Back from Vacation

The call of the open road is powerful, and they don’t call Montana Big Sky country for nothing.

Things have been a little quiet since our August tasting, but rest assured we are back from vacation: tan, rested and ready. After taking a little time to travel and see the beauty of Montana, it’s now back to work planning more great tasting events

Tickets for the September 18th Bourbon tasting are selling well – get yours at Bottles Fine Wines in Providence before it sells out. Planning is already underway for the October, November and December tastings. We have some interesting things on tap for the rest of the year.

Sometimes you really do get to see Unicorns in the wild. The local liquor store in Montana had about 8 bottles of Pappy 12 on offer – and to top it off they were dusty.

On vacation I may have been, but that doesn’t mean thinking about future tastings I wasn’t. The hard work of sampling whiskies never ends. So I chose to go to the local package store down the street and imagine my shock when see bottles of Pappy Van Winkle 12 sitting there and collecting dust.

Once I documented the existence of this rare in the wild sighting of the buzzed about brand, I promptly purchased a bottle of Montana Whiskey’s Rye. Why you may ask? Several reasons – one, I already have multiple varieties of Pappy sitting at home, all of them open and needing to be finished; two, I can drink Pappy any time and I was in Montana and wanted to drink local Montana whiskey.

As much fun as it is being able to taste well-known and famous whiskies, I derive almost as much, if not more sometimes, pleasure from tasting and discovering new whiskies, even if they are only new to me. If I wanted to drink the same thing no matter where I was, I probably would never have tried anything beyond the Cutty Sark my grandfather drank or the Jim Beam my parents bought. Now I have nothing against either of those whiskies – in fact both of them are on my liquor shelf for different reasons. Beam because they have so many great brands (the eponymous bourbon of course, but also Laphroaig, Bookers, Bakers, et al) and Cutty Sark because I like to have a dram or two on the rocks with soda every year to remember my grandfather.

Like many people I’m always open to trying something new – in fact someone I trust just raved about the Prichard’s Double Barrel Chocolate bourbon. I admit to being somewhat skeptical, but I know I’ll be trying a taste soon enough. Now as much as I enjoy finding something new, I’m not a slave to the tyranny of the new. Sometimes I much prefer enjoying the taste of a known entity – be it because of who I’m with or because I’m in the mood for a particularly spicy, or peaty or salty or fruity dram. But if you are traveling to see new vistas why shouldn’t your taste buds get to taste new vistas as well. To that end I sat on the porch looking out into the Bridger mountains watching a thunderstorm rumble through bringing much-needed rain while enjoying the local Rye whiskey made with Montana grains. What could be better (other than the photography).

A view of the Bridger Mountains while drinking the local Montana Rye was something that could only happen in Montana.