Hoarding and Release

As you can see, for a time, I saved whisky packaging.  I thought it was fancy.  I envisioned having a cool basement bar and using them to decorate.  I even saved some bottles.  One such bottle was a gift of Prichard’s Double Barrel, signed by Phil Prichard himself.  For some folks, Prichard’s is the “high water mark" of bourbon.  I had a bottle of Maker’s Mark that my wife dipped in wax at the distillery, and one that was signed by the Samuels Family.  I saved empty Van Winkle bottles, and bottles from the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection.  I saved the tin that held my first bottle of Laphroaig, and a box that once held  some Tomatin, a scotch from Inverness, Scotland, a place I was lucky enough to visit while studying abroad.  A wooden box for Booker’s, a tin holding bourbon that survived a tornado, and a container for Speyburn, the first single malt I ever purchased.  But I’m moving on.  Rowhome living makes it necessary to clean out now and then.  I filled a whole recycling bin and more with my whisky souvenirs.  And it felt good.  In a similar vein, I have set out to drink some of the whiskies I have been stockpiling.  I posted about  rebottling some of your more special stuff to prevent oxidation (I got the idea from the Sour Mash Manifesto blog).  The bottles also makes for neat little gifts and trades for like minded whisky enthusiasts.  The other night, I drank some Thomas Handy Sazerac from a couple of years ago.  It was fairly well preserved, but didn’t taste as it once did, having been slightly oxidized.  It was a lesson to not hold on to something for too long, and to move forward on my quest.  I do have a couple of Van Winkle bottles that I may keep sealed as long as I can tolerate (a fear of mine is that I will move someday and have to transport them safely…) but otherwise nothing is off limits.  Life is too short. 

As far as this blog, of late I have not had time or inspiration.  For a while I shared random thoughts, mixed in with whisky reviews, movie reviews, and “what I am drinking posts.”  Should I streamline?  Maybe a weekly post of “what I am drinking” would give it focus?  There are tons of good whisky review sites, I don’t know that my voice is of much use there.  But  I am open to suggestions,  and want to give the people what they want.  Ideas?