Tabacalera Victor Sinclair - "Serie '55' Imperial Connecticut" [Dominican Republic]

Here's a look at a nice cigar which I smoke regularly, that is quite overdue for examination. It's the third entry in Tabaclera Victor Sinclair's "Serie 55 Imperial" line, and one my brother Dan and I bought when it was first released. He's a big fan of mild, shade-grown tobaccos, and riffing off the "Victor Sinclair Serie 55 White" success, we grabbed these. 

The original "Serie 55" is so named because each cigar is a blend of 5 tobaccos, aged 5 years. I've had almost all (if not all) of the original "Serie 55" cigars - they have a maduro version, a habano, a Cameroon, and a sungrown I believe. I'm having a hard time figuring out what makes the Imperial series different from the regular. Wrapped in a Connecticut shade wrapper and filled with Dominican fillers, this cigar is clean and crisp the whole way through, featuring some nice grassy, somewhat aged flavors. Kind of like parchment paper with a touch of minerality tossed in. Ash burns a light grey, almost white, with some mottling.

At $20 for five, it's a good cigar for the money and a solid everyday smoke. It's pretty creamy, so definitely scratches that Connecticut shade itch while not breaking the bank on a Montecristo. This smoke kinda reminds me of the old Cuvee Blancs, which I really miss. 

____ Brewing Co. - "the key to the bathroom" stout

Today's beer I found kicking around the back recesses of D'Vines, a lonely single can on the furthest shelf of the walk-in. I don't recall seeing this beer, with its slipshod adhesive label, for sale anywhere on the shop floor (or even in the back stock room) in all the time I have been working at the shop. Who knows where this can came from, or when, or why, but it's mine now.

This is the "the key to the bathroom", and is a 10.00% ABV imperial stout made by _____ Brewing Co. I've never seen nor heard of this brewery before, which I learned is pronounced "Blank Brewing", although they style it with a few underscores. The label, which is basically a vinyl sticker, is affixed off-kilter, doesn't really say much. The front has a cool design mostly reminiscent of the old-school early 90's games, and the back has a couple of mushed-together lines of green ASCII text rambles on a bit about the "inspiration" behind the beer, etc.

But wait - it also says on the can, made at Dorchester Brewing Co. Not ____. Well, I know what's up - further research reveals that this brewing company is affiliated with Twelve Percent Imports - very important clue: sometimes, very small breweries don't have the ability to distribute products on a national scale. Maybe not even on a statewide scale. Or maybe they are simply so small that they don't have the brewing capacity to even attempt to distribute beyond their town or county. So they may contract with larger breweries, like Dorchester, to get their brews made and canned. Then, something like Twelve Percent goes out and tries to find these smaller-release beers and provides a conduit through which they can produce and market. And I'm glad they did - _____ has some neat other releases, which I have subsequently seen, including a hazy IPA called "Your favorite IPA on tap. And do you guys sell wine, my girlfriend doesn't like beer."

OK, let's see how this thing is out of the can. Pours thick, generating the darkest brown head I have ever seen. Forget candling this thing, not even going to try.

Surprisingly, it's quite smooth and milky. There's some booziness, i.e. a heavy alcohol sweetness, with deep and full flavor of chocolate milk. There's moderate spice, a bit dry and herbal, with a long baker's chocolate on the finish and a little bit of sweet alcohol. Very heavy and warming, and super tasty!

So according to the back of the label, this beer is inspired by apple and cinnamon breakfast cereal - Apple Jacks, I guess. But having had the beer, I'll have to take their word for it - I'm not getting any of the spices or anything resembling a bowl of cereal, except maybe for the milkiness. But really, this is not at all sweet. I think the most peculiar thing about it is the dryness - a nice divergence from some of the sweet, syrupy stouts out this time of year.

And now for cost/benefit - is it worth four bucks for a 12oz can? Yeah, I think so. It's a "big enough meal", so to speak, to warrant that cost. I'm not sure what format in which it is normally available - four packs? Six packs? Any of which are sure to be in the $20+ range. That might be a bit much, but for a single, it's good to try.  Bottom line - it's a tasty beer, nice and thick, perfect for a snowy winter's day or blustery fall evening.

Laurent-Perrier - NV La Cuvée Brut...Happy New Year!

Happy 2020! For my first post of the year, here's a snapshot of my New Year's Eve Champagne. After a grueling, nonstop, 7-hour shift at D'Vines, I brought home this lovely French sparkling white wine to celebrate the new year. It's a traditional brut Champagne from Laurent-Perrier, the third best-selling label of Champagne after giants Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin and Moët et Chandon. Originally founded in 1812, Laurent-Perrier went through many trials and tribulations, numerous owners and mergers, survived both World Wars, grew and expanded and over time has amassed numerous other holdings and wine labels, and now exports to well over 100 countries across the globe.

How badass is this - during World War II, the scion to the Laurent-Perrier business, Bernard de Nonancourt, joined the French resistance and rose to the rank of sergeant. Although his brother, Maurice, died in a concentration camp, Bernard fought tenaciously and was awarded a Croix du Guerre for bravery. Attached to the famed 2nd French armored division, he assaulted Hitler's Eagle's Nest fortress over Bechtesagaden in Austria and personally blew off the steel doors to Hitler's wine cellar, revealing half a million bottles of wine, including hundreds of cases of stolen Champagne Salon (now produced under Laurent-Perrier) which had been taken by German soldiers in 1940. Bernard returned to France a hero, presumably with less Champagne than he found, and ran the company until his death ten years ago in 2010.

OK, the clock has struck midnight, and out comes the cork to ring in 2020. I shook the bottle a bit and eased the cork out, comes out with a nice pop. Aroma is clean with some apple juice notes.

I'm picking up an interesting blend of flavors here - some fresh fruits, like green apples and pears, coupled with a nice minerality. The texture is off-dry, so a bit softer for a brut, and has a moderate sweetness. Interestingly, it's somewhat creamy, with a touch of peach-style sweetness on the end which is super enjoyable. Aftertaste is minimal and doesn't hold much onto the tongue after swallowing.

Refreshingly sweet and gentle bubbles, it's a bit softer and sweeter than other brut Champagnes I've had, which is nice. I'm not a fan of the super dry and super fizzy bubbly, so this hit the spot. It's not cheap, being sold here at D'Vines for $52.99, but it's worth it if you're looking for a nice Champagne.

Brookeville Beer Farm - "Patterson Footage" sweet potato ale

Well, it's a bit late for a Thanksgiving-themed beer post, but whatever. I'll be quick. Here's an interesting libation from Brookeville Beer Farm, located about twenty miles north of DC in Brookeville, MD. What a fun name for a brewery! I'm imagining that, come harvest time, farmers pulling six packs out of the dirt and holding them up to the light. "Good crop this year, yep," the farmer says as he tosses dirty six packs into his basket for sale at the village market.

I jest. BBF is a farm, though, and they grow much of the ingredients used in their beers. Today's beer is called "Patterson Footage", named after the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, purported to be the most authentic sighting of Bigfoot until it was proven a hoax. Which most of us could probably have told you from the beginning.

This 5.40% ale is made with 200 pounds of sweet potatoes, 100 pounds of toasted pecans, 50 pounds of marshmallows, and 3 gallons of molasses. Wow! It's quite malty, with a moderate sweet potato character. Also, it's somewhat sweet for a beer, reminds me of original Pumking a bit. Might be the marshmallows, there's not much molasses from what I can pick up. Overall a soft, sweet, malty beer and kinda fun. I've had a few sweet potato beers before (one from Ardent and another from Asheville Brewers Alliance as part of the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp series) but this one I think is the most flavorful. Cost-wise, it's $16.99 for four pints. I ended up chatting with a Beer Farm rep one Saturday at the store, and he indicated that this beer was tough for the brewers to make, but they hope to bring it back. I hope they do, too!

Elder Pine Brewing & Blending Co. - "Nordic Brume" IPA

For another entry in the "striking can art" list, enter Elder Pine Brewing & Blending Co., located just outside the Beltway in Gaithersburg, Maryland. I'd never heard of Elder Pine, but we suddenly got a whole stack of their stuff into the store, so gotta try it out.

This beer is called "Nordic Brume" and is a 7.00% ABV IPA made with kveik yeast. Kveik yeast is nothing new to the world - it's just a Norwegian word for "yeast" and in modern contexts refers to a relative-unchanged style of farmhouse yeast untouched by modern cultivation methods. Zach Fowle at Draftmag.com covered it, calling it "the hottest new centuries-old beer yeast you've never heard of." Although a full phylogenetic analysis has yet to be performed, we do know a few notable characteristics of this yeast - it ferments at a super-high temperature, almost 104 degrees F; it ferments in a matter of minutes; the yeast can be reused and dried; and it very quickly drops out of suspension. Because of the high tolerances for heat, some brewers are pushing the limit with this yeast - head beermaker Weedy Wiedenthal, of Tombstone Brewing Co. in Arizona, is quoted in Draftmag saying “I think this yeast is a good candidate for something that will ferment up to 15 or 16 percent ABV."

That's something I'd like to see. Let's crack this open - projects a bright and fresh aroma, lots of zesty citrus.

OK, interesting. From the beer I'm detecting flavors of lime rind, a bunch of fresh citrus zest, passionfruit, and kiwi. Similar to IPAs like Treehouse, but not sugary, though - a critical distinction. I think the biggest thing here is the unusual texture - it's soft, somewhat salty, but at the same time lush. Finish is a bit soft and aftertaste is of passionfruit, thin but present.

I like how it straddles the line between a crisp, West Coast IPA and a full, delicious, hazy New England-style brew. The off-dry texture coupled with the citrus flavors is a nice marriage, and might be nice for someone looking to try a new kind of IPA. Keep an eye out for other breweries that are using this yeast - Väsen Brewing Company out of Richmond has been using Kviek, too.

Southern Tier Brewing Co. - "Pumking Nitro" and "Rum Barrel Aged Pumking"

Well, you almost escaped 2019 without a single pumpkin beer review. I tend to avoid reviewing them because these days, the market is insanely oversaturated and it's almost a cliche. At D'vines, we must have carried almost 20 different pumpkin beers this season. Everyone seems to make one these days, and most are pretty straightforward and without anything to seriously set them apart from the others. However, I'm always on the lookout for new things - or variations on old favorites - so I was excited to see these two from Southern Tier - special riffs on their vaunted "Pumking", the OG of pumpkin beers and the best one on the market in my humble opinion.

First up is their "Pumking Nitro", a 8.60% ABV nitrogenated version of the base beer. For those who may be unaware, "nitro" describes the type of gas used in the carbonation process. Nitrogen can be used in lieu of carbon dioxide to create a creamy, soft texture to the beer. According to John Hall at Craftbeer.com, nitro is most associated with "a certain brewery of Irish heritage hailing from Dublin," aka Guinness, but is being used across the beer world now. It's the same stuff that's in your nitro cold brew coffee.

13.6 fl oz can cracks open with a dramatic hiss, as if under immense pressure. As expected pours super creamy and generates a thick, impenetrable cap of foam.

In terms of flavor - not much different from the base beer. Same moderate pumpkin taste, good backbone of malts and a slightly sweet finish, BUT - the nitro creates a super thick, massively-creamy mouthfeel closer to a pumpkin milkshake than a beer. Nitro doesn't work for all beers, but I think this hit the mark for sure. However, for those uninitiated to nitro beers, this is going to be a surprise.

Now let's take a slightly different take - rum barrel aged! This sixtel keg was sitting in the back for a while, and we finally tapped it on Thanksgiving Day.

Oh wow, this beer has a BIG rum character. It's not super sweet, and in fact, a touch bracing - reminds me of a white rum. The pumpkin is there, a touch of spice, but some of the more nuanced spice notes present in the original have given way to a woody bite and a big white sugar punch. And interestingly, it's not super boozy either. There's a high amount of alcohol, but it's not as heavy and sweet as many other beers in class. I'm always impressed by these super-heavy beers that manage to hide the alcohol, and this is no exception.

Bonus - they even did a cold press version, which I had as well. Much lighter but definitely picking up on the coffee. I hope they do more versions of this next year!

Clos Chapon - 2016 Vouvray chenin blanc

You may have seen today's wine on a menu somewhere and wondered, what the heck is "Vouvray"? Well, Vouvray isn't a grape - it's a village in France, located in the Touraine district near the city of Tours, in the famed Loire Valley. Vourvray enjoys its own AOP, or Appellation d’Origine Protégée. According to WineFolly.com, Appellation d’Origine Protégée  is a system of classification of French wines, first developed in 1936 by Baron Pierre Le Roy who also founded the regulatory board for wine in France (called INAO). AOP is essentially a hierarchical system of rules and regulations that determine where the wines are produced, what they are made of and their level of quality. Apparently, the more specific the region is, the higher the rank.

Vouvray is, however, also a general term used to describe wines made in the vicinity, and like all wines that bear the name, today's wine is of 100% chenin blanc. Chenin blanc is a white grape and rather nice - I've had it many times. It's common in France, but the colonial Dutch were so enamored with it that now it's actually one of the most prolific grapes in South Africa (Indaba makes a tasty bottle, which we sell at D'Vines - 2 for $20.)

So on to the main attraction - today's Vouvray is produced in the Clos Chapon vineyard, a small hilltop plot in Vouvray. Note - this bottle says "sec" - dry, in French - and is the driest of the Vouvrays (Vouvray follows a similar sweetness scale as Champagne, as explained in my August 2018 post.) I grabbed this at Total Wine in Manchester, CT, for $17.99.

Pours a pale gold color, quite pretty. On the nose, I'm getting intense fruit - pear, peaches, nectarines.

Ah, very nice. So what's most striking about this is the full floral flavors - probably the floweriest wine I have had. There's not much minerality at all, and instead presents flavors of white flowers, peach, pear, and a touch of fresh dates (think the kind that come drenched in honey.) There's no oak, no tang, just soft, sweet flavor. The finish is refreshing and lush and the aftertaste is of pulpy peach.

In general, I love wines from the Loire Valley - it's a huge region with lots of different types of wine, including some awesome sauvignon blanc - however, quite the contrast from this Vouvray. We paired this with hot Indian curry, and I felt the sweetness and floral nature of the wine contrasted nicely with the masala. Additionally, this wine would be great for someone who may want to stray away from the oaked Chardonnays and would like a fruitier, more floral wine that won't break the bank.