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Drinks With: Steve Olson and Andy Seymour for Grand Marnier

Drinks With... is an Alcademics category in which I share what I've learned when meeting with industry notables.

Recently I went to an event for Grand Marnier hosted by Steven Olson and Andy Seymour, both of B.A.R. and akaWineGeek. I've been to a few Grand Marnier events before, but at this one I felt I learned a lot more. We were able to taste not just the three bottlings (the standard, 100 year anniversary and 150 year anniversary) but also the unflavored base cognacs used in those bottlings.

Grand Marnier has only three ingredients- cognac, sugar, and orange peels, says Olson. The Haitian orange peels are sun-dried then macerated in full-proof unaged cognac (aka neutral eau de vie, as it is not cognac yet). This is added to aged cognac and the combination is aged again. (I'm not sure at what point they add the sugar.) According to Olson, the only difference between the three bottlings of Grand Marnier is the age of the cognac at the time it's mixed with the orange eau de vie, and the length of time the mix additionally aged in French Limousin oak.

Historically, curacao was a popular ingredient in cocktails right after the "cocktail" was defined. Sometimes early cocktail recipes would list curacao as an ingredient, and often the "fancy" version of a cocktail (also with citrus peel included) did too. Eventually though, curacao was usurped by the popularity of maraschino liqueur and/or absinthe. If you added these to your cocktail, it was an "improved" version.  So:

• cocktail = sugar, water, bitters, spirit (sometimes dash of curacao. sometimes grated nutmeg on top)
• fancy cocktail = sugar, water, bitters, spirit, citrus rubbed on rim and added, curacao
• improved cocktail = sugar, water, bitters, spirit, absinthe and/or maraschino, citrus rim/added

Then we had plenty of cocktails mixed up by Andy along with Carlos Yturria. Here's Carlos in action. As you can see, it's all in the wrist.

Drinks With: Juan Carlos Contreras of Don Pilar Tequila

Juan Contreras is the son of Don Pilar, the guy whose name is on the bottle. He's also the brand ambassador and marketing director. I met him at Zazil for some tequila.

But really the story is all about Don Pilar. Contreras said his father had an agave ranch in Mexico, but moved to the US years ago and worked his way up from fruit picker to multi-restaurant owner. The tequila brand was launched in 2008 with just one product- an anejo.

Currently the second batch is on shelves, and Contreras says it's better than the first. The estate-grown agave is distilled in a distillery co-operative, owned by several agave growers. Rather than use the house distiller, for Don Pilar they bring in expert distillers to make it there instead. The pinas are cooked with an autoclave, the product is fermented, distilled in stainless steel pot stills, and it is aged in new American oak barrels instead of ex-bourbon.

Contreras says his father was trying to create something along the lines of Don Julio 1942, and the resemblance is certainly there, though it thankfully lacks the excessive vanilla flavor of DJ.

So far, the product is only available in Northern California.

Drinks With: Chesterfield Browne of Mount Gay Rum

Chesterfield Browne has an awesome name and a pretty awesome job as the International Brand Ambassador for Mount Gay Rum. We met up for drinks at Absinthe a few months ago. (As you can tell, I'm catching up on some long-overdue Drinks With blog posts.)

Mount Gay is made by blending some flavorful pot still rum into column distilled more neutral rum. The flagship product of the brand is the Eclipse (with 2-7 year rums inside), a slightly dark rum great for mixing.

The Silver Eclipse is a newer product, and clear. Browne tells me Bajans don't usually drink clear rum, so he has a job to do with the local market. In the US, people are more used to it.

The XO, or Extra Old, just changed packaging to a weightier, nice bottle, but Browne says the stuff inside (aged 8-15 years) is the same as ever. It also has a higher percentage of pot still rum inside than the Eclipse.

The newest line extension is the 1703, made up of rums from 10-30 years old. It will be a regular part of the Mount Gay portfolio as opposed to a limited edition. It costs about $100 retail.

One of the Bajan ways of drinking rum is with tonic water, and Browne says this drink is known as A Slap in the Face. That's an exciting name (almost as good as the other local drink the Corn n' Oil), but it seems a long way of saying rum & tonic to me.

Drinks With: Paul Neep of The Glenmorangie Company

About two weeks after I met up with Hamish Torrie of Ardbeg, Paul Neep, Chief Executive at The Glenmorangie Company (of which Ardbeg is part) came into town to talk Glenmorangie.

Unfortunately we picked the Redwood Room to do so- they only carried two of Glenmo's line and discontinued the flights they had previously offered.

That was too bad because I have a hankering to try the Astar, a no-age-statement, cask-strength, non-chill-filtered whisky that's all about the wood: slow-growth, north-facing trees are air-dried for the barrels. It was an experiment in using the best barrels possible for scotch.

Neep also told me that the "designer caks" created for Astar are being used in the standard line of Glenmorangie whiskies as well. Not all of it, but a percentage.

The other new Glenmo- Signet, I've had exactly one sip of at WhiskyFest last year. It turns out I must not have been paying good attention to it (or perhaps I was distracted by its deliciousness), because I thought that the "chocolate malt" used in the bottling was actually some rare type of superbarley. Not so. It is estate-grown barley, says Neep, but the flavor difference comes from the slow-roasted, unpeated processing of it. The Signet will become a permanent part of the line.

And speaking of the line, I told Neep a story about the "additionally matured" line (the whisky is aged in ex-bourbon casks, then additionally matured in another cask such as sherry, port, burgundy, or madeira). They changed the packaging a couple years ago (as well as the additional maturation length) and instead of saying, "Port Wood Finish" as it did before on the bottle, now is says "Quinta Ruban" and port is in small letters at the bottom of the label. He seemed taken aback when I told him that I spoke with a bartender who told me he refills the old bottles with the new liquid, because at least this way the bartenders and customers can figure out which whisky is which.

Anyway, happy conclusion: Neep says they'll be changing the label design soon, and I think he indicated that they'll make the font describing what's in it a bit more central.

Are there any new products on the radar, I asked. "Yes," Neep responded, and stopped there. The only other information I was able to get out of him was that said new product will be released in 2010.

Drinks With: Rob Samuels of Maker's Mark

This May I sat down for a quick bite of breakfast at Level III with Rob Samuels, Director of Global Brand Development for Maker's Mark bourbon. As tends to be the case in the bourbon industry, Samuels is related to someone else in the company- his father Bill Samuels Jr, the president of Maker's and himself the son of the company's founder.

Maker's doesn't buy or sell whisky to other distilleries. It is also the only bourbon distillery to air dry all of the wood for its barrels, says Samuels.

Maker's Mark is big in Japan. This is because 25 years ago Toyota built a factory in Kentucky and the Japanese took to the local hooch then brought it back home with them.

They only sell about 10% of Maker's beyond the US.

Australians drink more bourbon per capita than in the US, and probably more than anywhere else. Germany is the second biggest market for bourbon outside the US, which makes sense because Germany is pretty much the second largest market for every spirit outside of its home country.

The growth of bourbon outside the States is partially fueled by interest in the Mint Julep. 

Drinks With: Hamish Torrie of Ardbeg

This is the first installment of Drinks With, a new Alcademics category where I talk about what I talked about when having drinks with persons in the cocktails and spirits industry. Frequently I meet with brand ambassadors, bartenders, distillers, and other folks. I may learn a single bit of information or I may learn a lot. Drink With is the category in which I'll place my meeting notes.

In May I met with Hamish Torrie, Brands Director at The Glenmorangie Company. Torrie works closely with Ardbeg, which is part of Glenmo (as we call it) and LVMH. We met for drinks and dinner at Epic Roasthouse, where we had a cocktail, some wine, and of course a touch of Ardbeg.

I've not had the good fortune to visit Ardbeg yet (hint, hint) but I have briefly met Torrie before, on last summer's trip to Scotland. We stopped into Glenmorangie distillery and tasted through both ranges.

Currently in the US, Ardbeg sells the 10 year old, the Uigedail (a non-age statement whisky matured in ex-sherry casks), and Airigh Nam Beist, which I believe is a 16 year old bottling that I haven't seen out west yet.

Ardbeg gets by on its rabid fan base. They have a part of the website called The Committee, which is better than the usual loyalty clubs in that they offer members access to bottlings not available to the general public. (He said this includes the US, which is usually problematic due to different bottle sizes, but they ship to a liquor store instead of to your house which somehow makes it okay.) Last year they sold Corryvrecken to Committee members, and this year they sold Supernova, which comes in as the second most heavily peated whisky on the market.

Torrie tells me that Supernova is now on the US market in very limited distribution, despite earlier plans not to release it publicly stateside. Corryvrecken will also join the standard range of Ardbeg in Europe later this year, and in 2010 in the US.