Heaven Hill Here We Come...

Hollywood & VineK&L Hollywood's first spirits tasting in over a year went off last night.  We finally found a great partner to host our events in their beautiful new restaurant Wood&Vine.  Despite the holiday weekend, we had a nice intimate crowd and some America's finest Bourbon and Rye.  The restaurant is lovely and we packed into the courtyard to taste as the sun was setting.  I think there were definitely a couple of surprises for the guests in the line up.  First, about 90% of the guests LOVED the Old Fitzegerald 100 Proof, which is the wheated bourbon brother of the infamously popular Rittenhouse 100 Proof.  It's out of stock at the moment, but represents one of the best values in bourbon.  It's easy going wheat based bourbon and bottled in bond.  Anyway, for $15 its a silly deal and nice to have something around that you don't feel guilty going through quickly or experimenting with.  Other highlights were more obvious.  Both the Rittenhouse Rye 25 Year and the Parker's Heritage Collection 27 Year showed incredibly well, as was expected.  These two bottles are considered legendary for a reason and anyone who loves american whiskey needs to try them.  We're on the last few bottles of the 27 Year and its sold out in distribution, so please don't wait.  Finally, something that I personally fell back in love with was the Parker's Heritage Collection 10 Year Wheated Cask Strength. We decided this was our bourbon of the year, but I have not touched my bottle in a few months and having a refreshly was very welcome.  Bourbon does not need to be 20 or 30 years old to be great.  In fact, for most bourbon 10 years is the sweet spot.  Parker Beam really shows of that fact with this lovely, complex, and viscerally pleasurable.  We should have our next tasting announcement in a week or so and we'll be ramping up the tastings significantly in the coming months.  We've got two GREAT new locations to work with, so hopefully we'll be doing AT COST TASTINGS, spirits dinners, and standard spirits tastings at three different locations throughout Hollywood  Thank you to everyone who came and thank you to Wood&Vine for being such great hosts. 

-David Girard