EmbellishPod

Pairing wine with food has been a thing for as long as wine has been a thing. Once Craft Brewing took off there was a resurgence of interest in pairing beer with food other than this is beer, drink it with your wings/pizza/steak. Now that Whiskey is center stage it's time to pair it with food...so how do we pair it and what can I do with this bag of candy I stole from my children. I shamelessly stole this idea from "This is My Bourbon Podcast" https://www.youtube.com/c/ThisisMyBourbonPodcast Links of Interest: https://www.today.com/video/how-therapy-helped-a-war-veteran-launch-a-bourbon-empire-125271621815 Repeal Day Expo December: Repealdayexpo.com pairing candy articles: https://uproxx.com/life/twelve-bourbons-to-pair-with-chocolate-according-to-bartenders/ https://huckberry.com/journal/posts/bourbon-was-made-for-halloween https://www.whiskyadvocate.com/7-halloween-whisky-candy-pairings/ https://www.gobourbon.com/bourbon-halloween-candy-pairing/

This week I'm identifying these one off conversations that lack any real joining thought other than my own musings as Small Batch Sessions Also what the heck does Small Batch even mean. And Sour Mash. Does it really matter? Alchemist Cabinet Article on Sour vs. Sweet Mash: https://alchemistcabinet.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/sweet-mash-vs-sour-mash/ Links of Interest: Repeal Day Expo: https://repealdayexpo.com/ AfroFusion Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/afrofusion-louisville-edition-tickets-196658660347?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

Does the source of water really matter? How is the water used? Is it just lore? lets talk about this and more tonight. Links of Interest: Bourbon Turntable - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAK-6VNl2uI Chill Filtered - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUT8G6kZ8P2cgnyu8q9rfaQ Friends Book - https://www.amazon.com/Michael-W.-Glover/e/B01B775SA6?ref_=dbs_p_pbk_r00_abau_000000 Evergreen in Louisville - https://coxslouisville.com/locations/evergreen-liquors-nulu Bourbon Turntable - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwaJFnKr8uj9WRHQj-dzB_g

There's a ton of content out there right now that alludes to the fact that Bourbon is broken or somehow on the verge of collapse. Lets take some time to talk about it.

There are a ton of words that really get on the nerves of Whiskey Snobs. This episode we talk about a bunch of them and ramble incoherently for about half an hour. Enjoy.

Growing up in Kentucky there’s only one type of whiskey, it has an E(unless your name is Maker’s Mark) and it has a legal definition because it’s Bourbon. All Bourbon is whiskey but not all whiskey is bourbon. And that’s legally the truth now but it wasn’t always. Standards of identity in the United States insure that this particular appellation of whiskey is relatively similar no matter what you buy. It also ensures that bad actors don’t come into play and color some pure grain alcohol, add some flavor and call it bourbon. It would be nice to say that this is new concept that we developed here but that’s not really the case. Maybe we formalized it but the identity of spirits was more of a given than a regulation in the past. Once I got older I learned about Rye, which is could be a sibling to the Bourbon appellation. Then there is Scotch. Scotch is the third cousin twice removed to early American whiskey concepts. It similarly has standards of identity ensuring production methodologies that became formalized in the 80’s then revisited in the mid 2000’s. There are a host of other whiskey versions, some regulated and some not regulated…..yet that are left out there for the rest of us to explore. Today’s episode is going to be an exercise in exploring some of these spirits. Last week we talked about whiskey that wasn’t bourbon and we are going to do that again today. Topics Discussed:New World WhiskyNikkaKavalanStarward

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Kentucky Bourbon Festival for 2021. Last Wednesday I kicked off a YouTube Live to recap my experience and thoughts. Maybe it’s helpful to you as you think about attending next year or want to see what this year was all about.

This week…I want to talk about American Single Malt Whiskey. It’s pretty well known that Scotch is probably the biggest single spirit market in the World and the creation of American Single Malt whiskey might seem like an effort to capture that market, but to me it speaks of a want to take the cultures of our European friends and merge it with some more regional influences to create a new segment in the market. http://www.embellishpod.com http://www.americansinglemaltwhiskey.org/ https://www.stranahans.com/ https://cedarridgewhiskey.com/ https://www.whiskeydelbac.com/

For the final planned episode in this series we are going to talk about Stills.Stills can come in many different arrangements or styles. Some styles and shapes are more purpose driven. Some are merely about artistry and others find some common ground between the two lines. You’ll find the more artistic folks waxing philosophical about how even the dents and dings on a still add to the uniqueness of the character of the spirit.Maybe it’s better for us to start with what it exactly is that a still does before we talk about how the different designs impact the final product.Brands/Topics Discussed:Bardstown Bourbon CompanyGolden Beaver DistilleryLeopold Bros Three Chamber Rye291 Distillery"Grave Robbers With a Degree" - Andri from Pagefire Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0https://soundcloud.com/nerdymetalhead202/grave-robbers-with-a-dregree?in=nerdymetalhead202/sets/nerdys-creative-common-free-to“Pushing The Pianist Down the Stairs” - Andri from Pagefire Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0https://soundcloud.com/nerdymetalhead202/pushing-the-pianist-down-the-stairs-free-download?in=nerdymetalhead202/sets/nerdys-creative-common-free-to“So Glad I Found You”Music By The Passion HiFiwww.thepassionhifi.com“Oh Lord”Music By The Passion HiFiwww.thepassionhifi.com

Historical Non-distilling producers had the ability to add compounds to the whiskey or grain distillate to make it taste something like whiskey. Caramel, coloration, tobacco juice and a whole host of other ideas were explored to make sure that supply could meet demand of the time.The problem became that more legitimate and storied brands became reluctant to refer to their products as bourbon because of this effort to speed up the sales cycle. This brought around things like the “Bottled in Bond” act and the “Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906”. Traditional distillers and producers were pushing back against this “short cut” mindset that was running rampant in their market segment.This helped to define not only the product segment within the spirits industry for American Whiskey, but it also helped to build a standard flavor profile of American Whiskey. Given the requirements for the distillation methods, aging requirements and other facets of American distilling we can identify what the taste of the United States is.This seems pretty great, but in a process that is part wizardry and part artistic expression some times the creative person wants to expand beyond that.Topics/Brands Discussed:Finished BourbonThomas Moore/1792/BartonBelle Meade Honey CaskTraverse City Whiskey Company Cherry WhiskyMB Roland Dark Fired Corn Bourbon"Grave Robbers With a Degree" - Andri from Pagefire Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0https://soundcloud.com/nerdymetalhead202/grave-robbers-with-a-dregree?in=nerdymetalhead202/sets/nerdys-creative-common-free-to“Pushing The Pianist Down the Stairs” - Andri from Pagefire Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0https://soundcloud.com/nerdymetalhead202/pushing-the-pianist-down-the-stairs-free-download?in=nerdymetalhead202/sets/nerdys-creative-common-free-to“So Glad I Found You”Music By The Passion HiFiwww.thepassionhifi.com“Oh Lord”Music By The Passion HiFiwww.thepassionhifi.com