Instagram Live Tomorrow With Nicolas Palazzi

If you’ve ever had dreams of starting your own spirits import company and traveling the world in search of the planet’s best booze, Nicolas Palazzi will tell you all about the realities of the artisanal dream. To paraphrase what he told me on the phone last week while catching up: “I spend 90% of my day calling warehouses to check inventory, then trying to figure out why they only have 25 bottles when the spreadsheet says 27.”

Nicolas Palazzi is one of my oldest friends in the booze business. The man representing Paul Marie & Fils Cognac, L’Encantada Armagnac, Neta Mezcal, and the Navazos Palazzi spirits has been slowly building an empire out in the Empire State, having used his childhood ties to the Cognac region as a starting point. Tomorrow at 5 PM, I’m going to ask Nicolas what it’s like being a French spirits importer in the middle of a global pandemic, an exhaustive tariff battle, and a market that keeps growing as if there were no limits on the general public’s ability to consume.

We’ll be at the @missionliquor Instagram site at 5 PM PST. See you then!

-David Driscoll

Celebrating Women's History Month

Since we’re kicking off Women’s History Month now with March 1st upon us, I thought I would use the opportunity to highlight some of the coolest, most talented, and most important female producers in the booze industry and celebrate their achievements. I’m starting off with a bang by recognizing the fantastic and always-entertaining Martine Lafitte, the proprietor of Domaine Boingnères: what is considered by many to be one of the finest—if not the finest—Armagnacs money can buy.

Domaine Boingnères (pronounced bwan-yer) is located in the small commune of Le Frêche, which is known for having the best growing soil in all of Bas-Armagnac. The estate vineyards cover 21 hectares, 13 of which are planted to Folle Blanche, 4.5 with Colombard, and 4 with Ugni Blanc. The fact that Martine specializes in Folle Blanche is important because Folle Blanche is the hardest varietal to grow. That being said, Martine was the one who taught me that the extra work is worth the effort because the complex flavors of Folle Blanche are the most haunting and enticing when done properly.

Another important thing to know about Martine: she’s a strict traditionalist. She never adds water or any additives to her Armagnac, and everything she bottles is done at full proof. She never cuts corners, and she’s willing to wait forever if need be in order ensure her brandies are bottled only when ready. There are few people in Armagnac who have standards as high as Martine, and it shows when you taste anything from Boingnères. They’re not the woodiest, or the biggest, or the most powerful, or the smoothest brandies. What they are, without a doubt, is simply captivating. They’re inspirational, downright divine spirits. If I had to pick one Armagnac to drink for the rest of my life, it would be Boingnères without a doubt.

Martine is also one of my favorite people to eat with. When you eat at Boingnères, you’re getting one of the most old school meals in all of France. I was pulling the buckshot out of my pigeon at lunch on one memorable occasion. The entire estate is like something out of an old novel, but if you look behind the curtains here and there, you’ll find Martine’s stashes of soap operas and cheesy sitcoms on DVD hidden behind 200 year old tapestries and historic mantles. Martine has standards, but she also keeps it real.

-David Driscoll

Cigars

Did you know that Mission Wine & Spirits is also one of the best cigar shops in the Los Angeles area?

You wouldn’t know that unless you:

1. Cared about cigars

2. Shopped in person at one or more of our five beautiful brick and mortar locations

Mission actually started as a tobacco store in Pasadena before growing into the spirits empire it is today. We’ve always carried a fantastic selection of cigars—each store has its own humidified cigar room—but we’ve never done much to advertise that fact, other than run very low prices on all of our sticks. Those who know about Mission’s cigars are here almost daily. Those who shop for cigars online are completely in the dark.

But if someone (let’s just say me for the sake of this blog post) were to digitize the entire cigar catalog, put them all on the website, offer shipping wherever legal, and create a newsletter with new arrivals and articles, I think we’d have quite a success on our hands.

Hmmmmm……

-David Driscoll

Adult Pacifiers

Do I like mixing cocktails at home? Of course.

Do I always feel like doing it right when I get home? I don’t.

Does my wife want a cocktail regardless, whether or not I feel like mixing one? She does.

So I took home a set of Beam Suntory’s On The Rocks pre-batched cocktails this week after I saw a customer come into the Pasadena store and completely clean us out of the Margarita.

“Do you have any more of these?” he asked.

“Other than the 32 bottles you already have on the counter?” I asked. “No, but I can order more.”

Now I understand his enthusiasm. The Margarita is good. The Aviation is really good. The Knob Creek Old Fashioned made my life infinitely easier last night as I was trying to both cook and sort out customer orders on my laptop, whilst enjoying a beverage. I was so thankful to just literally pour it on the rocks.

Can you make a better version of these drinks yourself? Maybe. Probably. But that’s not the point.

If you’re ever pressed for time at home because of kids, work, life, or any of the other pressures that exist in our modern world, you’ll be thankful to have a couple of these stored away for an emergency. As a set, On The Rocks is one of the most consistent, moderately-priced, and generally pleasing pre-batched portfolios I’ve tasted. They’re not going to blow your mind, they’re simply going to put your mind at ease.

You’ll notice two of the bottles in the above photo are empty. That’s because I don’t trust people who post unopened bottles of their booze online. I trust consumers, meaning those who literally consume.

Were I to post a more updated photo from this morning, you would see that all of my On The Rocks bottles have now been fully and enjoyably consumed. That’s as high of a recommendation as I can offer.

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Repost: Talking Vineyards With Steve Matthiasson

California wine may have been profitable back in 2007, but it certainly wasn’t cool. That was the year I started working in retail, and I found myself completely surrounded by an Old World preference within the industry: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rioja, Tuscany, etc. My friend and previous co-worker Adam (now one of my sales reps) was just mentioning this yesterday, the fact that our entire company was so focused on France, despite the fact that we were located in California.

But there was a reason for that: California winemakers were still in the midst of the Parker point craze. They were making big, sweet, supple, high alcohol fruit bombs to please the palate of just a few critics. Those of us who wanted more food-friendly wines looked to Europe instead. Plus, it was fun. There was so much to learn about these wines: the languages, the local traditions, the indigenous varietals, the culture.

Fourteen years later, we’re in very different situation. Climate change is making a number of Old World wines more New World by default. I sampled a handful of Chablis yesterday that tasted more like Central Coast Chardonnay than the limestone-laden, tongue-tingling, acidity lasers I’ve come to love. California winemakers are also evolving, thinking more about terroir and what they can do to evoke a sense of place from their wines. Uniformity is frowned upon. Low alcohol is celebrated. Organic farming has become the norm.

And one guy in particular has been leading the way in Napa for the last two decades. His name is Steve Matthiasson. You should get to know him. His wines are the most exciting California specimen I’ve tasted in years. He has me completely reshaping both my wine cellar and my preconceived notions about the future of Napa.

We sat down for a half-hour yesterday to talk vineyards and agriculture. Check it out.

-David Driscoll

Arrrrrrrdbeg Is Here

The new rye-casked matured, 51.8% Ardbeg committee bottle is here and in stock at Mission! But it’s not available online at this point in time.

I’ve been manually facilitating orders all morning, making sure that everyone on the insider list gets what they need before we put these on the general site.

They’re going fast, but we still have a few cases to make sure we’re on the safe side. If you’re looking to lockdown your bottle, send me an email at davidd@missionliquor.com

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Tomorrow With Steve Matthiasson

Even if you only read this blog for the hard stuff, I would implore you not to miss this discussion with Steve Matthiasson tomorrow at 5 PM over at the @missionliquor Instagram (of course, I’ll post the recording the next day if you can’t see it live).

Steve is not only one of the best winemakers in California, he’s the guy that everyone wants managing their vineyard because he’s the current king of organic farming. As a result, he knows where all the good fruit is across the state and he’s finding vineyards in some pretty remote places, turning those grapes into some of the more dynamic and interesting selections on the market.

This will NOT be a wine education class or a live tasting where we say the Chardonnay has “hints of apple.”. I’d fall asleep myself if we did that. Rather, this will be a discussion about what’s happening across the state in terms of agriculture and where Steve thinks the next cool spot will be for winemaking.

I’m very excited about this. Steve is the guy who got me back into California wine and I am a true believer in just about everything he touches.

-David Driscoll

Don't Look Back, You Can Never Look Back

Yesterday was a magical day in my world. I woke up to three sweet cats, drank my coffee, read the morning paper, watched the sun come up over the mountains, and set up my grocery deliveries for later that day.

Do you know what I was able to get delivered to my house for less than $50? A 1.75 liter bottle of 9 year old 100 proof Knob Creek. That’s what the wholesale cost used to be, and now that includes delivery and tip.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ll never pine for the past or long for the “glory days” of whiskey so long as I can continue to find deals like this on the market. For every whiskey that becomes cultish, collectable, and out of reach, another fifty pop up. For every brand that goes up in price, another twenty will become more competitive.

And yet, week in and week out, for the last four years I’ve heard so much lamenting from consumers about the same handful of whiskies, as if that’s all that’s worth drinking. As if they’re all that can make us happy. It’s sort of like the stock market. You think you can only make money with FAANG stocks? There’s a lot more out there than just five companies. You need to diversify so that you have other options when things go south.

Because I was sitting on a delicious 1.75L of Knob at roughly 10:48 AM, I started early yesterday. By 3 PM, I was on a roll, texting some of my drinking buddies to tell them about the deal. I ended up in a dialogue about how Knob and Booker’s are made from the same mash bill, and that the difference comes down to barrel selection and where the casks are located in the rickhouse. “The only reason anyone ever cared about Weller 12 is because they found out it was the same recipe as Van Winkle 12,” I texted one friend; “The only difference is the barrel selection. So you’d think more Booker’s fans would be buying huge swaths of Knob at this price.”

I know guys who love Booker’s, but don’t like Knob Creek. They’re willing to pay secondary prices to secure a bottle of Booker’s, but they won’t even bat an eye at Knob Creek’s value. Personally, I think that’s crazy, but I do understand the impact of sentimental value. As an example, I hate the Eagles, but I love Don Henley’s solo work. I think “Boys of Summer” is a far superior song to “Hotel California,” yet there were guys out there last year willing to drop $5000 a ticket just to hear the Eagles perform the latter in Las Vegas. No one was dropping $5000 to hear “Boys of Summer.”

Because I know I can always find value in the whiskey and wine market, I will never pay secondary market prices for a bottle of alcohol. But that’s not to say I won’t pay secondary prices if there’s something I really want that I can’t get. Take the new Lego flower bouquet as an example. It’s so damn cool that it went viral on release and sold out immediately, everywhere. The only way to get it now is to pay 60-100% more on Ebay, so that’s what I did. I can’t have real flowers in the house because my cats will eat them and get sick, so I this was a unique and stylish alternative. There is no other version of Lego flowers. This is it. You either get this version, or none at all.

But when it comes to alcohol, there are so many versions of new products that are changing all of the time!! To paraphrase a friend’s email from yesterday: as soon as you find something you like, it becomes so popular that it sells out, or they have to change the formula to keep up with demand and it’s no longer what it used to be. For example, the Ardbeg Uigeadail you’re drinking today isn’t the same as what you were drinking ten years ago. Those changes can be disappointing, but—come on, guys—life is full of shit like this. We use our coping skills and we move on. Plus, things usually swing back the other way as time goes by.

As an example, due to the demand for Bourbon in 2016, Knob Creek had to take the 9 year age statement off its bottle and release a younger product. For the next four years, Knob was the same price, but it wasn’t the same whiskey. But last year supply caught up to demand, the 9 year statement came back, and now—I wholeheartedly believe—it’s better than ever. And it’s so widely available with pricing so competitive that you can get a 1.75L delivered for $50 to your home. So that’s what I did yesterday, and it made me very happy.

Another example: from 2018 to 2020, I moved five times, bought one house, sold two, and I’m now on my sixth job. I’ve had to adjust as life dealt me some disappointments, some curve balls, and a series of highs and lows. But now in 2021 I’ve settled down, found a great place to live, and it seems like I have a pretty stable position here at Mission. It’s easy to get caught up in what seems like a better yesterday, but the optimist in me is addicted to forging ahead towards a better tomorrow. If you keep searching, you’ll find what you’re looking for. Unless you’re stuck looking backward.

Listening to “Boys of Summer” again as I type this, there’s a lot of wisdom in Don’s lyrics:

Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.

A little voice inside my head said 'Don’t look back, you can never look back.’

I thought I knew what love was, what did I know?

Those days are gone forever, I should just let them go.

I drank Elmer T. Lee pretty regularly ten years ago because it was one of the best values on the market at that time. I didn’t really think much more about it than that. Now I drink Knob Creek 9 year because it’s currently one of the best values on the market. Life is still pretty good.

-David Driscoll