Ah, I had the coffey grain in my hand and now regret not grabbing it. Next time I’m out.
Thanks!
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We’re planning a trip to Japan this summer. General tips and suggestions are welcome, and specific recommendations for whiskeys, bars, distilleries, and such are doubly appreciated. Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kagoshima will be on the itinerary. So is Osaka, but we’ll likely spend most of our time seeing shrines and castles there. (I’m particularly interested in seeing Himeji Castle due to its appearance in You Only Live Twice.)
Japan is an amazing experience, especially if you are from the West; everything is so vastly different that it truly feels foreign yet at the same time it is accommodating enough to foreigners that it is navigable, at least in the more urban and tourist areas.
Try everything. Some things you’ll love, some things you’ll hate, but you won’t know unless you try. For me, katsudon was my top surprise; a true comfort food.
As for drinks, chu-hi is not just fruit juice, no matter what it tastes like, lol. Also, if you are staying with a host family in the mountains and their Buddhist monk son comes over for dinner and offers you some tequila, he means the entire bottle, but that’s a story for a different time, lol.
There is also a proportional relationship between how rural you get and how relaxing an onsen is. I couldn’t care less about them in Tokyo, for example, but up in the mountains near Nagano was excellent.
I’m jealous; I’d love to get back some day with my family. Enjoy!
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I’ve had the Hibiki, Yamazaki, and Nikka Coffey Grain. They were good, but not really my taste. I prefer a super peaty whiskey - Ardbeg 10 or Corryvrecken, Laphroaig, or the Octomore’s when I can find them (and afford them). I owned and drank a bottle of the Coffey Grain once and enjoyed it, but not enough to go hunting it down again.
The Japanese ones were good whiskey, but not scotch per se - they didn’t have that smoky, peaty flavor that I enjoy. I was planning on picking up a bottle a few years back until I saw the price point, around $80 iirc, which turned me off as I can find a bottle of Corryvrecken for around that price and would prefer to drink that.
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Yep, peat is a minority of Japanese whiskies and not something they do particularly well. Nearly all of them are a different character to Scottish.
Oh, that’s good to know, then. I need loads of smoky peat flavor in my single malt.
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A man after my own heart… this discussion made me search the latest Octomore; alas, the 13.3 isn’t really available stateside, and shipping from the UK is $60+! (yes, I see the irony in spending 200 on a bottle of scotch but being reluctant to drop 60 for shipping)
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This immediately made me check out my go-to mail-order liquor spot, Astor in NYC. They have listings for Octomore, but all out of stock 
However, their search tool brought up a comparison to Port Charlotte, so now I’m curious what you and other folk think of that.
I’ve had the Port Charlotte and remember it being… unrememberable. Not enough peat for my liking, despite it being billed as a peaty whiskey. The comparison is probably because they both have peat, much in the way that a Ferrari and a Honda both have engines.
Oh, I’ve forgotten about Caol Ila. Great bottle for the price.
Lagavulin 12 is delicious too, but hard to find as it’s a once a year release. I was excited for the Lagavulin 8 and bought 4 bottles of what turned out to be barely drinkable piss. Huge disappointment there.
Ardbeg U (I can never spell that one) is nice if you like a sherried cask, but for the comparable price I’d rather have the Corryvrecken.
Kilchoman is pretty decent for peated whiskies, but hard to find in my area and their latest stuff has been hit or miss. Drinkable but not worth the effort of hunting it down.
A tasting vid by YouTube Scot bartender Cara Devine (her channel “Behind the Bar” is worth a follow) led me to the website for Kirin’s distillery located in the shadow of Mt. Fuji. As it’s near the new Fuji Motorsports Museum at Fuji Speedway, this looks like it will fit my itinerary nicely.
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I was just watching an old episode of Gadget Man and they demonstrated a little sonoc beer foamer. Has anyone tried something like that, or an aerator of any kind for their beers?
The use of sparklers in the UK for beer is controversial and seems to be along similar lines; you use it to get a better-looking and better-smelling drink, but I’m not sure the use case is there if you actually like good beer. If you like lager or shit beer, it will probably be quite nice to have it always be properly foamy and feel like it’s freshly-pulled/poured.
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Ended up gifted six cans of this wreck the hoose juice. It’s very, very nice. Spicy, with cocoa overtones, and ferociously alcoholic.
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Oh, if you’re going to bring stouts into this thread, you’re speaking my language now. Had a couple of excellent stouts with lunch at a local microbrewery yesterday, but I had to keep to the 4.5% ABV ones (one oatmeal stout, one peanut butter stout) because I had to pick up my sons from school. No 11.5% ABV coconut macaroon stout for me … this time.
I’m lucky that this area has a couple of excellent small breweries, and there’s a very nice craft beer store in town that stocks a great variety.
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We have a Binny’s near me that has more microbrews than I could ever hope to try. I also like the stouts and am always looking for new flavors. I particularly like the nitro/brewed stouts, though sometimes some of them are too sweet for my liking.
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Brew York rarely disappoint. I keep getting interesting beers from them, and this is no different. Citra, Simcoe and Strata. Very, very drinkable.
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Had a guided tasting session from Cloudwater Brew last night and while they were busy launching a core range of solid, mid-range beers that are more likely to appeal to the common gentleman, the session was aimed at giving you access to their high-powered high-concept stuff that they’ve been doing recently with barrel aging, under a new program (and a new manager, Brian Hung).
Barrel-aged saison with lemon and rose, using a custom-made yeast from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. This produced something like “But what if a cider fucked a beer and the beer got pregnant.” in my mouth, with a very straightforward nose and taste, a solid all-rounder from start to finish, but also the most unexceptional of the beers. Just a perfectly good saison.
At a mere 11.4%, this stout was the sort of decadent drink you could add cream to, or have with vanilla ice cream, or do literally any sort of dessert-based activity and have the flavours complement each other. Aged in port, single malt, and bourbon barrels, it was absolutely ridiculous, multiple layers of dark flavour, and lots of staying power. I could sip this forever.
So this was a sour to stop anyone in their tracks, 1 kilo of apricots per litre, with an astringent nose that was totally unlike the rich sherbert taste, which frontloaded a bunch of apples before finishing on apricots. One of our group literally could not drink this, so I had his.
Turns out Chuckleberry isn’t that bloke from Police Academy. Braggot mead and Belgian tripel, then fruited with chuckleberry, this was perhaps the most easy-drinking, light, refreshing, energetic, and at this point in the evening I realised I was drunk. Perfect for summer, plenty of complexity from the mead/tripel, but constant fruit notes throughout.
Another stout for end times, rum and bourbon barrel aged, 10.7%, turns out tonka beans are tastier than Tonka toys, thick caramel and vanilla flavours layered over each other. I cannot emphasise how decadent this stout was. It was like having the height of the British Empire poured into your mouth by some dedicated manservant, whom your father assigned to you at birth.
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Their leading sales tagline, clearly. Demand royalties.
Also I’m jealous.
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