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Staff Favorites - Mahon McGrath
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Reviews
2009 Gitton Père & Fils "Galinot" Sancerre
Review Date: 03-31-2017
Sancerre has more than one side. Most of what we sell is the fresh, bright, and green version that gets drunk up more or less immediately. The region does, however, have a more serious side, and the 2009 Galinots shows that brilliantly. Despite its bottle age, this wines best years are ahead of it. It is a white wine of noble stature, intensity, and nuance. It buries the region’s minerality underneath layers of extract, has nothing herbaceous about it, and doesn’t traffic in new oak accents, either. What’s on display here is very much what the site and its old vines bring to the table.
The conundrum with wines like these is between wanting to declare your love for their beauties, and wanting to keep quiet and enjoy them for a pittance, relative to their quality, thanks to their obscurity. And so, guardedly, cautiously, then I let it slip—if you are into Grand Cru Chablis, say, you ought to know this, too. It’s that good.
Price:
$59.99
Michel Arnould "Réserve" Grand Cru Verzenay Brut Champagne
Review Date: 02-24-2017
Exceedingly well composed, the tension between the palate’s richness and the countervailing tug of acidity is judged just right. Flavor-wise, there’s some nuttiness, white berry, and waxy fruit, with a wee hint of bolete in back of it all. Texturally, it is quite fine: this is the complete package. My only nit to pick here is the under-the -radar label, but don’t let that deter you from the superlative Champagne underneath it.
Price:
$34.99
Leopold Bros. Maryland Style Rye Whiskey (750ml)
Review Date: 12-30-2016
The folks at Leopold's are really trying to tell you that theirs is a distinctive take on that category of whiskey. When they say "Maryland", they mean it. I couldn't say how this compares to historical examples of the style, but no matter: I can say for certain that it stands out clearly and distinctly from the general run of Pennsylvania ryes.
What you have here is a fiesty but precociously characterful whiskey. The richness stands out for me. Whereas a good many ryes are lean on the palate without extended aging, this already telegraphs weight. The flavors run to dried fruit, flax oil, fresh baked rye bread, leather, dried orange peel, ovaltine, and aged Virginia flake-cut pipe tobacco. Well worth knowing for rye whiskey fans.
Price:
$64.99
Jade "Nouvelle-Orléans" Absinthe Supérieure (750ml)
Review Date: 10-26-2016
It took me a long time to get around to this, but it was always in back of mind. I knew I wanted to check this out when I first heard about it, well before absinthe had even been declared once more legal on our shores. While I have never found anise to be a flavor I crave, I really did enjoy tasting my way through the absinthes that washed up on our shores after the ban was lifted, unlike, it seems, the vast majority of people in the US of A. The Nouvelle Orleans is a wonderful example of why I do find absinthe so much more appealing than anisette: it is like a cocktail in its mixture of a variety of flavors, albeit one that has been pre-mixed and bottled for you... in the nicest possible way, of course. In this particular example, no one flavor gains the upper hand, nor does it hit you fortissimo; it blends into a complex but seamless whole. Total elegance, no sugar needed. While I probably shouldn't have waited so long to sample this, I can at least take comfort in the fact that I haven't waited in vain.
Charles Baur "Emotion" Cremant d'Alsace Brut
Review Date: 06-17-2016
The golden apple and lemon tart nose pick up a prominent dried ginger spiciness. The evocation of softer flavors like pastry crust on the palate are firmed up by a greater degree of acidity than one typically finds in a Cremant, which creates the impression of the wine leaning in more of a Champagne-esque direction. Even if it doesn’t muster quite that degree of verve, layering, or richness, it is one of the best alternatives we've got!
La Petite Marquise Crémant de Loire Brut Rosé
Review Date: 03-07-2016
Light strawberry and citrus notes sally from this charming Cremant. Leaning more towards the tart than the sweet side of its personality, this is a refreshing, straightforward, easy going bottle of bubbly. And speaking of bubbles, the texture of this rose is one of the wines appealing characteristics, with an abundant mousse that yet manages to be silken and filigreed. Happily, it is also available a price that makes it perfect to open for any old reason at all.
Price:
$14.99
Lot 40 Copper Pot Still Canadian Rye Whisky (750ml)
Review Date: 01-20-2014
Unctuous and rich, this Canadian Rye packs in an intriguing array of flavors that stays true to the character of the grain. Style-wise, it skews to the sweeter side of things, with a fat mid-palate, and a supple, seamless texture. This is definitely the best new addition to the--of recent days--rather un-crowded field of contemplative, sipping Rye Whiskeys that I've had occasion to sample.
Plymouth Navy Strength English Gin (750ml)
Review Date: 11-04-2012
It had been bruited about that such a creature as “navy strength” Plymouth gin existed, or once had, and here in the midst of the great cocktail revival, where many a long-lost dream comes true, it once more graces these shores. If you’re familiar with Plymouth gin, there are no great surprises in store for you here; which is just fine. Why mess with success? The Navy Strength bottling is simply a brawnier version of the classic Plymouth taste. When this is, for instance, mixed up simply 1:1 gin to vermouth(Noilly Prat), no garnish, as a Wondrich reprint of an early 1850's San Francisco Gibson recipe suggests, this is a fabulous drink, and one in which a standard proof just wouldn't cut it. With the Navy Stength, you can taste the gin’s presence clearly and distinctly. An excellent addition to the canon!
Price:
$33.99
Tempus Fugit Kina L'Aero D'Or Vin Aperitif Du Quinquina Aperitif Wine (750ml)
Review Date: 10-08-2012
Does Kina l’Avion d’Or replace Lillet? Not exactly; more like compliments Lillet. While you can have a glass of Lillet all by itself, L’Avion is much too sweet for such a maneuver. The bitterness is also, correspondingly, more pronounced in the l’Avion d’Or, though it is still only moderately bitter. What is different is the scope. It would be more correct to say that it has an array of bitter flavors. When mixing, those flavors and l’Avion’s over-all robustness really stand out when you substitute this in a cocktail in place of Lillet. I think you might even find you want to adjust your proportions accordingly to take that into account. The fact that this is so clearly its own creature is to be commended, and provides plenty of room for the imagination to invent new drinks as well as showing established recipes in a different light.
Price:
$32.99
Tempus Fugit Creme de Menthe (750ml)
Review Date: 09-04-2012
I admit, I had my doubts. While a devoted fan of the sweetly aromatic, cooling smell of fresh mint, any attempt to capture that essence always seems to me to come up short. This liqueur comes about as close as I reckon you can. It doesn’t, naturally, take the place of fresh mint in cocktails; as much as it is true to the flavor, it is best considered as its own creature. It mixes splendidly, especially in gin drinks, where the juniper and the crème de menthe get together and execute a sort of cool tango on your tongue, and in a way that muddled sprigs wouldn't. So, yeah, I'm a convert: this is well worth checking this out.
Price:
$34.99
Byrrh Grand Quinquina Aperitif Wine (750ml)
Review Date: 09-04-2012
What sort of aperitif is this? I'd liken it more to Dubonnet than sweet Vermouth, though it has a brighter, fresher berry-fruit character to Dubonnet's plush, bass heavy profile, and a more pronounced bitterness as a counterpoint. Note, though, that this is skewed more towards the sweet than the bitter, and therefore seems to me to suggest it wants dilution of some sort, whether passively by serving it over ice, or through mixing: dust off your copy of the Savoy Cocktail book for a few suggestions on how to get started if that latter course strikes your fancy.
Leopold Bros Orange Liqueur (700ml)
Review Date: 06-19-2012
Ever notice the way things can seem to recede from you apace with the attention you give to them? What seems a solid, known quantity or concept—a river, say—can be, depending on where you observe it from, both a bubbling spring on down to a many branched, meandering delta, and so is not one thing but many things. And even observing the portion that accords with the more straight forward conception of “river” is, itself, is up for question: where it is can shift drastically, and what it is, too: spring’s rush to fall’s hush, never exactly the same, as the old saw goes, twice. If there is a fault, it owes not so much to our perception and experience as to the limitation inherent in creating an idea of, and a name for, a phenomena or process both varied and fluxional.
“What the heck does this all this have to do with orange liqueur!?” I can hear you wondering.
Well, where once there was but Cointreau and Grand Marinier at the top, in recent years, the narrow scope of high-quality sweetened spirits flavored with oranges has burst its banks and proliferated considerably. You have at once recreations of historic recipes as well as re-imaginings with different spirit bases, or, as in this case, different oranges, specifically bergamot here. Considering the ongoing popularity of Earl Grey tea, and the ubiquity of bergamot as a component in perfumery, I’d say the Leopold Bros decision to include bergamot in the recipe for their orange liqueur constitutes a very sage twist on the Curacao tradition. While the aroma and flavor is distinctive, it is not so far removed from traditional preparations that it cannot be profitably put to use in cocktail recipes calling for triple sec, etc. If it is not the one orange liqueur everyone must have, I nevertheless heartily recommend it both as a tasty, finely crafted spirit and as a ingenious expansion of the possibilities of the genre’s boundaries, a welcome additional texture to the multiplicity of expressions the concept of orange liqueur is capable of.
Price:
$39.99
Pierre Ferrand "1840 Formula" 90 Proof Cognac (750ml)
Review Date: 05-31-2012
There aren’t a bevy of Cognacs out there built for mixing. This one has two things going for it: 45% abv, and a formulation that is an attempt to recreate the flavor profile of a pre-phylloxera Cognac. So, does it fly? Yes, it does. That little bit extra strength combined with the robust flavor profile gives this the power to really sing out in mixed drinks where other Cognacs might just fade into the background. The flavor is mostly in the dry fruit and new leather vein, with a papery vanilla, and some citron and bergamot, in the background in this plump, round, reasonably sweet brandy. Try a sidecar with it and see for yourself!
Redbreast 12 Year Old Cask Strength Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey (750ml)
Review Date: 04-15-2012
This cask strength bottling of Red Breast certainly ratchets up the drama. There is more oomph, more richness and intensity, on both nose and palate. It remains, however, an Irish pure pot still whiskey foremost, and as such bears closer kinship to its more familiar version lower proof bottling than to the untamed ferocity of something like a George T Stagg. You ain’t toying with no pipsqueak, though; you will want ice or water or a bit of both to round the edge off. You get a wonderful range of baked banana, dried fruits, butterscotch and sweet grain, enlivened by a citric note that keeps things from seeming cloying or fatty. The finish here rolls on like thunder—well, civilized thunder, anyway.
I’d note, too, that if you’re mixing a Manhattan-style cocktail with Irish whiskey, this is probably the best one for the job I’ve come across to date. The cask strength really keeps the whiskey from getting lost amidst the other ingredients.
La Guita Manzanilla Sanlucar de Barrameda
Review Date: 12-26-2011
What? A new sherry to try? On it. This manzanilla gives up sea breeze, wet gravel, brine, a gentle toasted almond note and a lemon juice-citric tang on the finish, showing all the character you’d expect and at a reasonable price, too. While this certainly shows where it’s from, there is a softness to the middle that can almost fool you into thinking you’re sipping a brisk, dry white that didn’t mature under a veil of flor.
There’s a funny piece of twine on the bottle’s front. I gave it a tug and it came unstuck from the labels holding it in place. Alas, it let loose no confetti. I afterwards ascertained that the name “La Guita” came from a favorite quip of the house’s founder, and was a slang word for “money” but also meant “cord.” Now you know. That they also stamp the bottling date on the back is perhaps the more salient, and appreciated, detail with a perishable item like sherry.
Rare Wine Company "Historic Series - Charleston" Sercial Madeira
Review Date: 11-27-2011
The dominant character here is a subdued toasted nuttiness, not specifically almond or walnut, with undercurrents of dried fruit. The palate is another thing altogether. This is one a wine that succeeds more on texture than nuance of flavor. While it is a sweet wine, it doesn’t put itself across the way a sauterne or even a sweet sherry would. It is as though you’d put the proverbial “spoon full of sugar” in your mouth-though for the purposes of this analogy we’d better make sure you’re visualizing raw sugar-and then sucked a fat wedge of lime. The tremendous acidity doesn’t just balance out the sweetness, but actually overcompensates for it, making it seem to finish much drier than it started and lip-smacking, too. Singular stuff. Works pretty nice with a slice of pumpkin pie and I’d wager you would get good mileage out of it with well-seasoned meaty bites, say dumplings of some sort.
El Dorado 15 Year Old Demerara Guyana Rum (750ml)
Review Date: 07-01-2011
Demerara-rah; that’s the spirit! The El Dorado 15 year certainly shows the benefits of the time that the spirit spent in barrel in the initial intensity of the nose and palate. What is better still is it pulls back a bit towards the finish and finds a little reserve, avoiding the bombast of certain other “too much isn’t nearly enough” long-aged spirits. Toasted chestnuts, antique woodsy vanilla and candied pear, papaya and pineapple ornament a core of lush, sweet sugar cane that switches about between the continuum of sugar-brown sugar-molasses without ever settling on just one, a sort of olfactory iridescence. Pull up an evening and a chair and settle in; you’ll want to linger long—in the same way that the finish does—with this rum.
La Cigarrera Manzanilla Sanlucar de Barrameda (375ml)
Review Date: 05-30-2011
This manzanilla plays down the toasted almond dimension of sherry, and offers instead clean, vibrant, salty aromas coupled with golden apple and a little sprinkling of parsley, even. Take a sip, and you’ll find a smooth texture and a pleasantly plump middle palate, finishing with a citric pucker and a lingering evocation of wet stone. Well worth trying where you’d normally reach for muscadet, say.
Price:
$18.99
Tempus Fugit Liqueur De Violettes (750ml)
Review Date: 03-30-2011
One could reasonably expect a violet liqueur to taste like… well, violets, no? And yet, of the four varieties I’ve had occasion to sample, none taste exactly like the others. This new bottling, in my estimation, happens to be one of the best. Why do I say that? Pour a jigger of it over some ice cubes and add some soda. Take a sip. This is a liqueur with an arc, the flavor moving from a dry, dry-woodsy start into cool berry fruit and then on into a dusty, tranquil, ethereal twilight. Since it doesn’t have any coloring added, it won’t stain your drink a pretty purple-blue, but that is a small price to pay for the clarity of flavor it offers.
Price:
$32.99
Leopold Bros. Small Batch American Gin (750ml)
Review Date: 01-31-2011
Damn, this is pretty! So very pretty-pretty! Juniper shares the stage with a prominent sweet citrus oil component and a delicately floral dimension in the nose. While the Leopold’s would have to be counted amongst new-styled American gins, I think it is really in a category all its own. Why? Take a sip. Yes; just of the gin straight, at room temperature. This is gentler, softer, suppler, and more delicate than any gin I’ve heretofore had occasion to taste. Now, I wouldn’t necessarily advise this for use in every cocktail recipe out there. For people who want that indomitable juniper character shining through in a drink despite citrus juices, liqueurs, bitters, absinthe, whatever you might throw at a gin in the course of making a cocktail, well, this probably isn’t that spirit. In more gin-centric drinks, this is beautiful, fresh, gracefully perfumed... and well worth a try!
Price:
$34.99
Dudognon "Vieille Reserve" Grand Champagne Cognac (750ml)
Review Date: 01-29-2011
The Dudognon Vieille Reserve puts me in mind of golden, late afternoon sunshine. It isn’t the spirit’s color, but rather the gentle, relaxed warmth this spirit seems to contain. If only we all had such refinement and grace in our twenties! The Vieille Reserve is a slight notch up in amplitude from its younger sibling, the Reserve, taking on a weightier texture and greater length while retaining an obvious stylistic kinship in its purity and delicacy. Powdery, dusty vanilla and warm spice joins light caramel, citron and dried apple notes, which then fades longer than the diminuendo on a seventies rock track outro. You'd have to be something of a curmudgeon not to feel this.
Tempus Fugit Gran Classico Bitter Liqueur (750ml)
Review Date: 10-18-2010
For long years, Campari was the only game in town for a bitter of this sort. It has fans both loyal and ardent and is indeed wonderful. Campari tastes to my palate mainly about the contrast of bitter and sweet. The Gran Classico seems a touch gentler compared to it, easing back a wee bit on the bitter and then fleshing out that bitter-sweet polarity with a plusher range of dry woodsy spice, citrus and herbal accents, without ever obscuring the basic character. I wouldn’t think of Gran Classico so much as a replacement for or an improvement on Campari but as a worthy addition to the genre. Some cocktails, like the Old Pal, really do come to life with the Gran Classico in a way they never did with Campari. On the whole it makes for a mellow, integrated cocktail. Whether this will be an improvement will depend on both the drink and your tastes. Gran Classico is pretty compelling just on it’s own with soda over ice: a little variety never hurt anyone, eh? This is well worth trying!
Price:
$34.99
Buffalo Trace White Dog Mash #1 375ml
Review Date: 09-30-2010
This is a White Dog you’re going to want to adopt. Don’t let the ferocious ABV deter you. Add about 1 part water to 2 parts whiskey and voila; you’ve got a surprisingly smooth and flavorful tipple that will put to rest any notion that an un-aged whiskey might be long on heat and short on flavor. The flavors are, however, quite different from those of aged bourbon. There are notes of citrus pith, grain, banana and a fresh minty-herbaceous quality that picks up a floral dimension on the finish. What’s more, it “shows up” when mixed, unlike vodka. There’s lots of room for experimentation and discovery here. Intriguing stuff!
Price:
$14.99
Lustau Dry Amontillado "Los Arcos" Solera Reserva
Review Date: 07-26-2010
If you’re looking for a good dry Amontillado, you’ve found your bottle here; this is a lot of sherry for the money! The Los Arcos offers expansive and intense flavors on a well balanced frame. Toasted almond and dried fruit aromas are followed by flavors of salty, toasted nuts juxtaposed nicely against a mellow sweetness. The finish is crisp and dry. What it might lack in nuance when compared to some pricier bottlings it more than makes up for in overall harmony and depth of flavor. Lovely stuff.
Incidentally, if you’re making atavistic cocktail recipes such as the Bamboo or the Tuxedo that call for dry sherry, the Los Arcos shows to good effect in them. It doesn’t get lost in the mix the way pretty much any Manzanillas or Finos I’ve used to date seem to.
Highland Park 18 Year Old Isle of Orkney Single Malt Scotch Whisky (750ml)
Review Date: 03-30-2010
The nose gives up nutty, toffee, honeyed heather and baked bread aromas with a subdued smokiness. The smoke comes out more distinctly on the palate, balanced by full, sweet flavors of honey, caramel and spiced baked apple. This is a spirit that seems wild at first encounter, but is really surprisingly gentle at heart, with a sweet generous nature lurking behind the not entirely slick exterior. I should also note that the finish reverberates for a goodly span.
Dudognon "Reserve" Grand Champagne Cognac (750ml)
Review Date: 01-18-2010
Soft, silky smooth and voluptuous, refined and delicate, this Cognac is sheer pleasure. The flavors are a pleasing accord of pear, apple, warm spice and caramel. If you're thinking sidecars and such, you probably want to go for the Deret VSOP. The Dudognon's charms are pretty much obliterated in cocktails. This is hardly a defect. I'd wager you won't want to mix it with anything once you've tried it. The one exception I found to this was when one-quarter to one-half ounce was added to a Champagne cocktail. That makes for a sensational drink.
Hayman's Old Tom Gin (750ml)
Review Date: 11-28-2009
Once upon a time, the cocktail that became THE cocktail, the Martini, was a lot less dry. And before that, even, its progenitors, the first gin & vermouth based drinks, the Turf Club-Martinez-Martini family, were made with Italian vermouth and a lightly sweetened style of gin called Old Tom. When the John Collins crossed over from England, it was eventually re-christened a Tom Collins, in part because it was generally made with Old Tom gin. The spirit got around. Of course, up until very recent times, there was no good substitute for this category of gin. Old Tom had long since sunk into oblivion - and for that matter, up until recently, no one had much missed it. With the current efflorescence of classic cocktails, however, all that changed and Hayman's is a welcome addition for those who want to drink in a bit of history. Resurrected from a family recipe from the time of the spirits heyday, Hayman's is a delightful and authentic version of an Old Tom gin. This is a less aggressive style of gin than a London Dry; while juniper is in the foreground it quickly yields to a more generally perfumed nose, with a softer, rounder, gentler taste and mouthfeel. The sweetness here is not on the order of a liqueur, more like off-dry. The fascinating thing is how many of the antique cocktail recipes that call for an Old Tom gin are good as drinks in their own right and not merely of interest as retrospective curiosities. If you haven't yet tried this, the recipe given above is not a bad place to start, though I'd say go with a twist of lemon peel, as opposed to a slice. And, if you've got this far and you don't already own books by Ted "Dr Cocktail" Haigh or David Wondrich, they are good resources for further recipes and elucidation.