Three Excellent Cheap Whiskies for Thanksgiving, Shabbat or Anytime
Image by Nikki Casey
By Dan Friedman November 18, 2016
My late father in law liked to refer to aluminum as “energy in solid form” because we’ve always known where it was and how, roughly, to extract it, but not until the late 20th century did we have the massive quantities of energy necessary to produce it on an industrial level.
By that logic, whisky is liquid time.
As a mixture of free water, cheap barley and scaleable expertise, the only significant costs to the Scotch, bourbon or other whiskies that you drink are tax, distribution and time of storage.
When you drink it, you are tasting the golden result of years of care and nurture. Ten, 12 or 18 years unfurl on your palate making time stretch out. Which makes it a perfect drink for Shabbat when we enjoy the luxury of a time that is stopped and a respite from the workaday world. The whisky-makers have stored up time so you don’t have to.
But, by the same virtue, it’s hard to measure the worth of someone else’s time so there are lots of $30 whiskies being sold for $100. To make this Thanksgiving a little easier on the wallet and palate, here are three $100 whiskies you should be able to get for $30.
It’s a shabbes mitzvah.
The American : Wild Turkey 101
America has a lot of corn. For kids, that means cheap candies made of high fructose corn syrup, for the nation that means sweetened sodas or breads while for adults that can mean bourbon. Because they’re made of corn, bourbons tend to be very sweet. Wild Turkey usually has a mash bill (i.e. grain ingredients list) of roughly 75% corn and the rest split between rye and barley. But 101 has a higher rye content (very hip right now) which gives it a more complex, less sweet and slightly spicier flavor.
So it’s sweet but not too sweet. Rye but not annoyingly hip. Spicy but not peppery. And it is 101 proof so it has a good kick. Ideal for washing down sweet potatoes or babka.
The Irish: Clontarf 1014
The number does not indicate that this is 1014 proof. It comes from a legendary battle just over a millennium ago, one of the few featuring King Brian. (“He’s not the messiah, he’s an Irish king.”)
I’ve written before about how pleasing an aperitif whiskey this is. Pale, with a delicate flavor featuring sherry-like notes of vanilla, this is a lovely drop of something to serve at a kiddush or to wash down the finger food while the Thanksgiving dinner is still, interminably, cooking.
The Scotch: Finlaggan Old Reserve
Finlaggan is a beautiful loch, or lake, on the island of Islay. What it isn’t, however, is a distillery. That leads to one of the two mysteries associated with this brand. First, who actually does make it? Second, how is it so good for so cheap? What we know is that it’s a single malt scotch from an Islay distillery and that it tastes like a bargain-hunter’s Lagavulin. And, in the end, that might be enough.
As well as a hearty endorsement of Finlaggan as a bargain Scotch, I’ll append a caveat: It’s easy to find a well-priced bottle of Bowmore Small Batch and Bowmore make some lovely whiskies. But Small Batch is fairly horrible. Don’t be tempted to buy it.
Instead do get the Finlaggan. Its paleness and its price suggests that it’s quite young, but the warm peaty flavor isn’t immature. The most Lagavulin-like thing about it, however, is the long sweet-salty finish with a fade into ashes. Enjoy that finish alongside a cosy armchair drowse, whether that’s a special one after the Thanksgiving turkey or just a regular Saturday afternoon one.
Dan Friedman is the whisky correspondent (and managing editor) at the Forward.
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