One of the great parts about the wine and spirits industry is the opportunity to support people who you truly like and admire. When those people also make an amazing product—like Donae’s La Fête du Rosé—then it feels even better.
-David Driscoll
Instagram Live Today With Donae Burston
Image from Wine Spectator
If you think rosé can’t be masculine, talk to Carmelo Anthony and Michael Strahan, two superstar athletes who are also big fans of Donae Burston’s new La Fête du Rosé from St. Tropez, a clean and refreshing take on the genre that has been generating incredible praise from serious wine drinkers around the globe.
Donae isn’t just winning over fans with his refreshing take on rosé, he’s inspiring a new generation of drinkers to think beyond stereotypes and the pigeon-holes where the genre is often relegated, incorporating everything from rosé cocktails to rosé and cigar pairings! I’ve had a great time working with him over the last month and a half, and today I’m going to have him tell his story on Instagram over at the @missionliquor page.
Start time is 4 PM!
-David Driscoll
New Ryes > New Bourbons
I was tasting through single barrel selections with a supplier last week, and I mentioned how much more I liked the rye whiskey samples than the Bourbon samples.
“Oh yeah,” he responded in complete agreement; “Yet, we still sell our Bourbon casks ten to one against the rye because Bourbon is Bourbon.”
Talk to any major distiller of both rye and Bourbon, and I promise you the same conversation will occur. Heck, you can see it for yourself during the Instagram Live chat I had with Conor O’Driscoll from Heaven Hill. Which whiskey is he most excited about from his stable? The Pikesville 6 year rye whiskey.
Yet, far more people are after Larceny Barrel Proof and Parker’s Heritage Bourbon.
Whenever there’s a sale disparity like the one currently taking place on the market, where Bourbon sales are heavily outpacing rye—10 to 1, as one supplier put it—it has a serious effect on available quality. Hence, why I’ve recently found four to five serious contenders for single barrel purchases in the rye department, but scarce few in the Bourbon category.
That’s not to say I haven’t been tasting Bourbon single barrels. I taste at least a dozen a week.
It’s to say I’ve been turning them down. Meanwhile, I’ve purchased three different rye single barrels in the last month: one from Beam, one from Stellum, and one from Ry3.
Because rye isn’t nearly as in demand as Bourbon, a number of producers are sitting on barrels with serious age at this point. In the case of the Stellum cask I bought, it’s a marriage of MGP rye whiskey as old as 7 years, married with Kentucky and Tennessee rye whiskies of 9 and 10 years of age, at full proof.
And the quality was simply outstanding! As Toucan Sam used to say: “Follow your nose; it always knows.”
-David Driscoll
Instagram Live Repost: Mixing Gin Cocktails With Alchemy Bread
A fantastic time was had by all!
And when I say “by all,” I mean by myself and Bonnie Ohara, who got liquored up on a fine Friday afternoon.
-David Driscoll
Bordeaux Is Coming
Spending $100+ on a fancy bottle of Bordeaux is a rare treat, but what about Monday through Friday?
What about casual summer BBQs when a $20 bottle of French Claret and a plate of grilled steaks will more than suffice?
Having a deep cellar is wonderful, but you still need cases of weeknight Bordeaux to round out the mix.
When it comes to Bordeaux, Mission has always dabbled in the marketplace, keeping a small selection of classified growths on hand to satisfy the local demand. However, with the birth of our new direct import program in 2021, we’re now purchasing wines directly from France, bringing in private containers via ship, in order to offer Mission customers the best prices possible—with no middleman!
I had the privilege of both learning about Bordeaux with K&L owner Clyde Beffa and Bordeaux specialist Ralph Sands for more than a decade, and at the end of my tenure I was traveling to Bordeaux with the team to taste the upcoming vintages, helping to market the newest arrivals. Let’s just say that I seriously caught the Bordeaux bug during that time. I love it. To me, it’s the greatest wine in the world. You’ve got high end, low end, red, white, sweet, and everything in between—every wine has its time and place.
Getting to use that hands-on education and those connections to bring Mission into the Bordeaux landscape is simply thrilling.
Personally, there are few greater pleasures in life than a finely-aged Bordeaux and a big, juicy steak. The combination never ceases to thrill me.
For those of you who want to try a great, finely-aged Bordeaux without breaking the bank, we’ve just brought in our first direct shipment: the 2016 Château Peyrabon for $19.99.
As Vinous critic Neil Martin wrote in his review: This wine exudes class. A blend of 67% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot, and 2% Cabernet France, the richness of the 2016 vintage is on full display with plenty of black fruits on the palate and an elegance on the finish that is usually reserved for wines at twice the price.
You get the dark, lush, black-fruited palate, tinged with an iron-y, almost bloody, mineral finish. The best of both worlds for a hot, hot price.
Now where’s that steak?
-David Driscoll
Gin Talk: This Friday With Alchemy Bread
As if my friend Bonnie Ohara from Modesto wasn’t famous enough already, with superfans like The Office’s Jenna Fischer extolling her virtues on social media, the great COVID-19 home baking resurgence sent Bonnie’s stock into the stratosphere. Her bread-making book shot to the top of Amazon sales and all of a sudden she found herself with tens of thousands of Instagram followers begging for tips on their sourdough starter.
Bonnie also caught the gin bug during the pandemic, and she started mixing cocktails in leftover jam jars. That’s when I started sending her new gins to try, or dropping them by her home when I would drive back to Modesto to see my parents.
This Friday on Instagram Live we’re going to talk about gin from a baker’s perspective, and break down the components of each recipe to see what makes them tick. We’ll be mixing cocktails as well, teasing out the best flavors in each drink as we go.
Hope to see you there!
-David Driscoll
Rum Cocktails
Inspired by the new release of Ed Hamilton’s Beachbum Berry Zombie Rum blend, I decided to pull out all the old Tiki ingredients from my garage last night. I spent a few years in distribution between K&L and Mission, so I have boxes upon boxes upon boxes of liqueur samples and various esoteric elixirs.
I went through the recipes listed on the official page here, but I can’t say mine were a huge success (probably due to both the age of my bottles and the lack of freshness with my grenadine). That being said, there was one very, very easy recipe that came out spectacularly, so I figured I’d share it with you: the Banana Daiquiri.
You can do this two ways, depending on how much banana you like.
There’s a whole slew of articles about how the Giffard Banane Liqueur is the secret ingredient for a number of serious bartenders, namely because it works to highlight the inherent flavors of base spirits, rather than simply impart its banana flavor.
Case in point? As the sweetening component of a classic Daiquiri made with the Beachbum Zombie blend:
2 oz. Hamilton Berry Beachbum Zombie rum
1 oz. Giffard Banane Liqueur
3/4 oz. fresh lime juice
Shake with ice and double strain into a coupe glass.
When I told my wife I had made her a Banana Daiquiri, she came running into the kitchen. I handed her the drink and she took a sip. “This doesn’t really taste like banana,” she quickly responded; “But it does taste tropical.”
Exactly. The Giffard Banane simply brings out the fruity, tropical notes in the rum, while providing the necessary sweetness to balance the lime’s citrus.
That being said, she really wanted a banana-flavored cocktail at that point, so I broke out the blender.
Same recipe as above, but add half a banana and some crushed ice. I made enough for both of us, so I doubled the recipe and added a whole banana.
“Now THAT is a Banana Daiquiri!” she exclaimed with glee.
And a damned good one, too.
-David Driscoll
Instagram Live Repost: Todd Leopold Answers Questions About The Three Chamber Still
It only took us 25+ times to make it work, but eventually we did manage to get the party started yesterday evening. A combination of a bad network, Instagram bugs, and Todd forgetting to let his phone access his camera all conspired against us, but once we got the ball rolling we had a captive audience and a line of questions lighting up the comment field.
Todd was awesome. Rapid fire answers from one of the most knowledgable distillers in the world. What more can you ask for?
-David Driscoll