Latest / Around the House with Eric G®: Home Improvement Remodeling & DIY / The Whiskey Hour: Single Casks, Sherry Finishes & Why Your Ice Cubes Matter
Transcript
- 0:53Foreign.
- 0:59The House with Eric G.
- 1:00Your go to source for everything home improvement.
- 1:03Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric.
- 1:08G.
- 1:08Is here to guide you through.
- 1:09The latest tips, tricks and trends.
- 1:12So grab your toolbox, put on your thinking cap, and let's get to work right here on around the House with.
- 1:18Eric G.
- 1:19Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.
- 1:23I'm Eric G.
- 1:24Happy midweek special.
- 1:25Well, today we're going to do something.
- 1:27A little bit different.
- 1:28You know, last week when we had Andy Pace on the show, we ended up talking everything about healthy building materials for your home.
- 1:36And you know something?
- 1:37We still haven't aired what was our after hours where we talk about whiskey and distilled spirits because he's that kind of expert too.
- 1:47So I know for all of you out there, this episode might not be for you.
- 1:53If you don't drink, you don't like whiskey.
- 1:54You know something?
- 1:56I salute you.
- 1:57I have no problem with that.
- 1:58To each your own out there.
- 1:59So this might be one that maybe doesn't hit your interest, but for the people out there that want to understand a little bit more and some insider secrets that I thought was fascinating, let's listen to this short episode.
- 2:11Let's check it out.
- 2:12Hey, guys, welcome back to the around the House show.
- 2:14This is our little after hours episode that we don't have to follow any rules of radio.
- 2:20So we're going to be here on the podcast only.
- 2:21Thanks for tuning in.
- 2:22I got Andy Pace here, my green building brother and the around the house resident whiskey expert.
- 2:32Add that to my business card.
- 2:33There we go.
- 2:35And he is my expert that I lean on for the great whiskeys out there.
- 2:41And I don't discriminate.
- 2:43I like good whiskey, I like good gin.
- 2:45Those are both things that I enjoy.
- 2:47But Andy, what have you been seeing out there in the world?
- 2:50I mean, the whole industry is going through a little bit of consolidation, it seems, and people are buying people and people are closing and there's a lot of things happening out there.
- 3:00What are you seeing?
- 3:01What are you drinking?
- 3:02Yeah, it's interesting because you obviously everybody saw the bourbon boom in the last, I would say, five years.
- 3:08It's been really strong and that's starting to subside a bit.
- 3:11That's been happening in the industry for probably 30 years now.
- 3:14Right.
- 3:14Companies like Diageo and Beam, Suntory have been buying up a lot of distillery.
- 3:20Yeah.
- 3:20And I'm not necessarily not in favor of that.
- 3:24I still love the Craft distilleries for the sheer point of they can kind of push boundaries a little bit when it comes to whiskies.
- 3:34But I'm still, I mean, my, my love is Scotch.
- 3:37When I first became a whiskey sommelier, it was in Scotch whiskey.
- 3:42Yep.
- 3:42And I since trained and became a bourbon certified bourbon executive.
- 3:48And I have just recently passed my Irish wish certificate.
- 3:52Congrats.
- 3:53Spent a little time in the Dublin this past winter and had to do some quote unquote research.
- 3:59That's a great business right off, my friend.
- 4:02Exactly.
- 4:03Honestly, for those who listen to the other show, if I wasn't in the business of selling healthy homes and, and writing books, I'd be in the whiskey industry somehow because it's just my love, it's my passion.
- 4:16But right now I'm drinking a, an Abalauer.
- 4:20So Abalauer is a Speyside whiskey from Scotland.
- 4:24It's a single cask from the distillery that was hand poured 11 years.
- 4:31This has been a wonderful dram.
- 4:34Although once this one's gone, it's gone forever.
- 4:36And again, one of the sad part, right, is that you can have big brand Jim Beam and Jack Daniels and whatnot.
- 4:43You can have infinite amount of bottles available and it always tastes good or like in a Scotch whiskey or a single cask bourbon, you, it might be one of 200, 300, 400 bottles worldwide from that particular cask.
- 5:00And so I find myself gravitating towards single casks recently because this is where you get these.
- 5:07And we all know whiskey made worldwide is all made the same.
- 5:12It's the same ingredients.
- 5:14The only difference is the type of wood, the time involved in the wood and where it's housed during that, that aging process.
- 5:24Everything else is going to be similar.
- 5:27And so it's wild to get flavors that are just so vastly different from one cast to the next.
- 5:34That's amazing.
- 5:35I mean, great example.
- 5:37My cheap stuff around the house.
- 5:39It's my.
- 5:40I'm gonna make a Manhattan or something like that.
- 5:42I'm a whiskey guy is I just have Buffalo Trace as my cheap whiskey out there.
- 5:46But then you.
- 5:47I went and saw a couple weeks ago, went and saw Chris Stapleton in town and I was at the whiskey store and it was on sale and he had his traveler whiskey, which to me was kind of one
- 5:57off a Buffalo Trace.
- 5:58Okay.
- 5:59Very similar.
- 6:00It's fine.
- 6:01It was the same price because it was on sale.
- 6:03And I was like, oh, it's kind of cool.
- 6:05But you can turn around though.
- 6:07And this is the fun part.
- 6:08I think with Whiskey is that you can turn around and buy 150 bottle and go, wow, that's amazing.
- 6:15Or you can go, wow, that's not for me.
- 6:17Oh, yeah.
- 6:17I've had whiskeys that are 2, 300 a bottle.
- 6:20But I go, I will never have this again.
- 6:22And which is really unfortunate.
- 6:24So I, being a whiskey sum, I do conduct, like, private whiskey events.
- 6:30And I have my friends and family and some consulting or corporate clients that'll hire me to do events.
- 6:37So I have in my whiskey collection, I probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of don't tell my wife.
- 6:45900 to 1,000 bottles of whiskey.
- 6:47Nice.
- 6:48It has been my goal now in the last two years to kill off open bottles.
- 6:54Yeah.
- 6:54Which sounds like a lot of fun.
- 6:56And it is.
- 6:57But it's also a lot of work because sometimes I have to power through these bottles that I really didn't like, but I gotta do it.
- 7:03Yeah.
- 7:04In the last two years, I've probably.
- 7:07Now we're talking about some bottles have one pour left.
- 7:10Absolutely.
- 7:10Some have a lot more.
- 7:11It depends on what they are.
- 7:12But I've probably killed off 50 or 60 different bottles in the last two years alone.
- 7:18And I've been writing notes about every one of them and taking pictures.
- 7:23Because I'll tell you what, here's one thing about whiskey that a lot of people don't understand.
- 7:29Whiskey never goes bad.
- 7:31You open up a bottle of whiskey, it'll still be drinkable for the rest of its lifespan.
- 7:36Provided that you sound like wine.
- 7:38Right?
- 7:38Yeah.
- 7:38It'll oxidize.
- 7:40Once oxygen hits the spirit, it'll change the flavor profile ever so slightly.
- 7:46With wine, it'll spoil if once you open it, you don't drink it in time.
- 7:51With whiskey, it just changes.
- 7:54But sometimes it changes it for the better.
- 7:56Exactly.
- 7:57I opened up a bottle of Kilteron.
- 8:03I opened up this bottle about two years ago.
- 8:06I had two neck pores of it.
- 8:08I thought, this is garbage.
- 8:10I was so excited to open it up, but I was so disappointed.
- 8:14I let it sit for a year, and then I started tasting it again.
- 8:18And about the year and a half mark after it being opened up to air, it became sublime.
- 8:23This became one of my top 10 whiskeys of all time.
- 8:27And here I thought, this is a sink bottle.
- 8:30Yeah.
- 8:31There's no.
- 8:32There's nothing's gonna save it, Right?
- 8:34Yeah.
- 8:35That's crazy.
- 8:36That's crazy.
- 8:37Never a bad investment.
- 8:39You just got to be patient with it.
- 8:40You just got to be patient with it.
- 8:42So, yeah, I mean, I'm out here on the west coast.
- 8:44So I'm Portland area and we've got a few things up here in the northwest.
- 8:47We've got a new one that's been popping up here that's just a regular whiskey.
- 8:51Ewan Young is down here.
- 8:53We got Westward.
- 8:54I love Westward.
- 8:56Those guys are great.
- 8:58Yeah.
- 8:58And they do some really interesting things too with some of their limited editions.
- 9:02Just fantastic cask selection.
- 9:04And this is where American distilleries, whether they're bourbon or they're single malt distilleries, are really learning the craft in Scotland.
- 9:17It Scotland, the Scotch whiskey industry wouldn't exist if it weren't for the American bourbon industry.
- 9:23Because here in the United States, bourbon casks can only be used once, then they get shipped overseas.
- 9:29Mostly we use.
- 9:31That's again why it was like it's consolidation industry.
- 9:33Because they can share tasks then.
- 9:35Yeah, they get shipped overseas for new make whisk Scotch whiskey to be aged in ex bourbon casks.
- 9:42But in Scotland they made a point decades ago to start using Oloroso sherry casks and PX sherry casks and rum casks and you name it to add what's called a finishing cask.
- 9:56So it spends 12 years in ex bourbon, then it goes for another two years in ex Caribbean rum cask.
- 10:02And it picks up all of those flavors and nuances.
- 10:05Here in the United States bourbon industry never did that at all until Angels Envy decided to start finishing in pork casks.
- 10:16And this opened up this whole new idea of wait a second, we can do this too.
- 10:20And now that American single malt whiskey is a thing.
- 10:25It's now a defined brand whiskey category in the code of reference.
- 10:30We're now seeing these smaller distilleries.
- 10:33Heck, even Jack Daniels did this.
- 10:35A port cask.
- 10:37They're starting to use this fishing cask and it's making a world of difference.
- 10:40So it's really helping all of us kind of expand our horizons in the whiskey business.
- 10:46Yeah, and it's so cool because like up here, because we've got the Willamette Valley in my area up here we've got all these wine and and Pinot Noir casks.
- 10:54You're seeing the local distillers up here filled, finishing in those, having some fun with it, doing some stuff.
- 11:00And it always makes it very interesting.
- 11:02And I love it when I pop into my local state run liquor store here, which I don't like those guys very often but because it's hard to get stuff through them.
- 11:11But at the same point it's nice to go in there and have A tasting and go, ooh, I wanted to try that without spending 75 bucks for a mid price bottle.
- 11:20Thought about, and I gotta tell you too, of one of the whiskeys I just killed.
- 11:24So you've heard of the Anchor Steam Brewery.
- 11:26All right.
- 11:27Anchor Steam.
- 11:28One of my favorite microbrewers of all time.
- 11:30Yep.
- 11:31Well, when that was purchased, it was actually purchased originally to be a distillery.
- 11:37Oh.
- 11:38And they kept the micro brewery going while they started distilling.
- 11:42Got it.
- 11:42They have a bottle called Old Portrero.
- 11:47You got to pick this up.
- 11:48You like Manhattan?
- 11:49You're a love and old parent.
- 11:51Trero Manhattan.
- 11:52It's 100% malted rye.
- 11:56Oh, it is absolutely amazing.
- 11:59And the one I just killed the other night, it was task finished in a, I think a cabernet wine cask in a Manhattan.
- 12:08Holy cow.
- 12:08That's.
- 12:09That's gotta be just absolutely amazing.
- 12:11That's money.
- 12:11Yeah.
- 12:12And I.
- 12:12And by the way, I do love certain restaurants now here in the Pacific Northwest.
- 12:16We're seeing it here too, where they're house making their Manhattan and cask aging the cocktail itself.
- 12:23I had one last night that was good.
- 12:25And I had another one a week ago that I was like, holy crap, this is amazing.
- 12:31And it's just like it just had its own life to it.
- 12:34And everything was just so integrated and beautiful.
- 12:38It was just so smooth.
- 12:39I was like, I am happy these are $21 drinks.
- 12:43Because that is keeping me from having too many in this situation.
- 12:47Because it was, it was alcohol free.
- 12:49I'd have been just dinking that like Kool Aid.
- 12:51Yeah.
- 12:51Good thing it wasn't a wedding reception with an open bar.
- 12:54Right?
- 12:54Yeah.
- 12:54That's where things get dangerous and you got to be a little more careful.
- 12:57But those are the things that I love with that.
- 12:59And there's so many in for people out there that are in the audience tuning into this that are whiskey drinkers as well.
- 13:06You don't have to go out and spend a big money to get good whiskey.
- 13:09There are some just out absolute underpriced kind of like wine is out there where there's just these brands out there that have made it reachable that it's absolutely gorgeous to drink.
- 13:23Yeah.
- 13:24Not only that, because I can tell you that when I've done like blind tastings for clients, I'll pour five whiskeys in black Glen Caren glasses.
- 13:33You can't see it.
- 13:34You can always smell it and taste it.
- 13:35Right, Perfect.
- 13:37I've done it where I've had $200 bottle up against a $19 bottle.
- 13:45And the $19 bottle wins just as often as the $200 bottle.
- 13:50And that $19 bottle is either Jim Beam, Devil's Cut.
- 13:55That's good.
- 13:56It's good stuff.
- 13:58Or the other one.
- 13:59Mellow corn, you kid.
- 14:02Mellow corn almost always comes out on top when I put it in a tasting.
- 14:07That's hilarious.
- 14:08That's down at ankle level in your liquor store.
- 14:11Usually has dust on it, but for 16 bucks a bottle, it's amazing.
- 14:15And here's the other thing too.
- 14:17When the whiskey snobs, and I'm not a whiskey snob.
- 14:22I mean, I'm a whiskey snob because I love whiskey, but I'm not a snob in that I don't care how you drink it.
- 14:27If anybody ever tells you, oh, you got to drink that neat, you, you can't put ice in it, you can't put water in it, tell them to pound sand.
- 14:34Because when I was getting my whiskey in Scotland, the woman who gave us our final test, she grew up in Poland and she told us that in Poland they drink whiskey with lemonade.
- 14:50Oh.
- 14:51Mixed drink.
- 14:53In Japan, it's almost like a little Tennessee kind of whiskey.
- 14:57Lemon drink.
- 14:58Exactly, exactly Right.
- 14:59And so when I talked to the distillers themselves, I was doing a tour behind the scenes tour at Belen many years ago, talking to the master distiller, and he's saying, I don't care how you drink your whiskey, we're
- 15:13just happy you do.
- 15:14Yeah.
- 15:16And the number one selling whiskey in Scotland is a blend and they mix with either water or a soda.
- 15:24And so you drink it the way you like it.
- 15:27I call it the altered states of whiskey.
- 15:29If you try it the first time, if you really want to understand the flavor, have it neat, then add a couple drops of water.
- 15:38It actually heats up the whiskey by about a degree or two and starts to release these water soluble flavors, compounds out of the whiskey.
- 15:48That's why it has a stronger aroma.
- 15:51Now when you taste it, you may find that you don't like it as much as you did meat.
- 15:55Or you may go, oh, now that smoother, it's silkier, less bulky, whatever it is.
- 16:00Then add ice.
- 16:01You add ice and it shuts down flavor.
- 16:03With some whiskey, you want that.
- 16:05That's why bourbon is consumed with ice all the time, because it helps to get rid of some of that Kentucky hug, that burn.
- 16:13Right, right.
- 16:13So especially when you're in a barrel strength, that's where it gets.
- 16:16Yeah, that's where it gets pretty brutal.
- 16:18And by the way, guys, ice Cube size matters.
- 16:23Exactly.
- 16:24Right.
- 16:24A hundred percent does.
- 16:25And don't think that you can just go up to your fridge and go and get it out of there.
- 16:30That's crushed.
- 16:31You're going to have a completely different taste than if you put a round or a square chunk of ice in there, because it's going to melt completely differently.
- 16:39Yeah.
- 16:39Again, it's all about how it interacts with the product itself.
- 16:44Again, sometimes a little bit of water, a little bit of cool temperature improves it, sometimes it doesn't.
- 16:49Right.
- 16:50Yeah.
- 16:50But here's the thing you got to be careful of when you are using ice.
- 16:53Don't just take ice out of the freezer that's subject to whatever is in the freezer giving off aromas.
- 16:59Because the aroma, like, smell your ice before you put it in your whiskey.
- 17:04Because if it smells like your refrigerator or freezer, do not put it in the whiskey.
- 17:08You're going to ruin it, because it's all that flavor transmits into your whiskey.
- 17:13See, I sold my house that had my.
- 17:15My LG craft ice dispenser, and I haven't got another one yet.
- 17:19So that's a problem.
- 17:20But what I've been doing now is I've been creating my.
- 17:23You get the mold and you do it.
- 17:25No big deal.
- 17:26But what I do is I put it in a Ziploc bag in the freezer.
- 17:30Yeah.
- 17:30So that way it's always in the Ziploc bag, and you never have to worry about that.
- 17:36Your takeout food in the fridge from the night before that's heavy garlic, is now changing your flavor profiles of your content.
- 17:42Exactly.
- 17:43Right.
- 17:45And it just does.
- 17:46And that's the funny part.
- 17:47And that's the funny part.
- 17:48But, man, there's so many great things out there.
- 17:50You and I could talk about this forever, and we still got work to do today.
- 17:53But I just love what's been going on out there.
- 17:56We just had some.
- 17:57Some places around here close up.
- 17:58That's some of the sad stuff we're seeing.
- 18:00We had Rogue ales out here which had Rogue distillery.
- 18:04They closed up and sold off their stuff.
- 18:07So Rogue is gone.
- 18:08And they were such a icon in the industry up here in the Pacific Northwest.
- 18:13But I believe I could be wrong, but I think Deschutes Brewery bought those, and they've been coming out with their own whiskeys.
- 18:21Oh.
- 18:22So.
- 18:22And I think they bought the Rogue product to integrate that into their line.
- 18:26So I believe that's whose trucks I saw sitting out in front of their distillery grabbing stuff.
- 18:32So the craft distillery business is the Distillation business is tough.
- 18:37Understand that at a global level, every distillery is making their new make for about the same price.
- 18:45It's a little under $4 for a proof gallon to make the stuff.
- 18:49Yeah, but you buy it for 50, $67 a bottle because of the process involved, the aging, the taxes that are paid over the years.
- 18:57I had a friend in the industry years ago, he was the president of Brown Foreman and we were sitting at his desk one day drinking a 25 year old Pappy at his desk and he had literally two full
- 19:08barrels of this stuff.
- 19:10He's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with this.
- 19:11We'll just sit here and drink.
- 19:13And so we were continuing this at his desk and he said, the problem with the craft distillery is eventually you run out of daddy's money and you have to start making a profit.
- 19:25He said, you know how you become a millionaire in the bourbon industry?
- 19:30He said, start with 10 million.
- 19:32Yeah, that's it.
- 19:33That's it.
- 19:34It's like bust.
- 19:35It's like owning a boat.
- 19:37The two happiest days, right when you buy it, when you sell it.
- 19:42Well, I mean even here in Portland we had aviation gin.
- 19:45Who was Ryan Reynolds thing here?
- 19:46And they just closed their tasting room down and it was beautiful.
- 19:50And Ryan owned it, he brought it, he came in here and now he had bought it from a guy that I'd had on the show years ago who had a cocktail show, a different Ryan that was after my
- 20:00show, that he was kind of one of the co founders that.
- 20:02And then he sold it, I believe.
- 20:04I think Ryan might have bought his share from him or something like that.
- 20:07And they're still making money, but you're starting to see those, those big places like that.
- 20:12And again, it was in the worst part of Portland as well.
- 20:15I mean it was down just by the freeway, by the homeless camps.
- 20:19And so it was not a, it was not a, an easy place to do business as well.
- 20:22But I wish these guys well out there.
- 20:24There's so many great brands out there and enjoy your own that you love, right?
- 20:29Yeah, I mean a lot of great brands, a lot of great product.
- 20:31And again, this is why I love the craft distillers because they start pushing boundaries a bit but eventually they gotta start making profits.
- 20:38And so, I mean, was it Corsair down in Tennessee?
- 20:41I mean I love some of the product that they produce, but they're so small.
- 20:45Dark arts in Lexington, Kentucky.
- 20:47I love dark art whiskey.
- 20:49Their rise in their bourbons are unbelievable.
- 20:52But I was down there last year.
- 20:53And they're like, we're not sure if we're going to continue on.
- 20:56We don't know if we can make it.
- 20:57Yeah.
- 20:57And they make some of the best.
- 20:59They don't do the distillery.
- 21:00They're a rectifier, They're a blender.
- 21:02But their blends are unbelievable.
- 21:04And if you're a bourbon lover or a rye lover, you should have 20 bottles of this stuff on your shelf.
- 21:11But people don't know about them because there's so many to choose from.
- 21:15There's so much noise.
- 21:16Oh, yeah.
- 21:17So it's up to people like Neil and I to educate folks one by one.
- 21:22So my event that I do, the goal of the event is to introduce people to things that they would never try.
- 21:30Yeah.
- 21:31And then open up their eyes and open up their palates to things that they would love to taste again.
- 21:37It's so funny.
- 21:38And we'll close with this one.
- 21:39But you know the story about Pendleton whiskey, right?
- 21:41They are Canadian club that is put into a Pendleton bottle.
- 21:45Really?
- 21:46Really.
- 21:46It is broad.
- 21:47That's why if you look where Pendleton is on the shelf, it's a Canadian whiskey.
- 21:52Those rail cars show up from Canada filled with whiskey, and they get bottled and it's a.
- 21:59You can buy Pendleton in Canada.
- 22:02It's just like, I don't know, I can't remember what it was.
- 22:05I had a buddy that actually was best friends with the founder and he told me all their secrets.
- 22:10He's no longer around, but they are just getting it by the railcar load and putting it in glass and throwing it out there.
- 22:17And it's one of their special select or whatever whiskeys.
- 22:20But it's a.
- 22:21When you see Canadian and it's based in Hood River, Oregon, where they're doing it, they're not making it there, folks.
- 22:28That's that.
- 22:28That's the.
- 22:29That's the American whiskey way to go.
- 22:32Honestly, if you look at the bourbon industry, we all know that a lot of the craft distillers actually buy their new make from MGP in Indiana, which I have no problem with.
- 22:42MGP makes good products.
- 22:43Right.
- 22:43But like I said before, if everybody's making this stuff, all the big producers are making it for the same price.
- 22:50What makes one brand different than another?
- 22:52Sometimes it's just a good label and a good story.
- 22:55You Brown Foreman owns Jack Daniel and they own Woodford, Woodford Reserve and Jack Daniels Single cask.
- 23:06Same liquid.
- 23:07Yeah.
- 23:08Different marketing, different processes.
- 23:10Yep.
- 23:12Amazing.
- 23:13That's amazing.
- 23:14Any pace, brother.
- 23:15Thanks for coming on again on the whiskey hour here now.
- 23:17So you got it Now I'm thirsty.
- 23:19I know.
- 23:20Same here.
- 23:20I'm like, sheesh.
- 23:22Gotta call lunchtime here.
- 23:24All right, my friend.
- 23:25Hey, is there a place that if you do tastings and stuff, is there a place out there people can follow you on social media or something like that if they want to find out more?
- 23:31Oh, my God.
- 23:32My gosh.
- 23:32I know it's not your brand.
- 23:33You're chasing too much, but just a.
- 23:36Wee dram all spelled out are all together.
- 23:39Just a wee dram on Instagram.
- 23:41Perfect.
- 23:42There we go.
- 23:43Got it.
- 23:43Now people can find you.
- 23:45Appreciate you, buddy.
- 23:46Thanks again.
- 23:47Thanks.
- 23:47I'm Eric G.
- 23:48You've been listening to a special version and a tasty one of around the House.
- 23:53Thanks for tuning in to the around the House show.
- 23:56Make sure you subscribe on your favorite way to catch podcasts.
- 24:00Also, be sure to subscribe to our new YouTube YouTube channel and you can find it at around the House HQ and ring that bell for updates.
- 24:08Thanks for tuning in to around the House.
- 24:22Acting your age don't make a good story.
- 24:25Knock one back.
- 24:26No buzz, no glory.
- 24:28No one ever talks about the shots they didn't take.
- 24:31Drinks.