#raisingglasses — Public Fediverse posts

Recent pickups from Julio's Liquors and Burlington Wine And Spirits

From Julio's I grabbed several recent Loch & Key Whisk(e)y Society picks:
- Bully Boy Distillers 'Wicked Dahka' Single Barrel Bottled-In-Bond Straight Bourbon
- Rittenhouse Rye 'Orange Crush' Straight Rye
- Proof and Wood Tumblin' Dice 'The Big Papi' 11-year Barrel Proof Straight Bourbon
- Middle West Spirits '38 Special' Single Barrel Straight Rye *Dark Pumpernickel*

If you missed out on the 38 Special, I'm sorry. I love rye, and this dark pumpernickel is fantastic. Just different from other ryes and very interesting, a great dram. Middle West does have a pumpernickel rye in their core lineup, which is also great, as long as you can catch it when it is in stock. They sell out fast

We tried these at the recent Middle West Whisk(e)y Wednesday at Julio's Liquors, and everything was great. I tried to be responsible and limit myself, but I did also end up grabbing their Double Cask Collection Ported Pumpernickel Rye. This is their pumpernickel rye that gets secondary aging in French tawny port casks.

The port brings a whole different depth and experience. I wouldn't say better or worse, just different. I really enjoyed both - obviously, given I bought both - but your palate may vary.

And this past week's WW was Maker's Mark, and we all brought home a 375ml of the standard Maker's Mark Bourbon. It's a solid bourbon, can't complain.

I was also over at Burlington Wine recently for a rum event and picked up a couple of bottles that had arrived since the last time I was there. They're both independent bottlings of Hampden Estate Rum, a favorite of mine.

The Colours of Rum Jamaica 1998 HD Edition No.6 Cask 6 23-year Cask Strength Rum

Raising Glasses & Nobilis Rum Papilio 6-year Single Cask, Cask Strength Rum

The Papilio is the C<>H (C Diamond H) mark, the 7th heaviest out of the eight marks Hampden distills, so it has some character. You don't often see the heavier marks bottled outside of a blend. The 1998 HD is HLCF (Hampden Light Continental Flavored), the fourth of the eight marks, and one that is quite commonly bottled by itself.

#Whisky #Whiskey #Bourbon #Rye #Rum #BullyBoy #Rittenhouse #ProofAndWood #TumblinDice #MiddleWestSpirits #MakersMark #HampdenEstate #TheColoursOfRum #RaisingGlasses #NobilisRum

I attended a Raising Glasses Colors of Rum / Bedford Park event at Burlington Wine And Spirits recently. John & Lorri were great, as always, and I would have been happy to bring any of the rums home, but I limited myself to two.

The Bedford Park is a 5 year, single-cask, cask-strength rum from Reunion. It was a standout for me and I wanted to explore it more at my leisure.

The Colors of Rum is a 23 year old, single-cask, cask-strength Jamaican rum - more specifically, Hampden Estate Rum HLCF. This was continental aged, which gives it a slightly different character than island aging.

A small confession, this is Cask #7. There is also a Cask #6 from the same release wave. Burlington didn't have it in stock at the time, but they could get it - so that's waiting for me to pick up as well. That's also a 23 year old Hampden HLCF. It'll be interesting to compare.

Thanks to John & Lorri I was also able to pick up the Raising Glasses Pelee's Fury II cask-strength Grand Arome Rum from Martinique. I had previously picked up Pelee's Fury I & III, but it was long since sold out by the time I was looking for it. They found a lone bottle hiding in old stock and brought it to the event for me. Very kind.

#Rum #RaisingGlasses #BedfordPark #TheColorsOfRum #HampdenEstate

There is more to life than whisky - there is also rum!

I'm hosting some friends for a Raising Glasses rum tasting soon, so I popped up to Burlington Wine And Spirits to grab two new releases - the Rum Et Al Dunder Pressure Queen's Share Rum and the Matugga Golden Dhahabu. And I caved on a release I'd passed on earlier, the Perennia 27 year Caroni. I think this will have to be last in the tasting - if you've tried Caroni, you know.

I've been hunting for the Hampden Estate Rum Great House 2025 - and they had a box open on the floor, it hadn't even made it to the shelf, so I grabbed one. This continues my complete run of these releases.

The Black Tot Rum Master Blender's Reserve 2025 doesn't seem to be coming to MA, so I ended up ordering that out of London, UK. It was more affordable than the places I found in the US. I also have the run of these.

#Rum #RaisingGlasses #Hampden #BlackTot

This was the special bottle I brought home from the Raising Glasses event at Burlington Wine And Spirits last night - a true 1 of 1 bottling.

That's "Dancing Queen", a custom rum blend by yours truly.

Some explanation may be in order.

Back on June 16th they hosted another rum event, and part of that event was a "Beat the Blenders" contest where we were given components they'd used in one of their blended rums. We were invited to create our own blend, and the submissions would be judged to see if anyone 'beat the blenders' and had their blend picked over the official blend.

My blend won. And the prize was that they would take the winning formula and blend a full bottle, with a custom label. Last night they presented me with my bottle.

As for the name - each of us were given 'code names' for our submissions, for blinding. They were all band names, like Aerosmith or Bon Jovi... Mine was ABBA, of course.

Inspired by the code name, and this artwork of Eve from MegaZone 23, the name was just obvious.

Thanks to John & Lorri from Raising Glasses, this is awesome.

#Rum #RaisingGlasses

Last night Raising Glasses hosted a rum tasting at Burlington Wine & Spirits and it was a great line up. I ended up bringing five bottles home (actually six, but that one is special and gets its own post).

I picked up the two Rumcast Reserve releases, from The Rumcast of course, Guyana VSG and Mauritius MLMO.

From Rum Et Al I grabbed the Variable "Dunderclap" expression.

Hampden Estate is one of my favorite rum distilleries, so I had to grab the Down Island Spirits Single Cask HD 2022 bottling of their HLCF mark.

And, finally, the American Cane Banter White Rum. A great, basic white rum for like $20 - hard to go wrong.

#Rum #RaisingGlasses #RumcastReserve #TheRumcast #RumEtAl #DownIslandSpirits #AmericanCane #BanterRum #Hampden

Thanks to Lori from Raising Glasses for helping me fill in some gaps in my collection of their rum lineup. I need to do a RG lineup tasting at some point. 😁

#Rum #RaisingGlasses

A little birdie told me the other day that Burlington Wine And Spirits had Hampden Estate Rum The Maverick in stock. I was up in Burlington picking up my R1S from Q Car Care (I had running boards installed to make things a bit easier for my dad, as well as detailing and some other work), and having lunch at The Friendly Toast with Jess, so I popped in.

I ended up picking up The Maverick, of course, and I also grabbed a bottle of Papalin Jamaica High Ester 5 year old Original Vatted Rum.

And I took the opportunity to pick up three bottles of Raising Glasses that I hadn't previously: Yowie 16 year Australian, The Yowie Strikes Back 17 year Australian, and King Kai 17 year Guyana.

#Rum #HampdenEstate #Papalin #RaisingGlasses

Why is the rum gone? Because I bought it all. 😁

Back on June 7th a friend of mine was working an Ardbeg event at Burlington Wine And Spirits and he invited me along. I already own all of the Ardbeg, but while I was there I checked out the rum aisle as I knew they had a good selection of Raising Glasses.

That may have been a tactical error, as I ended up buying ten of their bottlings. They make it so tempting with affordable 375ml bottles.

I was back a couple of weeks later for a Raising Glasses event and I took advantage of the event discount to pick up four more bottles. That brings my Raising Glasses selection to 16, including two I'd picked up a while back at Julio's Liquors.

On that first trip I also spotted, and grabbed, the 2023 Hampden Estate Rum Great House release. I'm working on having the full lineup of Great House bottles.

#Rum #RaisingGlasses #Hampden #HampdenEstate

I got behind on posting the past few weeks of pickups from Julio's Liquors.

First up, from a Whisk(e)y Wednesday at Julio's Liquors tasting, I picked up a couple of offerings from Raising Glasses - a four year Queen's Share bottling of Privateer Rum and Rum Passport, a six-nation single cask blend of rum.

That same night I picked up my reserved Glenmorangie A Tale of Ice Cream.

At another WW I picked up a couple of Mad River Distillers bottles - Summit American Single Malt Whiskey and Founders Reserve Straight Rye Whiskey. Both bottles were signed by co-founder Maura Connolly.

That night I also picked up my reserved Wild Turkey Jimmy Russell 70th Anniversary Release 8 year bourbon.

Then I was back in for another WW and I picked up the Loch & Key Whisk(e)y Society picked Bully Boy Distillers "Wicked Dahk" wheated bourbon and my reserved High West Distillery A Midwinter Night's Dram Act 12 Scene 2.

#Whiskey #Whisky #Rum #Scotch #Rye #Bourbon #RaisingGlasses #Privateer #Glenmorangie #MadRiverDistillers #WildTurkey #BullyBoy #HighWest