What Are You Drinking Right Now?

[alan7147]

Bell's Two Hearted Ale. Great IPA with a floral aroma and crisp finish.

[ol_ironstomach]

Water, vast quantities of restorative water, to follow a proper-yet-moderate celebration of Repeal Day, which began benignly with a visit to Ace Beverage and ended (for me, anyway) with a series of improvised toasts at Billy Martin's Tavern. Salut.

[Sthitch]

BFM's Cuvee du 7eme. This Swiss gem is one of the best beers I have ever had. It has a creamy body, with hints of clove.

[deangold]

Aperol Spritz

[JeffC]

Pirramimma Shiraz. Nice drop...

[ol_ironstomach]

2004 Touraine Sauvignon Blanc "Le Buisson Pouilleux", Clos du Tue-Boeuf (Louis/Dressner Selections)

[bioesq]

1985 Folle Blanche. Pairs well with Charles McCarry novels.

[alan7147]

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. I actually like it better then the 120

[deangold]

Murray McDavid Cragganmore.... good shit!

[porcupine]

Zeng Shan Xiao Zhong. Full bodied but not too tannic, only lightly smokey and mildly astringent. mmmmmmmm

[jparrott]

Is that tea?

Teachers "Highland Cream" blended Scotch. If there's a better basic (that is, less that $30/1.75L) blended Scotch out there, I don't know what it is. And that includes Grouse.

[Xochitl10]

Shiden no Saku, a dessert jizake (local sake) carried back from Akita Prefecture. On top of the sake flavor, it tastes a good deal like plum wine, as well as flowery and vanilla-y. Also, it's pink.

[porcupine]

Is that tea?

Indubitably.

[deangold]

Costanti 2001 Rosso di Montalcino with lamb chops and zolferino beans. After, Murray McDavid Longmorn.

[deangold]

Helped a table of old friends finish off their 5 bottles last night:

Salon 1996 Le Mensil- very burgunduan and way to young for me. I like my Salon with a little age on it after disgorgement. On the other hand I would ahve hated to have paid for this bottle... I don\'t get the price quality ratio of Salon when I can drink a case of Pierre Peters for the price of a bottle of Salon. DOn\'t get me wrong, this is a stunning bottle, just not stunnning enough for me for the price.

DP 2996 1996 (who the hell put the 1 and 2 so close together on the keyboard!)- Dom. Ho hum.

Phelps Insignia 97 - overly oaked, no particular varietal flavors, high parker scores.

Masi Amarone 90 - not one of the vineyard wines, just the plain amarone, very nice. It has lost its baby fat adn the textures and spice are beginning to show. Very, very good wine indeed. I loved it from first sip but the drinkers were unimpressed at first pour and in love with it at the end of the bottle when they thought it far superior to the next wine.

Turley Earthquake - all alcohol and overripe fruit. Typical Turley. Love em or hate em, I am in the latter camp.

[crackers]

DP 2996 - Dom. Ho hum.

Probably too soon to be opening this one. Give it a millenium or so and it'll be a knockout.

[jparrott]

Wild Turkey 12yo (split label, 1997). Pure leather.

[deangold]

Probably too soon to be opening this one. Give it a millenium or so and it'll be a knockout.

I've been drinking and aging Champers for over 25 years. I just don't hink that DP is that much better than most good NV Brut available from small houses. I'd much rather have a Ployez Jacquemont (sp?), Pierre Peters etc etc etc. I don't think the DP is great today or will improve enough to justify its price. It is a commercially manufactured product made in mass quantities pawned off as a luxury good.

A Toyota Camry may be a good car, it may be as good as its Lexus counterpart, but it ain't no Ferrari. One may prefer the Lexus for buying groceries, but if asked to pay a Ferrari price I'd rather not get a Camry.

[jparrott]

There is a discussion going on over on the Points Guy board about how much DP is made each year. People have heard different numbers, but the median is about 5 million bottles.

DP: The Gray Goose of champagne?

[deangold]

There is a discussion going on over on the Points Guy board about how much DP is made each year. People have heard different numbers, but the median is about 5 million bottles.

DP: The Gray Goose of champagne?

I think that the last two posts have the most accurate information over on that other board. They posit that DP is 500,000 to 650,000 cases in the years it is produced and the estimate is based on LVMH data.

Put it this way:

There is more DP produced that ALL of Brunello di Montalcino on average.

There is more DP produced in a given vintage year than Ridge produces totally in more than 5 years!

There is more DP produced in a year than Santa Cruz Mountains produces in a decade!

There is more DP produced in a year than Salon produces in 25 years!

[ol_ironstomach]

DP: The Gray Goose of champagne?

DP: the Rolex of champagne.

(For comparison, Rolex produces approx. 1 million movements per year. World-famous, expensive, reliable, yet crudely assembled, hardly rare, and almost none are interesting from a horological point of view, nor worthy of a displayback.)

[deangold]

1986 Cabernet Franc Caymus Napa Valley.... very tobacco cedar box on the noe, tight with really good acidity after all these years, perfect with grilled pork chops. Quite lovely.

[legant]

Tylenol Cold with a Canadian Club chaser

[dcdavidm]

Taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to cook out on the deck, a 2003 Adanti Arquata Montefalco Rosso to go with a Mario Batali grilled ribeye (aged overnight in a coating of ground porcini, garlic, salt, sugar, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and olive oil). Wine was a nice complement to the savory steak.

[ScotteeM]

1978 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Vineyard. Didn't know what to expect when my husband pulled it out of our cellar. It's deep, rich, and port-like, says my husband. The color is light, but the flavor is still powerful. We're having some mild, soft cheese with it, before dinner, although my husband thinks it would be better after dinner. We'll test his theory with the other 2 bottles we have.

[lackadaisi]

Lime sherbert mixed with ginger ale. Not my choice.

[The Hersch]

I've just been drinking Crémant de Loire Rosé by Yves Lambert. I love this wine! Nice fruitiness, very elegant, a beautiful salmon-pink color, wonderful, persistent bubbliness. The trouble is, I bought one bottle of it, and I can't remember where! I do remember that it came at the lovely price of $12.95. Anyone know where I could buy some more?

[Joe H]

Christmas dinner for family who appreciate: 2000 Dal Forno Amarone, 2000 Dal Forno Valpolicella, 2000 Sergio Zenato Amarone, 2001 Tenuta Sant Antonio La Bandina Valpolicella, 2000 Don Melchor Cab, 1999 Leonetti Merlot....and a bottle of aspirin for each!

[alan7147]

George T. Stagg Fall 2005 (141.2 proof) cut with a bit of filtered water. Very nice bourbon that does not show the hotness of its proof.

[deangold]

Christmas dinner for family who appreciate: 2000 Dal Forno Amarone, 2000 Dal Forno Valpolicella, 2000 Sergio Zenato Amarone, 2001 Tenuta Sant Antonio La Bandina Valpolicella, 2000 Don Melchor Cab, 1999 Leonetti Merlot....and a bottle of aspirin for each!

I wanna be part of your family...

[deangold]

Started with Albert Mann Tokay Pinot Gris Furstentum GC 2001, now mellowing into a darker, more expansive, butterscotchy roundness from its assertive youth.

Ridge 1974 Petite sirah York Creek.... at age 32 this wine is now a wonder. From being a tannic monster when young, it is now all textures and smoothness. The spice and fruit elements are there but that is not what the wine is about. It simply rolls down your throat leaving a wonderful feeling on the tongue. The length of finish was superb. What a wine!

A Rafanelli NV Zin (a blend of 74 and 75 or maybe 75 aend 76 vintages as I recall, oneof their first wines on the market)... definitely caught on the downhill side but still a nice bottle. Soft, with all tannins fully resolved, the problem is that there was not enough fruit left to give it any silkiness. More interesting than really good.

[deangold]

Tonight I turned the left over lamb into lamb hash. With it we had:

1981 Ridge York Creek Cabernet Sauvignon

Much less famus than the MB bottling, the YC is a great cab as well. This one had a nose of truffles, mushrooms and forrest floor after the rain. The tannins are fully resolved and the wine has an etherial lightness for a wine that was so much richer and fullwe when young. The magic of age has rendered this a clear, elegant drinking experience. From an oil painting full of color and pignent, it is now a water color done with a wash technique, all shimery colors without the weight, an impression inistead of a statement. The fruit was black tinged with a hint of spice. The textures of velvet. The finish was a little short but that would be the only quibble. What a wine!

[Sthitch]

I started with a Harvey Christmas Ale (2005), and now I am enjoying a Weltenburger Kloster Winter-Fraum. Both are very nice beers, the Christmas ale does not have much carbonation, but has ample flavor, while the fine bubbles in the Winter-Fraum tickle the tongue before it is enveloped with the creamy body of the beer.

[Seanchai]

On Christmas Eve we had a bottle of Rogue Santa's Private Reserve ale. Rich, brown and surprisingly hoppy. We left one out for Santa and we discovered he was kind enough to leave the empty in the recycle bin. Gotta be a nice change from all that milk he drank.

[Sthitch]

Last night I poured a St. Peter’s Cream Stout. This was the strangest stout I have ever had, it reminded me of miso with bubbles. It was not bad, but quite strange.

[jparrott]

A (hefty) Teacher's, rocks. Been baking coffee cakes and tarts and smoking meat since 6am. Pooped.

[Barbara]

A (hefty) Teacher's, rocks. Been baking coffee cakes and tarts and smoking meat since 6am. Pooped.

Why? I'm drinking Evan Williams and water, waiting for Dame Edna to get dinner on the table. At some point, I'm going to stop caring . . .

[jparrott]

Why? My holiday entertaining is just starting.

[Barbara]

Why? My holiday entertaining is just starting.

Gotcha.

[deangold]

Louis Martini Merlot 1976. FIrm plummy flavors with a slightly short slightly acidic finish that was perfect with some Roniola wrapped in fig leaf.

[ol_ironstomach]

Pappy Van Winkle 20 yr (Lawrenceburg bottling ~2002). Something great to cap off a day that began with tasting or sniffing grains, mashes, and a wheater white dog at Buffalo Trace.

[dinwiddie]

2001 Karl Lawrence Cabernet - rasberry, black currant, black cherry, some spice, a little smoke. Good now, but I think I'll let the rest of them wait for a year or so.

[dirtymartini]

A sauzurac made with Jake's Willett and absinethe from the Czech republic. I'd tell you what it tasted like but, then I would have to paint you green, boil you into mist and play you though a french horn.

[Seanchai]

Bad news: My local Harris Teeter stores are no longer carrying Three Floyd beers from Indiana (sob!). The Alpha King is my favorite beer over the last 2 years, first tasted at the Hopleaf bar in Chicago.

Good news: They have just started carrying the Heavy Seas line of Clipper City beers. Loose Cannon is sitting in my fridge like a coiled snake, ready to strike. Me likey.

[Sthitch]

After finishing off the first bottle of the painfully inexpensive bottle of Bishop's Choice Cotes du Ventoux (more can be found concerning this wine in the wine bargins thread), we finished off our last bottle of 2003 Domaine du Chene Condrieu. The only thing that kills me about this and the other great Condrieu's is that they have such a short life. This is the type of wine you would hope would evolve into something even more special, but no, it simply dies. This bottle was still very much alive.

[Pat]

Right now I am drinking a 1997 Domaine Cros Minervois. I found it in the basement. I have no idea how long I've had it or where it came from, but it is fantastic. I needed a dry red wine for the standing rib roast (see Joe H's recipe suggestion in the prime rib thread), and this was one of the few bottles of red I had. I cannot believe how good this wine is. I think this is something you're supposed to drink for a special occasion and not use to cook with, but it's open and the meat's cooking. This is such good wine, wow. Happy new year!

[Sthitch]

Right now I am drinking a 1997 Domaine Cros Minervois... I think this is something you're supposed to drink for a special occasion and not use to cook with...

I am glad that you are enjoying the wine, but it is not a special occasion wine, on release I believe it went for less than $20. But good is good whatever the cost.

[ol_ironstomach]

A hybridized highball - Rittenhouse 80, Old Overholt, Blenheim red.

03:30 ETA: 1970 Cockburn port, NV Aubry brut, tasters of about a dozen independent bottlings of single malt Scotch plus four expressions of Ardbeg, three Marcs, various other spirits and brandys, and finally a small pour of Delamain Vesper. Happy New Year to all, and a very good night!

[Xochitl10]

Maker's Mark hot toddy, to chase away the cold.

[Sthitch]

Started with a 2002 Glaetzer Shiraz, and finished with a 1989 Heidsick Monopole Diamant Bleu. The Shiraz was not as inky and jammy as you would expect. There was still an adequate amount of acid to off-set the typical fruit you would find in an old vine Aussie Shiraz. The Diamant was a beautiful full bodied Champagne.