Genedoc

Shoppers Vineyard has always done right by me and if you sign up for the e-newsletter, you'll get notified whenever they run a special or closeout. Expect about 2 or 3 spirits a week, primarily whisk(e)y.Many times, even with shipping, I can get my stuff cheaper there than in a local store. Also, they carry several brands/bottlings unavailable in my state. Thanks. Good news is they had most everything I was looking for. Bad news, I just put together a $2k wish list.

The Feb edition of Wine Spectator features single malt Scotch. It's mostly the elementary stuff targeted at wine drinkers, so you life long Scotch diehards won't find a lot of insightful, new information. But for any newb it's a treasure trove. I especially appreciated/enjoyed the detailed, step by step description of how it's made. There's also tasting notes for 65 different single malts. I've updated my wish list accordingly. Speaking of which...any one buy online with any success? Thanks to my bassackwards state, I have no options other than what the State puts on the shelves in their stores, though I'm pretty sure I can have it delivered to me.

Not surprised to see you guys taking the #1 overall with the 8th pick. Setting yourselves up for a great draft.

I kid, I kid...I don't have the time. I may chime in periodically.

After the domination Bonzai and I dropped on the FFA during the Great Works draft, I'm not surprised to see we weren't invited to this one. :flex:

That's what I feed each of our 60 pound dogs - 7/8ths of a cup, twice daily. And they're perfect weights, not trying to lose any. We got both as dogs and never had them as puppies, so I've no idea how much you're supposed to feed a growing puppy. But you're feeding a 25 pound puppy the same volume I feed a 60 pound dog.

How much are you feeding him? Our dog had this problem when we first got him, and we were giving him very high quality food. Took him to the vet, and the vet kindof chuckled. We were way, WAY overfeeding him. We cut back a lot, and he's never had a problem since. Higher quality foods don't require as much volume since they're more nutrient dense/less filler. Use the dog food analyzer linked earlier and see how many calories your Pup is getting. My guess is you're over feeding her. Also, after years with Taste of the Wild, we switched our dogs to Nature's Variety "Instinct". One of our dogs just stopped being interested in the TOTW all of a sudden. She was very healthy and we'd never had problems with it before, she just started not really wanting to eat, so we switched. They LOVE the Instinct. Love...it.

And the saddest, most infuriating part of all of this IMHO? That the erstwhile advocates for our children and leaders of multi-million dollar charities still cast their lot with Wakefield. Regardless of the evidence, regardless of logic or reason, and regardless of how profound his fraud is demonstrated to be. So I guess we're looking at another decade or two and millions more dollars of research money being funneled towards demonstrating yet again that vaccines don't cause autism. Amazing. It would be difficult to overstate the damage Wakefield and his acolytes have done to real autism research. This is akin to the LAPD having teams of investigators looking high and low for the "real killers" of Ron and Nicole.

If you're new to whisky, Speyside is usually a good place to start. Many of the more well known single malts come from that area, including Glenlivet, Glenfiddich (not one of my faves), Macallan (10 or 12 year are great starting points), Balvenie, and Aberlour. Glenmorangie is a personal favorite of mine, which comes from the Highlands, but it's similar in style to the Speyside malts.All of these will be on the lighter, crisper side, and they don't have the smoke and peat that turns some people off. Good points. Also, Steve...did you see the link that was provided earlier to the tasting map? - http://whisky.scotsman.com/flavourmap.aspxI'd start with something in the middle half of that grid - Glenmorangie, Oban, Dalwhinnie, Glenlivet. Our crappy little state controlled liquor store had all of those, so any decent real story should carry them, too. As for age, 12-15 is a good starting point IMHO. You don't get the extremes (or the prices) that come with 18+, and the 10's I've had aren't that good to me.

I always recommend Oban to new scotch drinkers since it's got some flavor without being over-powering. You can find it online for a little over $60 shipped.What's the in-store distribution of this? We have a MASSIVE liquor store in town (Premier Group) that has just a ton of stuff. I took a walk down their whiskey aisles a few weeks ago - I usually go there for the beer, best beer selection in town as well - and was completely in over my head with all the choices.Guy at another board says he doesn't like Oban much, but he prefers "peat-bombs". As a beer person, I'm clueless as to what this means in terms of taste, much like a non-beer person would be clueless with the term "hop-bomb".Rebuttal?? The peat bombs have a very phenolic, smoky taste. A friend said it was like drinking a really good cigar. If you like peat bombs, you're unlikely to like Oban as the peat and smoke flavors in Oban are very subtle. To a "peat bomb" drinker, Oban is neither fish nor foul, so it stands to reason he doesn't care too much for it. That said, being a lover of peat bombs exclusively paints you into a pretty narrow Scotch drinking corner. To say Oban isn't good is putting your personal preferences above objectively judging the whisky. I am learning to like/appreciate the peat bombs, and I wouldn't have been able to get there without intermediate steps like Talisker and Oban in between the Dalwhinnie and Lagavulin styled extremes on the continuum. Recommending a really peaty Scotch to a newbie is akin to recommending a 90 minute IPA to a new beer drinker. It MAY work out, but it's much more likely to be off putting. You work your way up to those types of beverages, whether they're beer, wine, or Scotch.

No, neither are Islay scotches. Oban is Highlands, Balvenie is Speyside. I don't have the Balvenie, but I do have the Oban 14 and I highly recommend it, especially for your palate right now. I'm not much if any ahead of you in learning the regions/flavor profiles, and the Oban 14 is a lovely scotch. Plenty of character and flavor without the peat of the Islays and it's a good price point to boot.

I've posted it in another thread, but that thread didn't gain any traction. All of you who enjoy wine and buying it from wineries and out of state retailers in order to find things you can't get locally owe it to yourselves to pay attention to HR 5034. It's a bill in the House that would greatly undo a lot of the progress that's been made since Granholm v. Heald.

Can't believe I missed this last year. Glad you liked the Noblesse. It's a great bargain. Also, if you like inexpensive, acidic summer sippers, we've a Spanish Godello for $14 that became my house white once we got it in. Too cold to drink it this time of year, but we pounded it this spring/summer/fall. And I realize it's a year later, but if you're still going region to region, I cannot recommend Germany any more strongly. While the Italians obviously make a lot of world class wines, I think it's also the hardest country in the world to get a grasp on the grapes/regions/wine makers/labeling. Also, German wines are vastly, vastly underrated IMHO. There are far fewer grapes and varietals and regions in Germany. Once you understand the Pradikat, the labels are much less intimidating. And if you've never had a big bratwurst with an Auslese Reisling, you really owe it to yourself to do so. As for wines we've had recently, our Christmas party was earlier this week. We poured a white Chateauneuf du Pape along with a Spanish Cabernet Sauvignon that is amazing. We actually talked the Spanish wine making into bottling a barrel of his Cab for us - he didn't think it would sell and he was planning on using it to blend. We told him we'd buy every bottle he could bottle of it and we'd have no problem selling it. It's not only a great wine but a fun story. It's a beautifully balanced wine, plenty of fruit and oak while not being obnoxious, not to alcoholic, and finished out with perfectly soft tannins. Pretty sure we're going to have to add a few magnums of this to our personal cellar before we sell out of them. Headed to Italy and Spain this March. Can't wait to plan out our itinerary.

I went a little crazy in the liquor store recently. The collector in me got the best of me, and I bought a cart full of whisky. I'm going to talk to the accountant about considering them business expenses/part of me studying for the higher level sommelier exams. If that doesn't fly, oh well...they should last me a good while and provide any number of interesting evening conversations. I didn't buy all of these today, but my bar is now stocked with: Gentleman Jack Elijah Craig 18 single barrel Bourbon Talisker 10 Dalwhinnie 15 Oban 14 Glenlivet 18 Lagavulin 16 Johnnie Walker Gold Johnnie Walker Blue Macallan 18 Some random thoughts after tasting several of these at different times over the course of a couple of days... Johnnie Walker doesn't make the best whisky in the world, but they may market better than anyone else. The packaging/etc is impressive. I felt like I'd bought a real gold bar when I opened the Gold. Tasting the Blue next to the Gold, I won't be buying any Blue for myself. I bought the Elijah Craig as a tasting experiment, and so I'd have some in the house if anyone asked for it. Also, I really wanted to compare similarly aged Bourbon and Scotch. IMHO, it's just not a fair fight. The Scotch is light years better than the Bourbon. Light...years. Now maybe I'm a sucker/idiot and I bought horrible Bourbon. It is North Carolina, and our state owned/operated liquor stores aren't known for their diversity of stock or knowledgeable staffs. If anyone has a better Bourbon comparison, I'm all ears. Until then, I'm just going to think Bourbon is the ugly step sister to Scotch. For the same reason you don't drink Pinot Noir after Cabernet, a little bit of that Lagavulin is pretty much the end of a whisky tasting. It's huge. And you know what? I like it. I really liked it. Much, much better than the Talisker 10. Was expecting to hate it, but it's really good. I paid too much for it, but I really, really wanted the Macallan 18 as a tasting experiment. Plus it now anchors the "really overpriced" end of my collection next to the JW Blue. I've tried it a couple of different times, in a couple of different ways. It's likely going to be the one and only bottle I ever buy for myself. It's good, and I certainly won't turn it away if someone gives me a bottle, but like the Blue, it's just not worth the $$$ IMHO. It will be a while before I buy any more, but what 5-6 bottles need to fill in the gaps in this collection?

I've found the best way to try stuff is by the shot at a good bar. Saves you the money of buying whole bottles of stuff you've no idea if you'll like, and it's the only place I've been able to do a lot of tasting. Speaking of which, anyone drink Tullamore Dew? I had a taste of it at a bar a few months ago and it wasn't too bad. It's an Irish blended whiskey. About the only thing I've had I really didn't care for was Woodford Reserve Bourbon.