Beer thread
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@Victor-Meldrew I keep promising myself to try and get into blends. Would the Double Black be a good starting point?
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@Catogrande said in Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff:
@Victor-Meldrew I keep promising myself to try and get into blends. Would the Double Black be a good starting point?
Yeah, it's smoky and peaty, very smooth and has a fair bit of character. Someone once told me blended whisky get a bad reputation as most cheap whisky is blended, but to try a decent blend. Think I prefer this to JW Green Label which is blend of 15 yr-old malts. More memorable.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff:
@Catogrande said in Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff:
@Victor-Meldrew I keep promising myself to try and get into blends. Would the Double Black be a good starting point?
Yeah, it's smoky and peaty, very smooth and has a fair bit of character. Someone once told me blended whisky get a bad reputation as most cheap whisky is blended, but to try a decent blend. Think I prefer this to JW Green Label which is blend of 15 yr-old malts. More memorable.
Hints of Islay? My old man's a big Chivas fan, so that's the prescribed nightcap whenever I manage to get down.
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@Victor-Meldrew @pakman Not going to be my go to then. I enjoy the odd Lagavulin but find Laphroaig a bit too much.
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@Catogrande said in Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff:
@Victor-Meldrew @pakman Not going to be my go to then. I enjoy the odd Lagavulin but find Laphroaig a bit too much.
How do you drink it? I just add a bottle top of water.
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@Catogrande said in Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff:
@Victor-Meldrew @pakman Not going to be my go to then.
Try JW Green Label - way less peaty but damned good.
I enjoy the odd Lagavulin but find Laphroaig a bit too much.
Lagavulin is like Listerine on steroids. Got absolutely rat-arsed on the stuff a few years back. Still shudder.
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@Catogrande said in Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff:
@pakman likewise
Neat, generally for me.
Going to give this a try at some stage. My whisky-loving mate from Peebles recommended it to me.
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@Victor-Meldrew I'm not so sure about these niche spirit producers to be honest. I get the feeling that they're trying too hard to be a bit different and edgy (based on no knowledge whatsoever of your friend's recommendation). I have several specialist gins at Cato Towers and whilst I enjoy the odd glass here and there I tend to find the second glass less appealing by some way to the first in most cases. Having said that I have enjoyed a Japanese whisky named Reiko (also do a gin, but I've not tried that).
I have come to realise that I am a classicist when it comes to getting on the piss. I enjoy proper English bitter beer, none of that craft bollocks. Strong continental lager. Claret and Burgundy as a rare change. Cognac. Scotch whisky and standard English gin.
And on the cognac front, if you can source some you MUST try Tesseron. The Lot 53 is sublime, but I have just indulged myself in a bottle of the Lot 29 - not tried it yet.
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@Catogrande Bombay Sapphire?
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@Catogrande said in Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff:
I have come to realise that I am a classicist when it comes to getting on the piss. I enjoy proper English bitter beer, none of that craft bollocks. Strong continental lager. Claret and Burgundy as a rare change. Cognac. Scotch whisky and standard English gin.
Pretty much the same here, except I'm not a big beer drinker. Love good New World Pinots and slowly preferring well-aged Oz Shiraz to Bordeaux (I have a few bottles of 2000 Birchwood McLaren Vale which is the stuff of angels) A few restaurants around here sell local cider which is absolutely top rate and not the rustic stuff you'd expect.
Mrs M's the gin drinker and she'd agree with you there. Likes to try the craft gins but always goes back to the classics after a glass or two.
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Massive craft beer piston-wristed gibbon here.
Cannot get enough IPAs, West Coast IPAs, Hazy IPAs, New England IPAs (NEIPAs) and then the double/imperial versions of those. Big flavours, big ABV, love it.
Also love my whiskys, bourbons and gins.
Got these two bottles as gifts last week for a great mate who turned 70. The Starward is an Aussie from Melbourne. Really enjoyed it but not quite as good as those Aussies from Tassie.
The gin was just superb, we both loved it and will have to get this again.
A recent tasting with mates between Xmas and New Years turned up a great collection of beers. We said bring two of 3 different beers and we split the two between the 3 of us. We also had a 2l growler during the same tasting.
And this long weekends line up goes something like this...
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@RoninWC mate that's aweomse. If you know what you love, go for it.
My wife and I are a bit the same. Our new years resolution a few years ago was 2 new beers a week for a year. Tasted a whole lot of crazy stuff, and generally enjoyed it. However, it really clarified that the stuff we love is hop forward - so hazies, IPA, IIPA and hoppy pilsners primarily.
Great stuff
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@pakman said in Beer thread:
@Catogrande Bombay Sapphire?
Sapphire is fine but to me, more of an everyday gin. I would be quite happy to drink that. It doesn't have some "smack you in the face" quirky flavour to it. Having said that my go to everyday gins would be Plymouth and Tanqueray, followed by Gordons and Beefeater. Sapphire close behind.
The Plymouth gin distillery does a good tour experience, not overly long or expensive but quite educational. Plus there is a pretty good restaurant on site.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Beer thread:
@Catogrande said in Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff:
@pakman likewise
Neat, generally for me.
I can go neat for Speyside, but find Islay too impenetrable without a dab of H2O! For me that opens it up nicely.
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@Catogrande said in Beer thread:
@pakman said in Beer thread:
@Catogrande Bombay Sapphire?
Sapphire is fine but to me, more of an everyday gin. I would be quite happy to drink that. It doesn't have some "smack you in the face" quirky flavour to it. Having said that my go to everyday gins would be Plymouth and Tanqueray, followed by Gordons and Beefeater. Sapphire close behind.
The Plymouth gin distillery does a good tour experience, not overly long or expensive but quite educational. Plus there is a pretty good restaurant on site.
We generally rely on Sapphire/Gordons/Tanqueray in that order.
Mrs. P likes to try quirky varieties and I occasionally play.
Had heard Plymouth was good, so will give it a try, thanks. We find Sipsmith pretty good.
On a closely associated topic, with a good gin we stick to Schweppes Tonic, generally diet. It tends to expose weaker gins, which is where Fever Tree can provide some masking. But why bother?
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@pakman Plymouth is a good option although this was not the case for a very long time. It did use to be pretty shite but they came to realise this and sorted things out about 15/20 years ago I think (Got this from the tour guide).
I agree re the tonic. Fever Tree to me is an exceptional marketing exercise but I really do prefer good old Schweppes.
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So a pretty hard 10 minutes or so today as I waited for 6 o'clock to come round which would allow me a gin whilst preparing dinner Provencal tomato and goats cheese tart seeing as you were going to ask). Mrs Cato does the honours and pours me a Plymouth & tonic. "Is there enough gin in that"? she says. I replied that a dash more wouldn't be a bad thing. Problem is she neglected to tell me she'd finished off the Plymouth so she topped it up with Hendricks. Nice but totally different. So I am now drinking mongrel's piss.