[6thElement]

Don't drink scotch, but for the Islay connoisseurs I enjoyed the riding scenery in this vid:

 

[maxyedor]

I am not a fan of laphroiag, which is available at Costco. I was wondering where the days of 59 Laga went.

In that case, I’m going to semi retract my recommendation. Brimstone doesn’t have the burnt peanut butter and tire notes of Laphroiag, but it’s got some serious smoke notes.

Balcones in general is worth trying, they’re one of the few widely distributed distillers who do everything in house and do lots of really cool/unique stuff.

Speaking of expensive bourbon, I expect there's not too many monocled monkeys in this market but interesting nonetheless:

That $1,000 Bourbon You Bought May Be a Phony

That $1,000 Bourbon You Bought May Be a Phony (Published 2022)

Counterfeiting — filling luxury bottles with cheap liquor — has hit American whiskey hard as sky-high prices raise the payoff for scammers.

www.nytimes.com

May be behind a paywall for anyone without an NYT account, but here's a snippet:

To the casual eye, there was nothing amiss about the bottle of whiskey sitting on a shelf at Acker, a wine store on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But for anyone who knew what to look for, the warning signs were clear.

The whiskey, a bourbon called Col. E.H. Taylor Four Grain that Acker was selling for about $1,000, normally came packaged in a special cardboard tube; this one sat there tubeless. Its strip stamp, attached over the top of the cork, was on backward.

Still, when a producer from the TV news program “Inside Edition” asked in April about the bottle’s authenticity, the store assured him it was legitimate.

The producer bought the whiskey, then took it to Buffalo Trace, the Kentucky distillery that makes the Col. E.H. Taylor line of bourbon, for chemical analysis. The bottle, it turned out, was fake: It had been refilled with cheap whiskey and resealed, then sold to Acker as part of a private collection.

Ever watch “Sour Grapes” on Netflix? Same thing but with wine and the guy blending it was able to make shit that fooled everyone. Wasn’t until he screwed up and made a fake Cab from a vineyard that produced zero Cab during the year he put on the bottle. Really interesting doc and proof you can fool anybody if you know enough about flavors

 

[Jm_]

In that case, I’m going to semi retract my recommendation. Brimstone doesn’t have the burnt peanut butter and tire notes of Laphroiag, but it’s got some serious smoke notes.

Balcones in general is worth trying, they’re one of the few widely distributed distillers who do everything in house and do lots of really cool/unique stuff.





Ever watch “Sour Grapes” on Netflix? Same thing but with wine and the guy blending it was able to make shit that fooled everyone. Wasn’t until he screwed up and made a fake Cab from a vineyard that produced zero Cab during the year he put on the bottle. Really interesting doc and proof you can fool anybody if you know enough about flavors

I like Ardbeg and Laga a lot better than Laphro and Oban. Even the Laga 10 and younger Ardbeg.

 

[OGRipper]

Ever watch “Sour Grapes” on Netflix? Same thing but with wine and the guy blending it was able to make shit that fooled everyone. Wasn’t until he screwed up and made a fake Cab from a vineyard that produced zero Cab during the year he put on the bottle. Really interesting doc and proof you can fool anybody if you know enough about flavors

I haven't, but may check it out, thanks.

I'm not even a little surprised that fake products can fool consumers, and that's particularly true for the super expensive shit. I'm sure there are some people buying that stuff that understand the nuances and can pick the good from the bad (or the truly spectacular from merely good), but I suspect the majority can not. I'm somewhat more surprised that expert dealers can get hosed.