Traveling

There are different schools of thought on traveling and when it makes sense to see the world (if ever).

For a number of folks, traveling is something they’ll do when they retire. It’s a reward they can look forward to down the road after saving enough money to travel comfortably.

For others, traveling is something you do when you’re young. Sure, you might be broke, but sleeping in hostels and living out of a backpack is part of the fun, and God knows you can’t see Rome on foot when you’re seventy-five.

Traveling for vacation often derives from different motivations as well.

I know people who spend ten days in Hawaii every year—in the exact same town, on the exact same beach, in the exact same guesthouse that they’re able to reserve a year in advance, without fail. For those folks, traveling for vacation means comfort, familiarity, predictability, and relaxation.

I also know people who will never travel to the same destination twice. For them, the world is too big and life is too short. They want to see and experience as much as they can while they’re willing and able.

Of course, it’s possible to straddle both categories. For years, my wife and I had a vacation house in Las Vegas we would visit multiple times a year, in between jaunts to Paris, New York, and other destinations. Sometimes we simply wanted a stress-free environment and other times we wanted all-out adventure.

That all changed during COVID, however. With aviation off the table, we’re settling for simple day trips or a hike in the hills, if we even leave the house over the weekend (let alone the couch). The problem when we do go out is that everyone is limited to the same outside activities. You can only visit Descanso Gardens or the Huntington Library with an advance appointment, and a simple walk down a local trail is likely to be super crowded on a Sunday morning.

I’ve found that consumer spending strategies when it comes to wine and spirits are a lot like travel and vacation philosophies. There are adventurous drinkers who never drink the same bottle twice and want to experience as much as possible, and there are comfort drinkers who only drink the same three or four things.

But after a year under quarantine, it seems like everyone has decided on the exact same domestic destination for their next bottle: Kentucky. The young and the old, the well-to-do and the scrappy, the adventurous and the conservative, the guys who buy ten bottles a week and the guys who buy ten bottles a year, they’ve all decided that right now is the right time to experience the same handful of Bourbons. Hence, the competition is downright fierce.

What’s interesting is to me is how one’s expectations for their shopping needs can vary depending on their travel mindset.

For example, if you’re someone who travels frequently, you’re probably used to adversity and the potential for mishaps. You realize that dinner reservations at the world’s most popular restaurants might be unattainable, or that the hotel you were planning to stay at might be booked for a conference that week. The more you put yourself out into the world, the more you realize that life is full of curveballs—even during vacation.

But if you’re someone new to traveling, or someone who’s used to staying at the same place every year without issue, then a little adversity can be very frustrating. Vacation shouldn’t be a struggle, right?. You’re paying for this coveted free time to be enjoyable, not arduous, and the idea of traveling somewhere else is out of the question. You’ve been looking forward to this specific experience for the entire year!

For the people who’ve been successful financially, it’s difficult to settle for less now that they’ve got the cash to spend. At this point in their lives, they’re only willing to travel if they can have one of the suites at the Four Seasons.

But now all of a sudden the younger folks, those who normally look for budget accommodations, are also willing to splurge on the same Four Seasons suites because this is their first big vacation in a year. They’re thinking to themselves: if I’m going to spend big on something, I want it to be Bourbon.

But there are only so many suites at the Four Seasons in Kentucky.

And since no one wants to stay in the hostel or go on a different adventure, everybody’s gunning for the same handful of rooms.

Do you know what typically happens to hotel rates in Las Vegas during the annual Consumer Electronics Show? They skyrocket.

Why? Because there’s a fuck ton of people in town and only so many spaces. In 2020, a $99 room at the Wynn cost $1032 per night during the CES. A rundown room at the Sahara cost $752 a night.

There are many, many destinations in this world to visit. And there are many, many bottles out there to drink. But if you’re hellbent on a singular experience, one that happens to be the exact same singular experience that everyone else in the world happens to want at the exact same moment in time, then you need to be prepared for what follows.

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Repost: Talking Terroir With Jasmine Hirsch

As we continue to expand and improve the wine department at Mission, it’s important to provide our customers with a baseline for understanding and appreciating not just the great wines of California, but also the great producers.

I told Jasmine yesterday during our conversation that, in my opinion, the Pinot Noirs of Hirsch Vineyards are like deep dive into everything that makes wine appreciation so interesting, all within one varietal from a single producer. From one vineyard alone, there are separate parcels of Pinot Noir planted to different types of terrain that result in completely different wines when vinified individually (which is the case at Hirsch).

Hence, when you do a side-by-side of the Hirsch Pinot Noirs, it’s not just an incredibly pleasurable drinking experience, running the entire spectrum of what the varietal is capable of, it’s a first class lesson in terroir. There’s a clear distinction between the wines being made from the same grape, the same vineyard, and the same vintage, in the exact same manner, simply from different locations within the site.

There are few producers in the world, let alone the state, that one can say that about. There are even fewer who produce wines of distinction in that manner across the board. Hirsch is one of the few.

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Tonight With Jasmine Hirsch

Tonight! At 5 PM PST! We are going live with Jasmine Hirsch, winemaker for Hirsch Vineyards and daughter of California winemaking pioneer David Hirsch at the @missionliquor account!

If you’re even remotely interested in wine, I would plan on carving twenty minutes out of your schedule this evening to see Jasmine talk. She’s far from boring.

And the story behind the wines of Hirsch Vineyards, with its multitude of terrains along the San Andreas Fault, is one of the coolest and most interesting in the business.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there are few wines from California that match intellectual romanticism with pure hedonistic enjoyment the way the Hirsch Pinot Noirs do, drawing a direct line from the vineyard practices to the flavors in your glass.

I’m very excited about tonight. See you there!

-David Driscoll

Tiz Rye Time

As we were putting together a blend of Castle & Key Bourbon barrels last week, I asked Pinhook co-founder and blender Sean Josephs about the newest release of the Vertical Series: the 5 year old “Tiz Rye Time” rye whiskey—number two in the nine part series that seeks to track a whiskey’s evolution over time.

“It’s not only my favorite Pinhook release we’ve done thus far, I think it’s the best whiskey we’ve yet released,” he said to me.

Having sipped on my bottle over the last few hours, letting the whiskey and my taste buds get to know each other, I can safely say the same thing. It’s not just the best Pinhook rye whiskey I’ve ever tasted, it’s one of the best MGP-produced rye whiskies I’ve had, pound for pound.

Why exactly?

With its 95% rye/5% barley mash bill, the MGP rye whiskies usually fall into one of two camps:

• Super herbaceous, dill scented, spicy, peppery, and powerful

• Super soft, slightly herbaceous, baking spice-laden, and easy drinking

For an example of the former, look at some of the old Willett rye bottlings (before they started releasing their own distillate), or some of the cask strength Smooth Ambler single barrels from the past. They were big and punchy, sometimes brimming with dill, and like a firecracker on the palate.

For an example of the latter, take something like Bulleit rye whiskey: bottled at 90 proof, creamy on the palate with some gentle herbaceous notes up front, and some clove and cinnamon notes on the finish.

The new Pinhook “Tiz Rye Time” 5 year old whiskey falls into the first of the two groups, but combines it with a third profile that I’m not used to experiencing with my MGP rye whiskey:

• Rich vanilla, big sweet oak, and a full-bodied finish

It’s so delicious, I’ve not just gone back for seconds and thirds; I’ve gone back for tenths and elevenths.

If you’re unfamiliar with Pinhook as a label, the brand is applying the horse term “pinhooking”—referring to identifying and evaluating which horses could mature into racing champions—to the identification and evaluation of which whiskey casks could mature into honey barrels. While future releases of the standard Pinhook expressions will soon transfer over to Castle & Key-distilled stocks, the Pinhook Vertical Series follows the evolution of one lot of whiskey barrels, purchased from a single run at MGP a number of years back.

Each year, Sean blends fifty rye whiskey barrels into a limited edition small batch release, with plans to continue the process until the barrels hit nine years of age. To be clear, the Vertical Series isn’t a solera, nor is it a blend that has been re-racked to continue maturation. It’s a new small batch every year, crafted from different barrels, but married from the same single lot of distillate. Let me say once again, the new 2021 batch of the Vertical Series rye whiskey is utterly divine.

I’m a firm believer that the best small batch blends or marriages will always outshine the best single barrels. Having tasted thousands of single barrels in my career, I will choose the blended option over the single cask option 100% of the time if I’m in control of the vetting process, or someone I trust is doing the blending. Why settle for what a single cask has to offer unless that’s the only possible option? If you can add more whiskey from another barrel that can balance, enhance, or even improve the flavors of the whiskey, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it??!!!!!!

I get that there are guys out there who like the purity of a single cask, and who think finding a perfect barrel is like discovering a diamond in the rough. To those guys, I would say: diamonds aren’t perfect when they’re discovered in the rough. They’re cut to perfection later on by trained jewelers, just like whiskies can be blended to perfection by trained blenders. With that idea in mind, it’s clear from the first sip that Pinhook’s Sean Josephs found the sweet spot with this new 5 year old marriage of rye whiskey.

Right off the bat you get a big mouthful of graham cracker, sweet oak, and a richness of weight that is felt on the palate more than tasted. The dill comes in soon after, but unlike some of the other young, high proof MGP rye whiskies on the market, it doesn’t thin out into a hot, herbaceous finish. Instead, the richness continues forward and the peppery character of the rye is bolstered by vanilla from the oak all the way to the end.

At 51.5% ABV, the whiskey is bold enough for those who like it bold, but the choice of proof is anchored by the character of the whiskey; nothing about it tastes hot or out of balance. Everything pops in the right places. At $49.99 retail, and with a beautiful horse-inspired label, this bottle will find a nurturing home in my dining room bar; reserved for only the most drinkable bottles in my personal collection as it provides the easiest access.

I went deep on inventory as I believe in putting your money where your mouth is. If you really like something, take a stance on it and make it accessible to your customers at a great price. I think you’ll all be going back for tenths and elevenths just like I did.

-David Driscoll

Drinking to Drink

One of the most famous cigar lines in history was uttered in 1920 by Woodrow Wilson’s snarky vice president: Thomas Riley Marshall.

Tired of listening to the politicians in the Senate drag on about the needs of the American people, an exasperated Marshall jumped in and said: “What this country needs is a really good five cent cigar.”

For the last decade-plus, I’ve operated under a similar mindset when it comes to marketing. When presented with offers to “make our Instagram go viral” or specialists who promise to maximize our Google Ad bids, I’ve always said: “I don’t need to spend $5000 on marketing. All I need is a really good $50 bottle of Scotch. The rest will take care of itself.”

When you’ve got a really great product to sell, the public will find out. In the age of social media, people are practically begging to tell all their friends about the next great deal, posting pictures every five seconds about what Bourbons they found today next to a receipt of how much they paid.

Unfortunately for me, however, my school of thought (and Marshall’s view on cigars) is only validated when people choose to partake. A really good $50 bottle of Scotch is only a great value to those who actually plan on drinking it.

But David…..why would someone who doesn’t drink be interested in purchasing Scotch whisky?

A number of reasons, most of them based on secondary market profiteering, fanatical collecting, and the fact that a bottle of whisky keeps for years after you open it. People today are willing to spend a lot more than $50 on Bourbon and Scotch because they only plan on drinking a half ounce a week over the next ten years.

When people don’t drink, it completely destroys the distribution model that most of your favorite distillers have going for them. What I mean is: retailers get their allocations of Pappy, BTAC, and other rare whiskies based on how much of the standard whiskies from those portfolios they can sell. So when customers stop drinking Ancient Age, Buffalo Trace, and Wheatley vodka, the formula no longer works.

And we’re already at the precipice.

Most of the customers I deal with these days have long graduated beyond Ancient Age, Buffalo Trace, and Wheatley vodka. They want Stagg. But I can only get more Stagg if they buy more Buffalo Trace. It’s a gigantic Catch 22 that’s been dragging on for years now, and it’s about to catch up with our industry in a hurry.

It’s at the point where even if I found the next great five cent cigar (or for the purposes of this article, the next great $20 bottle of Bourbon), I don’t think 80% of our customers would bat an eyelid. Drinking is a very different exercise today than it was ten years ago because of how coveted some of these liquids have become.

If a bottle that you bought in 2010 for $50 could fetch you $2000 in today’s market, would you still drink it? If it were me, I probably wouldn’t. I’d probably sell it for $2000, take the $1950 profit, and buy more booze that I can drink without guilt or anxiety—especially if I’d already had it before.

But this is not fictional role playing. The above scenario already happens many times a day, around the world, from guys who have been buying whiskey for decades and are now ready to cash out. So now I want you to imagine another scenario.

Imagine that you’re a retailer and you’ve got a number of rare Bourbons to sell. You know that you can probably sell them for five times what they’re worth, but you also know that customers will be furious with you should you decide to do so—despite the fact that you had to buy tens of thousands of dollars of products that don’t sell just to get those bottles in the first place.

So you decide to do the right thing and sell the bottles for a fair price to some nice customers. Then, while browsing around the internet, you see the same customers you hooked up with a fair price selling the bottles you sold them for a huge mark-up.

I’ve met plenty of consumers over the years who will go around bullying retailers into fair SRPs (suggested retail price), only to turn around the next minute and sell their bottles for a boat load of cash.

That’s when retailers get pissed and say to themselves: “No more. If I have to buy tens of thousands of dollars of booze that no one wants in order to get these bottles, then I’m going to make the profit, not some cherry picker who only comes around when I have something valuable.”

That’s the mindset that I have to fight on a daily basis in retail because—and I especially saw this when I was working in distribution—most retailers are at their wit’s end with all of this. I still wholeheartedly believe that there’s a fine balance between customer service, pricing, and availability, but I can tell you that fewer and fewer retailers are going to continue putting in the effort.

When I was repping Chichibu in 2020, we would only sell the higher-end bottles to the retail accounts who sold the most Iwai and Akashi. That’s the way distribution works. But what happens when 80% of their retail customers have already tried Iwai and Akashi, and now they want Chichibu?

More importantly, what happens when they’re not even interested in trying Iwai or Akashi because they only drink “the good stuff?”

I can tell you what happens: the entire model collapses upon itself, and retailers start jacking up prices to recoup expenses on all the bulk brands they had to buy to get the bottles in the first place.

-David Driscoll

News & Notes - 3/15/21

If you’re not up to speed with all of Kentucky’s new Bourbon distilleries, one of the most talked about producers of the last few years has been Castle & Key, mostly because of its decision to revamp the Old Taylor Distillery (the same trademark owned and bottled as E.H. Taylor by Buffalo Trace). This past Friday, I finally got my hands on some of the juice, albeit as part of a special mash bill contracted by the team at Pinhook.

For those of you who who tend to avoid MGP whiskies, I’d recommend taking another look at Pinhook. Run by the team of Sean Josephs and Alice Peterson, the single casks are always well chosen, but Sean’s blends are above and beyond. In my opinion, the Vertical Series is annually one of the best things going right now in American whiskey because Sean is able to marry the best parts of each barrel into something greater than the sum of its parts for a price that’s more than reasonable and with fantastic packaging.

Roughly five years ago, Pinhook signed a deal with Castle & Key to have all its subsequent whiskies produced at the Kentucky facility under Sean’s direction with a custom mash bill of 75% corn, 15% rye, and 10% barley. In working on an exclusive project for MIssion, I not only wanted the C&K recipe, I wanted a blend of various barrels done by Sean himself because that’s the draw for me. Sean sent out a variety of three barrel marriages for me to choose from and I found one that was definitely to my liking—full of fruit, brown sugar, sweet baking spices, and a bold finish. It’s NOT the bottle in the photo, but it does have Barrel #1 in the mix, which Sean thinks may be the first ever barrel filled at Castle & Key, so that’s something to look forward to this June.

For those of you wondering why they called it Castle & Key, the old Taylor distillery is literally a fairy tale castle in its design, albeit I haven’t been there since the remodel. This is an old photo from 2013 when my friends and I would annually jump the gate at the abandoned facility and go roaming around the grounds in search of whiskey memorabilia. Back in those days, there were TWO ghost distilleries practically next door to each other: Old Taylor and Old Crow. It was creepy enough in the day time, so I can only imagine what it looked like at night! It was like a horror movie plot waiting to happen.

In other news, our Pasadena store is closed today for inventory, so if you were planning to pick up a bottle, better wait until tomorrow.

I’ve got Jasmine Hirsch on the Instagram Live schedule this week, so I’m very excited about that. We’ll be talking Pinot Noir and terroir, but on Thursday rather than the standard Wednesday time slot to accommodate Jasmine’s schedule.

Still looking for the new 2021 limited edition high proof, special stave release of Maker’s 46 to land this week, along with a few other new faces.

Should be a good week!

-David Driscoll

Arturo Fuente Primer

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been smoking through a sample pack of cigars from multiple brands, at various gauges and lengths, from all over the cigar-making world: Davidoff, Cohiba, Hoyo de Monterrey, Montecristo, Tatuaje, etc. While I’ve only been into cigars for a few months, I think I’ve already found my brand: Arturo Fuente.

Not only is the Arturo Fuente Reserva Don Carlos Robusto a truly inspirational smoke, the story behind the Arturo Fuente family and the adversity these people had to overcome before finding success is also incredibly inspiring. If you’re interested in learning more, I would highly recommend watching this 20+ minute documentary. Starting over 100 years ago in Tampa, Florida using Cuban tobacco, a series of fires, multiple armed revolutions, hurricanes, and other acts of God has tested the Arturo Fuente company for more than a century; but it never managed to keep the family down.

Today, all the cigars are made in the Dominican Republic with wrappers from Cameroon on many of the higher-end sticks. The sweetness of that wrapper with the robust flavor of the tobacco and the creaminess of the smoke is something truly special, especially with the Don Carlos. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the Opus X a while back, but I didn’t appreciate what I was smoking unfortunately. Sort of like if someone handed you a glass of Port Ellen before you really knew what you were drinking.

If you’re interested in checking out the full range of Arturo Fuente, we have an entire multi-tiered shelf dedicated entirely to the brand in our Pasadena store, plus a healthy inventory in the other four Mission locations.

Odds are, you’ll find me in snooping around the walk-in humidor as well, looking for the next adventure.

-David Driscoll

Southern California

During my university days in San Diego, my friends from NorCal and I would blast Wax’s Southern California driving home for holidays and school breaks, a song of regret and remorse about living down south.

“Why did I move to Southern California?” we would scream, counting the miles until we got back on our home turf. I was not a fan of SoCal in the nineties, and for years I was convinced in the superiority of NorCal with its vibrant nature, its clean air, and its prominent food and wine scene.

But all that has drastically changed over the last few years.

The number one thing I get asked from my friends up North: “Don’t you miss all the nature and the hills around the Bay Area?”

Uh….look at the above photo from last night’s drive home (and, yes, I’m well aware that was not the safest thing to do, but it was too beautiful). Driving west from Pasadena to Burbank at sunset is the highlight of my day, every single day of the week. The majestic mountains to my right, the ocean glimmering out in front of me, the tall buildings of downtown in the distance to my left, the rolling hills of Eagle Rock sprawling to Los Feliz and the Griffith Observatory.

Do I miss the food? I do not. Having lived in Los Angeles for over two years now, the one thing I can say with certainty is that—if you’re into unpretentious, regionally-specific, international cuisine—we’re living in the middle of food paradise down here. From the hundreds of specialty food trucks, to the world’s best taquerias, to the dumplings of the San Gabriel Valley, to the sushi along Ventura Boulevard, to several of the best pizzas I’ve ever had in my life, I’ve never been more excited about any food scene, anywhere.

Working in Pasadena has been one of the best developments, as I’ve gotten to know so many interesting, laid-back, like-minded individuals who enjoy the slower pace of life on the east side of LA. The more I drive the 210 freeway, the more I can imagine myself retiring out here, enjoying the snowcapped peaks of the San Gabriel mountains with the multitude of trails and easy hikes that I’ve come to enjoy on many a Saturday morning during COVID. I know that I’m surrounded by good people.

So I’m here to say, on record, that I take back all the negative and naive things I once thought and said about Southern California in the past. At this point in my life, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

-David Driscoll