo of sweet and tart and caramel and spice and hazelnut and I dunno about specific fruits maybe orange? maybe cherry? I guess raisin’s a fruit. Is fig a fruit? Plum is a fruit.
Naturally there’s an unhinged debate about how cold to serve them, and sure if it’s way too cold then it muffles flavors but no room temperature sicko is going to stop me from keeping a bottle in the refrigerator, which I would still happily drink two months after cracking it. Like Chris says that’s one of the best parts.
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I think temperature is an underrated factor in wine (and wish less places would serve me ice-cold Chardonnay and “room temperature” red wines when the room is 80F in an Australian summer) but it can hardly be wrong to put a chill on something with a high ABV.
If you really want to try a fancy and unique sweet wine, may I recommend Tokaji? It’s not cheap, especially as you get to the fancier, sweeter ones with a higher puttonyos rating, but man, it’s delicious.
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I don’t know much about particular brands, but the puttonyos rating is usually good indicator of the sweetness and quality. It rates from 3-6 so 5 is gonna be good.
Defintely, a hot glass of red or ice cold glass of white is not my favorite. Our house came with a wine fridge installed and we already had one from our previous place so now we have one for whites that I keep at 46F and one for reds (including a bottle of port!) that i keep at 58F.