Greetings fellow watch Nerds and Drinkers, I need your help.

As I have mentioned a few times I am in the process of writing a book about Booze. The title is either going to be "A Drink for Me," or "Dr Strangebooze; How I learned to stop worrying and love the Burn." I have been lucky enough to have had the chance to sample 1000's spirits over the years and learn from master distillers, importers, and authors over this time. I am a booze traveler and when I travel I seek out new and interesting bars, and seek out local drinks and traditions. Some of the local variations of something as simple as a Gin and Tonic deserve their own book! I also 100% acknowledge I am a lazy typist on this forum and often miss glaring typos when using my phone to comment.

The first part will be a tour of most of the booze types out there, i plan on making this pretty comprehensive actually. I want to drill down to things like Calvados and Rhum Argicole, while covering the differences of all the different whisky and Rum types. I will go into a bit of the history and general tasting notes of each type of booze.

The second part will be about making cocktails. The main purpose is to demystify the different types of alcohol and understand what makes each unique. Using the knowledge from the first part, I will be going into how its actually very easy to create your own drinks. I have found many people are scared to mix and experiment. Its not hard, and can be easy and fun, it is nowhere as complex as cooking even if you want to get exotic.

I have already written large sections of the book, I am looking for what I might be missing. What do people want to know, what are people scared of, what have you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

So what I would like to know is what other things or any specifics you would like to see in a book like this. I will do my best to answer each question, and some of the answers might even become sections of the book.

Thanks!
Phil aka Foo2rama

 

I am very fond of Dutch ‘ Oude Geneve ‘ …and the practice of drinking it seriously chilled, in a frozen shot glass…much as one does, with a good vodka

Dutch gin tends to be overlooked …Be great, if you included that ?

 

That's amazing.

This may be beyond the scope of the book, but I am very interested in the aging processes of micro distilleries, and in small batch aging. Funnily enough, I have been discussing this with some others because I *may or may not* distill rum and other spirits as a hobby of mine (if cops come knocking I'm blaming you guys). But the aging processes for smaller batches can differ pretty greatly from large distilleries that age larger quantities for greater periods of time. At least, I would be very interested to read some comparison of tasting notes of rums from larger batches and smaller batches, and how those different processes and aging times affect the outcomes. Good luck!

 

Ahh Jenever! I will be covering that stuff. In general its a lighter more sweet "Gin" vs British Gin. They are actually related. The English and the Dutch traditionally where great trading partners or fighting with each other. Jenever became all the rage and was huge in London and then war with the Dutch... To meet the demand the British created Gin as an alternative to Jenever which was no longer available. Both are basically vodka flavored with herbs for a very simplistic explanation. Oude Geneve is a subset of Jenever with the addition of some malt wine and will be mentioned... its a little hard to source and can be aged or not aged, but yup! All great stuff and interesting.

 

I’m sure this will be a fantastic book, you have a lot of knowledge. I’m sure you will provide a nice read for beginners to seasoned vets. I hope you see this through, I’m looking forward to it.

My opinion, I like the first title better. I would like a nice book I can proudly display at my home bar, or end table. I’ve noticed that people who enjoy a nice drink are like this too. A nice cover and pictures would be needed for me. As a fellow M driver, you probably know Chris Bangle has even designed bottles for Hennessy. We are a fickle bunch, like cigar enthusiasts. The look is important. I think “Whisky for dummies” or whatever I would never buy.

 

This is a hard thing to cover... as you have learned the size, age, materials, prior use, and prep of a barrel all affect the outcome. I will be talking in general terms about how different barrel properties affect the distillate. Most distillers I know don't give out enough info for to make really hard instruction, and also as you know storage of the barrels can also have a large effect. For the most part they use constant tasting of barrels, trial and error, and blending.

I have talked to the rickhouse manager for Laphroig and he says its amazing how if one barrel is left on the ocean side of the building and not rotated it is massively more impacted by the saltwater and iodine then barrels that are rotated or kept on the other side. I tend to believe him as I have sampled whisky from the same distillate kept in identical barrels from high up in the rick to low in the rick and different corners and if you do enough tasting you can really tell which part of the rickhouse the whisky was from. Thanks to Buffalo Trace for that cool experiment!

Yup American laws suck in regards to distilling anything at home.


Laphroaig's rickhouse (well part of it.)

 

Very nice, maybe you can have a "scratch n sniff" on each page, to enhance the reading experience?

 

If it sells and the website with new content keeps going... selling samples or perhaps cocktail starter kits has already been discussed. There are some issues selling and sourcing (solved) and shipping (not fully solved) of alcohol.

 

You beat me to it, a companion sampling set would be great. I can imagine reading through the book while tasting the liquor being discussed

 

When I was in the Life Guards there was dinner for dutch residents in Denmark I believe, a lot of diplomats, at Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen, where the Life Guards stand guard as well besides the Royal Palace. Some of us not on guard duty at that moment helped getting people to and from their cars (of course checking out the ladies in short dresses while helping out) and did other stuff to help out at the party. As a “thank you” we were given a couple of cases of Genever. We opened a couple of bottles but people generally didn’t like it, so I ended up with a whole case for myself

 

Great idea with the book by the way.

One of the things I find the hardest is actually to taste and smell (and sometimes how the taste develop). So perhaps you could include some tips for smelling and tasting, identifying the various notes etc.

I think a lot of people are afraid to admit it but tasting is quite hard, or so I think anyway. You always hear “this” and “that” note is present but it can be very hard to distinguish these yourself.

 

I'd love to see a section on how to combat the dreaded hangover. I love drinking, but man, the recovery takes longer and longer as I get older.

 

Also one of the things that makes me enjoy booze the most is when I can relate it to someone or a something.

The whisky I enjoyed the most was served by an elderly gentleman from Scotland who had a bed & breakfast, where I stayed once. He knew a lot about whisky and gave me a tasting telling stories about them while we tasted. It was an amazing evening.

 

Good call, I know its hard for me. When someone mentions “the oak” or “dried fruits”, I can really pick up on it, it’s like a Jedi mind trick. I can’t discern a lot of smells until it is mentioned.

 

You only get a hangover when you stop drinking. If you don't want a hangover you know what to do.

 

Already written it’s that issue that drove me away from wine. Yeah I’m a snob... but my pallet is mine and yours is yours. Broad strokes are what is important. Sure I can taste wine with the best of them but at the end it’s bull shit. It bothers my wine snob friends to no end that I can accurately price a wine and ID it in a blind test but I refuse to play the hint of xxx game. I’ve seen tasting notes that described the flavor as “like licking smooth stones at low tide” wtf does that even mean!!? Ok there are some exceptions... wait to try Louis XIII until you have experience so you can understand how and why its so complex and enjoy the insane complexity on what is normally a $250 dollar 1.5oz pour.

Taking notes of price, abv, apparent heat ( alcohol content,) smoothness, what you taste in it and mouthfeel. Let’s you become better. Also consistency of glassware is actually important and I use Glencairn glasses for every spirit save tequila and mezcal. Even then for recording notes I use the Glencairn for those.

 

That’s my goal as I’ve had those experiences and they are amazing I want to share them.

 

I have it exactly the same way and often need people to start me off with a note before I can recognize it myself. I think it becomes easier with training (training in tasting that is, not in drinking ) Even thought I have become better at it with champagne lately

 

Some notes on this via SCIENCE will be included. I have a tendency to drink to much but changing the way I viewed booze to savor the experience as opposed to alcohol delivery helped on this issue.

 

Haha that is great. The pictures we get in our head when tasting sometimes only makes sense to that particular person I guess.

The first real tasting experience with champagne was the Ambonney from Benoit Marguet. It instantly made me think of a cold and wet autumn, brown/yellow leaves lying on the ground among mushrooms and wet soil. A very powerful experience somehow, mentally. It was very enjoyable.