I'm fortunate to know numerous folks in Kentucky and environs who share my interest in fine whiskey and its history and some have become friends.
It was great to spend time with some people I don't see that often or am getting to know better.
Thanks Gayle and Martha for a great party. The whiskeys were tops.
Whiskey treats included a late 60's-early 70's Old Crow, mellow and sweet; a number of S-W whiskeys e.g., an 1843 Nicholson I think it was (white label, decanter-style bottle), a faux strip stamp Old Fitzgerald, an Old Charter which atypically used S-W whiskey for a specific European market and a W.L. Weller (the 19 year old); an impressive 1985 cask strength Bushmills single malt (which appeared to use lightly peated malt at the time, as Michael Jackson wrote in his 1987 World Guide); a late 60's Maker's Mark which tasted like a fine XO cognac and was quite different from today's I thought; JD Silver Select, which many people admired and thought was rather removed from regular Jack; and Stagg '06.
I must not forget a 1960's-era Olde Heaven Hill, it was a privilege to taste a whiskey made by Parker Beam's father and it was a dry, elegant-tasting whiskey certainly connected to today's HH whiskey but not quite the same.
My rum blend appealed to most, which was nice. It is part of a larger group of similar bottlings I have, so I'll bring more when I next visit Kentucky.
Thanks to Mike for giving me a vehicular tour of the Shively distilleries and to John (ellenjaye) for a visual and tasting tour of his incomparable historical whiskey collection. When you see so many great names from so many great eras, you become kind of paralysed.
I decided with John to focus just on certain areas, straight rye and Canadian. Of these, his pre-Pro Old Overholt (so-labelled) shone with its deep grainy and spearmint taste, so did the amazing circa-1900 Melvale, which proved that Baltimore rye really was fruity. I only had two bourbons and they were rich, complex and maple sugar-like, a Beam's Choice and Bellows bourbon, both from the 50's-60's. I can't forget either the cognac-like (again) "powder horn" Dickel from the early 1960's.
Gary