(Part 2) Top products from r/whisky

You've come to the right place. There are a ton of excellent community members here who are eager to help new-comers like yourself. Stay within the whisky network and you'll be a seasoned malt / mash head in no time!

• Add a few drops of water First tip.. Only cool clean (bottled or filtered) water is allowed in your single malts and bourbons. Add a little bit at a time to get used to drinking it "neat" (without water).
  
  
• Invest in a nosing glass A Glencairn or a Capita or a regular wine glass will due in a pinch.
  
  
• Ask questions! Don't be afraid to ask other community members for help or tips.
  
  
• Read a ton of reviews This will help guide you to figure out which flavor profiles you like best and help you decide on making educated purchases. Our goal is to help you avoid buying shitsky as /u/texacer likes to call it.
  
  
• Check out the side bar and malt map here and other side bar resources. There are some excellent videos posted under helpful stuff. Plenty of documentaries about Scotch whisky. I'll need to work on a Bourbon video section at some point.
  
  Cheers sir or madam, and enjoy yourself!

My wife got me this book a few years ago, and it's been a great guide for my experiments (I don't really follow the recipes, but do refer to timelines, ratios, etc).

In the safety section of that book, they never warn about poisoning yourself - it does warn against using lead glass for long-term storage and about accidentally making CO2 (and bottle bombs) by adding sugar - so you're probably fine.

I've never done a fresh fruit infusion for that long, so you might have a really syrupy concoction (some of the book's recipes call for 3-month infusions to make cordials). Also, the apple might be WAY too bitter if you had a cinnamon stick in there for 10 weeks. And the habaneros will probably be absolute fire. Try a teaspoon or so before you pour a whole glass.

I did a fresh blueberry infusion for about a week that came out great, but I also recommend giving it a shot with dried fruits. Dried peaches in Buffalo Trace for about 10 days makes a dynamite whisky sour.

Wishart, Michael Jackson is fairly popular. I like the first title.

As for inspiration. Since the last years that I drink whisky I buy faster than I drink. There's usually something to get before I empty a bottle. It's not like I read a lot of books or magazines about whisky, but I am active on some fora (a very active Dutch forum mostly) where people have suggestions. Or just because I run into some store that has some whisky that I'm interested in. I've passed 'the very beginning' trying to find my taste, but when you're still in that 'phase': try to find samples or minis. I don't know about other countries, but in the Netherlans and Belgium there are many people selling samples. That's a way to try some old or expensive whisky, simply get very different ones, etc.

If you are interested in reading about the real history of Canadian whisky - here is the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject and the best expert on the subject


Canadian Whisky, Second Edition: The New Portable Expert https://www.amazon.ca/dp/014753075X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uOP2DbB411R3J

He also has a new book coming out soon - highly recomend

?Por qué no los dos?

Any favorite tanks? If I built a tank it would probably be an Israeli Super Sherman. It's kind of a FrankenTank, with modern features grafted on to a Sherman hull.

When the bottle gets about half empty I use a few sprays of inert gas to remove oxygen and add electrical tape to top for air tight seal. They are usually branded as wine preservers and pretty cheap. Re-apply after each dram and it works a treat. I've bottles open for more than 4 years with this method without issue.

Private Preserve Wine Preservation Spray https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000DCS18/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OILOzbVBWRFVN

I was given this for my birthday a couple years ago: http://www.amazon.com/Winsome-Wood-Entertainment-Cart-Espresso/dp/B000GLRG32

It works pretty well, I modified the wine glass holders with a dremel to accommodate glencairns.

http://i.imgur.com/aOIMH.jpg

Older picture, but you get the idea. I put short bottles under the glencairns, and I can keep smaller glasses on the lower wine rack, and bottles with screw tops or synthetic corks on the upper one.

These work for wine labels. I'd imagine they would work for whisky labels as well.

here ya go

Air causes the flavor change. So you can buy vacu vins made for wine, but use them for your whisky. Here they are

$50?? Is that glass made of diamonds? Consider a Canadian Glencairn as a suitable and dramatically less expensive alternative to the Denver & Lily

Oh I see the photo now, I might have missed it the first time!

I will say, get yourself some Glencairns or Copita glasses. Totally worth it for tasting and nosing.