While visiting down in California for business I decided to take a look at the local San Francisco bar scene. The day we arrived right across the street there was a bar called Swig Swig. It was kind of plain on the out side, looked a little out dated, and truly there was nothing about it that called my name to walk in.

The next morning I walked out into the hotel lobby and that crummy outdated bar had disappeared!

With a new logo, a new paint job, and some great trees out front this place was now warm and inviting. I decided to stroll across the street to talk about what a crazy transformation had happened in only one day. What a vibe! The first thing that grabs your eye is the wall behind the bar. Can I say Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey! With over 300 bottles of Scotch, Bourbon, Rye, Wheat, and Craft distilled spirits my jaw literally hit the floor. The room was dim lit and very natural, there was a nice big fireplace in the middle with some leather stools all across the floor. The serving bar is about 20 feet long and is showered with drink ingredients like fresh limes, lemons, grapefruits and herbs.

But the look of the bar is truly only one third of the experience. Kelsey Henry the local bartender on staff that night was AMAZING! Not only was she beautiful, but SMART about the ingredients she was working with. I have been to a lot of bars where all the bar tenders recommend is the house whiskey, and when asked about a certain scotch or bourbon they look at you dumb founded as if they didn’t even know they served something different. Kelsey on the other hand, could speak to almost every bottle on the wall about the subtle difference in spice, smell, or flavor. Each drink came with a wealth of knowledge and recommendation from her and each drink was new and interesting.

But whiskey is not the only thing that shines at this bar. Kelsey can make a damn good cocktail too!

Write this down and feel free to quote me. “A good bartender does not need a menu.”

Next time you are at a bar ask them to make you something floral, but not very sweet, and with a little herbal twist. A good bar tender would whip you up something like an Ambassador (which Kelsey did). A bad bartender will give you the menu and say which one were you talking about. If you hear the second answer, get up, grab you stuff, and get the hell out!

With live music a few times a week, an unmatched whiskey selection, and AMAZING cocktails. This place is (in my opinion) the new shining star in the tenderloin district of San Francisco.

If you want to check out more give Swig a like on Facebook below and for goodness sake, GO DRINK HERE!!! They are located at 561 Geary St. in San Francisco California.

Swig Bar Facebook Page

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After a bit of vacation, we now resume our good work with The Distilled Life. After all, drinking and telling them about it isn’t exactly a hard job. Today, we finish our look at Woodinville Distillery (we tackled the Rye with great results last year) with their micro-barreled Bourbon Whiskey.

The craft distilling industry is being taken seriously on a number of levels. The most important of which is the innovation we have seen in the new whiskies on the market. Non-traditional grains, unorthodox finishing, old school comebacks (plain corn whiskies) and micro-barreling, to name a few, have seen themselves successful when we go to the liquor store.

When it gets interesting is when a new innovation is added to tradition. In today’s case, Woodinville married America’s traditional spirit, Bourbon, with micro-barreling. We’ve covered this new practice when we reviewed the Rye, but to catch you up, micro-barreling uses small, 6-8 gallon or more barrels to house and age spirit versus the traditional bigger casks, which can be up to 200 gallons large. The reason why is because the spirit interacts with the barrel three times as much versus traditional aging. When you don’t have 6-7 years to age something, micro-barreling makes sense.

But does it work? Harsh, new make spirit needs time in the barrel to mellow out, among other things. Esters, which are flavor compounds formed during fermentation, continue to form during the aging process, adding even more complexity in a spirit. But, logically speaking, less spirit is interacting with this wood, so acceleration is a fact. Let’s see what the club thinks…

Group Review

Nose – Soft spice. Polished wood. A bit of corn ethanol and vanilla as it opens up.
Taste – Oaky, but some herbal, medicinal notes like ginger. Sweet, candied notes teased.
Finish – Short length with burst of wood and ethanol.
Comment – Woodinville’s Rye blew us away. We’re not so sure of the bourbon. The oak is active here due to the micro-barreling, and that’s a positive for sure, but it drowns out everything else. Out of balance, perhaps. Not all of us agreed on everything, we suggest you give this one a shot and see where you land.

Rating – 76/100

Individual Comments

Jim – Micro barreling is the thing these days, sure, but I think it’s hurting more than helping. Lack of harmony and serious flavors. Lovely taste, finish is promising, but nose is confusing.

Doug – Eh. Rather bland. Perhaps I was spoiled by our last bourbon outing. Not exceptionally smooth, not exceptionally pleasant. Not something I would sit and enjoy over an evening. More like something I’d try, then down it as fast as possible to get to something I’d enjoy more. The micro barreling is interesting, but in my limited experience, and it is quite limited, I haven’t seen its benefits for anything other than lining the distillery’s bank

Ian – This is another 50/50 for me. Great nose, so-so taste, solid finish with no surprises. I would take the Woodinville Rye over this in a heartbeat, but I would take this over many other bourbons. Try it out and see what you think.

Ken – This was a smooth bourbon, actually too smooth to the point of being disappointing. I expected more excitement for my palate after nosing spice, ethanol and vanilla. It got bland. Perhaps the problem with minimal aging.

Check out more from The Spokane Whisky Club HERE

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CASK STRENGTH, TRITICALE, PORT FINISH WHISKIES ALONG WITH OUR 2ND RELEASE OF BOURBON.

On Dec. 1st we will be releasing 3 brand new products including our 2nd Batch of Washington Straight Bourbon 101. We will open at 10 am and product will be sold first come first served. Everything will be sold in 375 ml bottles (pints). There will be several retailers around the State who will also be selling these bottles, please check the posted list on Facebook. Here is a break down on what we will be selling….

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As I walked into the Montgomery Distillery, I was greeted with a large open room with the bar on one side and tables throughout. There was a group of business people conducting a meeting at one of the large tables, and another group of nursing students who appeared to be studying for an upcoming test. Both groups had drinks in front of them which really showed the culture of this place, and it was fantastic.

As I approached the bar, I was greeted by two wonderful smiles asking how I was doing today. I said, “much better now”. We started off with a sampler of their vodka (the only liquor they have available for consumption at this time). It was very chilled and had a great flavor, something you don’t always get with unflavored vodka. It was smooth to the taste and quite enjoyable.

Next, we were handed a menu of cocktails they offer made from their vodka and other fine ingredients. The bar tenders were knowledgeable about their products and pretty passionate about making quality drinks. I started off with a Honeybee Highball which consisted of Quick Silver Vodka, Arlee honey shrub, lemon juice, soda water and rosemary sprig. It was a much different tasting beverage than anything I’ve had before but I tell you what, it was a good different. It had such a unique taste to it, which grew on me with each sip. A customer next to me explained that he feels he should have some easter eggs in front of him as the smell reminded him of dying eggs. Don’t let that fool you though, it was a great flavor.

Within our group we sampled most of the drinks they offered and one of my favorites was the Indian Summer, consisting of Vodka, lime juice, agave syrup, muddled strawberry and jalapeño. It started off with a delicious fruity flavor and ended with a mild spicy jalapeño flavor that left you in a state of amazement. I couldn’t get enough of this drink, I wish we could have more than 2 drinks a day (state law).

While consuming these fine beverages, the owner, Ryan Montgomery was nice enough to offer me a tour of the production area located in the basement. He walked us through the entire process of making vodka and what his hopes and aspirations were for the distillery. His passion is to make a quality whiskey, which he knows takes time and doesn’t want to rush the process just to get product on the shelves. He is going to do it right and age the whiskey appropriately, which sadly means, we are at least three years away from tasting any of the Missoula made whiskey. In the meantime, we will be able to enjoy their vodka and their gin, which is a few weeks out as they perfect the floral flavoring.

I learned a lot about the process of making vodka, whiskey and gin and can’t thank Ryan enough for taking time out of his busy schedule to show me around. I’m also looking forward to participating in one of the upcoming bottling parties.

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Whiskey has a long tradition with flavoring. Specifically, infusing wine flavoring by “finishing” whiskey in a previously used wine barrel adds a nice sweetness. The Scots love to use Sherry and Port wine barrels to finish their single malts, and the results are often wonderful. But American whiskey? We’ve never really concerned ourselves with it, to be honest. You rarely see a wine finished spirit made in America, so naturally, Dry Fly got to work on one of their own.

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It’s always fun to see a craft distillery, relatively new on the scene, tackle something other than Vodka or Gin, or even some base level whiskey, and decide to go for that great old chestnut known as American Bourbon. Keep in mind that this spirit is a few hundred years old with generation after generation of distilling history closely attached.

Arguably, to even get to a decently aged Bourbon you have to at least start at four, maybe five years of age to get a mellow, flavorful and interesting result. In other words, if you want to make something with quality that can compete in a crowded marketplace, you better roll your sleeves up because you have a challenge on your hands. Dry Fly Distilling just calls that “fun.”Dry Fly released a short time ago their first batch of Bourbon 101, their first new release since Dry Fly Wheat Whiskey in 2009.

We have some Bourbon snobs in the club that know this spirit inside and out, but rather than being skeptical, we were quite frankly excited to try it for reasons already stated. In terms of the mashbill we are looking at 60% corn, 20% wheat and 20% malted barley. At a mere three years old, and with a standard barrel size by the way (check out the trend of micro barrel use in the industry, our hosts are strongly against it), Dry Fly distilled a spirit which at least in terms of harshness vs. smoothness defies its age. What about flavor, though? Your humble correspondents of the SWC offer our opinions…

Nose- Sweet corn everywhere with hints of vanilla and traces of oak.Taste- Buttery corn sweetness, hint of smooth sugar and vanilla.

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We start our look into Montana’s Roughstock Distillery with their standard Whiskey bottling. You will see it today on the shelf as “Pure Malt” due to this whiskey being 100% Malted Barley. We are seeing this mash bill show up more and more in the American Craft Distilling world in distinction from the traditional mashbills of Bourbon, and we are always interested in how a particular distillery expresses it.

In the case of Roughstock, they want their whiskies to reflect the character of Montana, or, it’s terrior (the influence of a given area’s geography). Every ingredient in every step of the process originates in Montana. So I suppose we just drank Montana. Nice. We start off with their whiskey, enjoy!

By the way, I don’t think we have been farther apart on a spirit than with this one. We have added member comments so you can see where we stand on these reviews.

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A local Spokane Clothing designer Shaun Rhames has created a very unique and versatile Reversible Necktie. The proceeds of this design will go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The idea and inspiration of this design came after Shaun’s mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer last year. She is now cancer free, and a Breast Cancer Survivor.

“Breast Cancer Awareness” month is in October, and Shaun is taking Pre-Orders NOW for $39.99. Please contact us if you are interested in supporting this amazing cause.

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