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Exploring America’s Beer Trends: How and Where People are Enjoying Brews this Summer
July 25, 2024Chris Crowell
Beer is the vibe of summer 2024, confirmed. New Morning Consult research conducted on behalf of the Beer Institute shows that two-thirds of Americans (66%) opted for beer in the past three months, exceeding wine (54%), liquor (50%) and cocktails (43%).
“Summer in America wouldn’t be complete without a cold, crisp beer in hand, whether you’re enjoying the beach, firing up the grill, or cheering on your favorite team,” said Brian Crawford, president and CEO of the Beer Institute. “Beer is more than just a beverage—it’s woven into the fabric of our culture and brings Americans together. With 40% of beer sales happening between Memorial Day and Labor Day, we know beer is bringing family and friends together throughout the summer to enjoy beer responsibly.”
The poll was conducted online, June 11-12, 2024, among a sample of 2,087 adults aged 21 or older.
But what kind of beer? Here are some other insights from the Beer Institute polling on how Americans are enjoying beer this summer:
FYI: These beer drinkers also see the beer industry as a driving force in the American economy. Respondents report that the beer industry benefits the U.S. job market (79%), is supportive of American farmers and agriculture (65%) and is committed to responsible drinking initiatives (63%).
And, they are correct. The U.S. beer industry contributes more than $409 billion to our economy – equivalent to 1.6% of GDP. The beer industry pays more than $132 billion in wages and $63.8 billion in taxes. Nearly 2.4 million American jobs rely on a strong beer industry, including 92,159 brewer and beer importer jobs, 77,847 manufacturing jobs, 137,420 distribution jobs, 52,220 agricultural jobs and 979,805 retail jobs.
So, wherever and whenever you’re tipping back that crisp lager, you’re supporting America. Good job, everyone! USA! USA!
A Revolution in Rum: British Drinkers Embrace Smoother, Luxurious Varieties
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Oregon Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Bringing Vodka and Condom to Underage Sex Sting
U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane accepted the prison term that was jointly recommended by the prosecutor and Vanwormer’s defense lawyer. NJ.com for Canva
While on supervision and wearing an ankle monitor in Deschutes County, Roger Clint Lee Vanwormer communicated online with a purported 14-year-old girl, asked her to share a sexually explicit image and arranged to meet her in Bend.
When he showed up with a bottle of Vodka, a condom and a male enhancement product, Bend police arrested him on July 26, 2021, according to court records.
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July’s Rum Music: Jennifer Lucy Allan’s Expert Review
From the limbo of publication week for her new book, Jennifer Lucy Allan returns to Rum Music with a selection of chaotic harmonica incursions, frantic recorder flourishes, raw and serrated hurdy gurdy, and much much more
A little late on this edition of Rum Music because it is publication week for the book I’ve been working on the last couple of years: Clay: A Human History. Publication week is a strange time – lots of nebulous tasks that don’t add up to a proper list of things to do, the feeling of being on call, for something that is by now old to you, but brand new to everyone else. The book leaves your brain officially and escapes into the world and the excitement of writing it is made fresh again. Eno read this one, and apparently immediately went out and bought some clay, so please do let me know if the same thing happens to you, as people buying bags of clay would be an unintended yet dreamy outcome from this book.
I had leftovers from that project that connected this life (writing on music) with that life (writing on clay) and so I decided to make a zine while the book was at the printers. I say zine, but I got ahead of myself and it turned out to be five zines interviewing five artists and musicians about clay and ceramics in their work, along with nine images and eight fragments, all hand bound and boxed in a screenprinted archive-grade folder, put together with the help of collage wizard Mark Edwards (one half of DR.ME) up at the Islington Mill. We spent about a week printing, folding and stapling. It was a very grounding experience, coupled with mild RSI.
I also wrote a new essay for the sleevenotes of Blume’s reissue of this essential compilation of New Music For Electronic And Recorded Media, which had a subtitle added for its second pressing – Women In Electronic Music. It features a clutch of the greats – Laurie Anderson, Annea Lockwood and Pauline Oliveros, among others, and I wrote quite a personal essay about these women being part of my listening history, and about what it means for me to be able to write about them, and with them now.
Not much I come across has a Still House Plants feel, but this collaboration between singer and musician Theodora Laird recording with bass player Caius Williams tickled that memory, possessed of something like SHP’s intentional looseness and space, buttressed by playing from within a lineage of free improvisation. The bass playing is just terrific, particularly on opener ‘Dummy’, where it is gnarly, growling and keening as it is bowed and slapped. It is the rough that plays off the smoothness of Laird’s vocals (which also appeared on Loraine James’ For You And I) which have a plainness that suits the songs’ in-the-room silences and pauses. They are songs, I guess, sparse and elegant, and not tidied up too much. I am glad they are not cleaned up to studio slickness, with the room still audible, they are possessed of an entrancing immediacy and intimacy.
More on Theodora Laird, Caius Williams
This release out of The Netherlands had me at the track title ‘Who Doesn’t Love A Potato?’, and held me with the chaotic harmonica incursion on ‘Strings Attached’ – you’ll think you’ve got two tabs playing at once. Goldblum are a duo of Marijn Verbiesen (aka Red Brut, and in Sweat Tongue and JSCA) and Michiel Klein from the four piece Lewsberg. The way in which the collaged loops of sound clunk around one another is as if trapped between transitions: they stick then chug, or bend as if deformed by being by a window in hot sun. ‘Fake Ears’ gives me the same feeling as one of my favourite albums of this type, American artist Joseph Hammer’s I Love You Please Love Me Too, in which a loop of the sung phrase “…the water stops…” snags and repeats. It’s nearly annoying, the next phrase never arrives, but in its repetition breaks some structural expectations and transcends irritation to become psychedelic music for thresholds between one state and another. Goldblum does the same, in nonsensical, fairly inexplicably appealing music which I’ve been drawn back to again and again this month.
More on Goldblum
The opening minutes of this release sound like a lost Wuppertal support set in the 1970s, but this album is actually made by two arts students from China much more recently. The duo consists of Jun-Y Ciao and Tao Yi, who were studying together in Germany at the time. The initial sonic onslaught is caustic and eventful, leading into some happily frantic recorder flourishes that begin from about halfway through track one, the instrument squealing under the blasts of breathy energy coming from Ciao.
More on MTDM
I first heard of TOMO early last year, when I saw him playing in a hurdy gurdy duo with Keiji Haino in a tiny venue called Fourth Floor in Tokyo. That was amazing, but this solo album, on the wonderful Knotwilg, is a beast. There are some comparisons to be made with Yann Gourdon, the way both lean into the raw and serrated density of sound it’s possible to generate with a hurdy gurdy, drawing in then distorting traditional forms as on ‘Awkward Bourrée’, (a Bourrée being a traditional French dance). ‘Wheel of Life’ is more lyrical and sparse, sounding in passing moments like Henry Flynt’s ‘You Are My Everlovin”. Don’t sleep on this, it’s gone straight to the top of my (surprisingly large) experimental hurdy gurdy pile.
More on TOMO
Killer out-folk medievalism from morc tapes here, it brings together lots of sound I love, and gives me that feeling of being music from a past on a different timeline. It contains lots of types of playing that I love – there’s a wide-open type of guitar work that reminds me of Jon Collin (but which I think is actually the sound of his home-made dulcimer), and sharp sometimes discordant pipe sounds that I presumed were Wojciech Rusin’s 3D printed pipes but are actually Vandewolken’s own hand-made flutes, based on traditional Dutch instruments. Linus Vandewolken is not his real name, but the moniker of an artist named McCloud Zicmuse, who has also released on Shelter Press.
More on Linus Vandewolken
I interviewed Tomoko for my book on clay and kept her in the fanzine bundle as well. Her work uses a lot of feedback and hydrophones submerged in ceramic bowls filled with water. It’s an instrument inspired by the Carnatic jal tarang – a series of small bowls filled with water to give them different pitches. In this release for GRM, she focuses on a related technique she calls fortune biscuits. Biscuit refers to the still-porous bisque or biscuit fired clay, the fortune refers to the chance operations of this material placed in water, and the sound you hear is from bubbles emanating from the clay in the water. It doesn’t sound like an earthly material though, or even particularly watery (especially in comparison to some of her other work), and instead is crackling and fizzing, like white noise or micro-percussions on metal. Its opening burrs operate at frequencies I find have quite impressively disorienting psycho-acoustic effects, making my skull tingle behind the eyes. It is engrossing in headphones, although was originally intended for the GRM’s Acousmonium, and I would love to hear the many channels of this soundscape for the hadal zone rendered spatially in the concert hall.
More on Tomoko Sauvage
AOB
I managed to write a whole entry on just the first track from this forthcoming release before I could even get hold of the rest of it as an advance promo, after becoming instantly ensconced in the first moments of Allan Gilbert Balon’s ‘Stella Maris’ from The Magnesia Suite. It is a recording of organ and voice made inside a church, its architecture responding to the singer with a sweet surrounding cumulus of resonance and delay. These acoustics are such that the church becomes a third instrument, or an outboard, lifting some louder, or higher pitched intonations into the heavens, an effect exaggerated by the recording, which is made at a distance. The voice when it soars to meet the rafters is just exquisite. The rest of the album is out in September, including a deluxe edition which comes with a handmade score, a sculpture, and a short film, but I couldn’t hold off writing about this till then.
Cheers to S for alerting me to the reissue of CHBB, a Liaisons Dangereuses side project that previously existed across some unobtainable cassettes by Beate Bartel (also of Matador, Neubauten) and her LD bandmate Chris Haas (DAF). Here they are brought together onto a single LP. It’s meaty.
On that note, there’s also more Sprung Aus Den Wolken out:
Jenifer Lucy Allan’s new book Clay: A Human History is published tomorrow (25 July) via White Rabbit, and available here.
Vintage Wine Estates Declares Bankruptcy: Begins Asset Liquidation Process
Vintage Wine Estates Inc., a Santa Rosa-anchored producer of Ace Cider and wine brands B.R. Cohn, Girard, Clos Pegase and Viansa, on Wednesday announced it has filed for Chapter 11 reorganization as it has increasingly struggled in recent months to pay debts.
The filings in Bankruptcy Court are intended to “establish a fair, structured process for VWE to address outstanding debt obligations while the business pursues the sale of its assets,“ the company said in the news release. Vintage is looking for the ”sale of all or substantially all“ of its assets.
The company said it “experienced negative financial headwinds that severely impacted its liquidity position. In response, the Company explored several solutions to overcome these challenges, with the monetization of all assets being the most viable path forward to maximize value.”
The latest to be sold to pay down debt is Napa Valley’s Cosentino Winery at 7415 St. Helena Highway Yountville. The real estate and equipment for the Napa Valley facility were sold to Gene Wines LLC on Friday for $10.5 million.
As of March 31, the company had about $475 million in assets and $400 million in liabilities, according to a court filing by Seth Kaufman, CEO.
Chief among those liabilities was around $310 million Vintage still owed on secured lines of credit from BMO Bank at the time of the Chapter 11 filings, Kaufman said. His 45-page document recounted the company’s rapid growth through acquisition in recent years, impact of the pandemic on the wine business overall and Vintage’s restructuring strategy put into place in early 2023.
The company in late 2022 had obtained commitments for $458 million in credit lines from Bank of the West, which BMO acquired. But some of those commitments were reduced by $83 million in October of last year after four changes that gave Vintage more time to provide financial records and other information required.
Last September, Vintage brought in investment banker Oppenheimer & Co. to explore takers on three options: find a buyer for all or most of the assets, find an investor for a minority stake or sell individual brands or assets.
When that wasn’t successful, Vintage in January of this year ratcheted up its restructuring plan, including layoffs of 15% more workers on top of the 4% job cuts six months earlier. The company also committed to focusing on “super premium-plus” estate wineries such as Girard, Kunde, B.R. Cohn, Laetitia and Firesteed.
Former executive Karla Reed on Wednesday reflected on the news of the Chapter 11 filing. Reed, now co-founder of boutique Sebastopol vintner Wild Rising Wines, had been working for the company and its predecessor from 2010 until rounds of layoffs early last year. For the last four years, Reed was vice president of finished goods supply chain.
“It’s a sad day for Vintage Wine Estate employees who have worked so hard over the years to build a strong company and see it fall,” Reed told The Press Democrat.
This past March, Vintage brought in GLC Advisors and GLC Securities to find who might bid on company assets before or after a filing for reorganization, Kaufman said in the document.
“Quickly, however, it became apparent that the Company was unlikely to succeed in monetizing the majority of these assets through an out-of-court process, although it was able to close the sale of its Cosentino assets prepetition,“ Kaufman said.
Vintage’s challenges with liquidity continued this year. In February, the company entered the first of multiple forbearance agreements with its lenders that extended payment deadlines, waived previous breaches in requirements to submit financial documents, adjusted interest rates and reduced the credit line by $20 million.
The most recent forbearance agreement was set to expire this Wednesday, July 25. Last Thursday, July 18, the credit agreement was amended for a fifth time, with an advance of $7.5 million.
Vintage also filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission to delist its stock, traded on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbols VWE and VWEWW.
The Vintage Wine Estates portfolio has over 30 wine, spirits and cider brands including luxury and “lifestyle” wines. The company owns and leases about 1,850 acres of vineyards and operates 11 wineries and nine tasting rooms, according to court documents. It employs more than 400 employees in 15 states.
Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction and real estate. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.
Press Democrat wine writer Peg Melnik contributed to this report.
AI Gone Wild: Watch a Cat Drink Beer and Grow Hands with Runway’s AI Video Generator
– Jul 24, 2024 10:12 pm UTC
In June, Runway debuted a new text-to-video synthesis model called Gen-3 Alpha. It converts written descriptions called “prompts” into HD video clips without sound. We’ve since had a chance to use it and wanted to share our results. Our tests show that careful prompting isn’t as important as matching concepts likely found in the training data, and that achieving amusing results likely requires many generations and selective cherry-picking.
An enduring theme of all generative AI models we’ve seen since 2022 is that they can be excellent at mixing concepts found in training data but are typically very poor at generalizing (applying learned “knowledge” to new situations the model has not explicitly been trained on). That means they can excel at stylistic and thematic novelty but struggle at fundamental structural novelty that goes beyond the training data.
What does all that mean? In the case of Runway Gen-3, lack of generalization means you might ask for a sailing ship in a swirling cup of coffee, and provided that Gen-3’s training data includes video examples of sailing ships and swirling coffee, that’s an “easy” novel combination for the model to make fairly convincingly. But if you ask for a cat drinking a can of beer (in a beer commercial), it will generally fail because there aren’t likely many videos of photorealistic cats drinking human beverages in the training data. Instead, the model will pull from what it has learned about videos of cats and videos of beer commercials and combine them. The result is a cat with human hands pounding back a brewsky.
During the Gen-3 Alpha testing phase, we signed up for Runway’s Standard plan, which provides 625 credits for $15 a month, plus some bonus free trial credits. Each generation costs 10 credits per one second of video, and we created 10-second videos for 100 credits a piece. So the quantity of generations we could make were limited.
We first tried a few standards from our image synthesis tests in the past, like cats drinking beer, barbarians with CRT TV sets, and queens of the universe. We also dipped into Ars Technica lore with the “moonshark,” our mascot. You’ll see all those results and more below.
We had so few credits that we couldn’t afford to rerun them and cherry-pick, so what you see for each prompt is exactly the single generation we received from Runway.
“A highly-intelligent person reading “Ars Technica” on their computer when the screen explodes”
“commercial for a new flaming cheeseburger from McDonald’s”
“The moonshark jumping out of a computer screen and attacking a person”
“A cat in a car drinking a can of beer, beer commercial”
Will Smith eating spaghetti triggered a filter, so we tried a black man eating spaghetti. (Watch until the end.)
“Robotic humanoid animals with vaudeville costumes roam the streets collecting protection money in tokens”
“A basketball player in a haunted passenger train car with a basketball court, and he is playing against a team of ghosts”
“A herd of one million cats running on a hillside, aerial view”
“Video game footage of a dynamic 1990s third-person 3D platform game starring an anthropomorphic shark boy”
15 Stars Unveils Groundbreaking Whiskey and Timeless Reserve Expressions
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BARDSTOWN, Ky. (July 24, 2024) – Award-winning 15 STARS announces today its newest limited release – Three Kings Fine-Aged Whiskey. This whiskey is a unique blend of premium wheat, rye, and bourbon whiskeys aged 11 and 15 years. 15 STARS is also releasing an updated version of their debut Timeless Reserve expression, now the 13 Year Old Timeless Reserve Fine-Aged Bourbon, a blend of 13 and 15-year-old bourbons. Beginning today, both releases are available for purchase in select retailers across the country as well as online via 15STARS.com.
“We believe with the release of Three Kings that this is the first time someone has ever crafted a blend like this—balancing these three whiskeys, wheat, rye, and bourbon together,” shared Ricky Johnson, co-founder of 15 STARS. “The Three Kings expression truly exemplifies what we strive to accomplish as a brand—always innovating and thinking out of the box to create the very best tasting whiskey we can for enthusiasts across the country.”
Bottled at 107 Proof, aged 11 and 15 years, Three Kings unites the three styles of whiskeys to create an expression that is beautifully balanced and brings forth the best qualities in each component. With notes of baking spice and ripe fruit from the bourbon and wheat, the rye portion is revealed with a hint of ground pepper. On the palate, the expression opens with a dessert sweetness of persimmon pudding and candied fruit, yet remains balanced with an added depth of vanilla and nutmeg gradually emerging to toasted oak, and finishing with dark fruit and honey, giving way to deeper notes of cocoa bean and seasoned oak that remain long after the sip. Winners of the John Barleycorn Awards Blender of the Year in 2023, Ricky and his father, co-founder Rick Johnson, demonstrate their expertise as master blenders with Three Kings.
Three Kings Fine-Aged Whiskey – Aged 15 and 11 Years ($179 MSRP / 107 Proof)
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In addition to the Three Kings release, the 13 Year Old Timeless Reserve Fine Aged Bourbon, bottled at 103 Proof, is also available today for purchase. Longtime fans of 15 STARS may recognize the Timeless Reserve series from when the brand first launched in 2022. Now updated with an age statement of 13 years, from the blend of 13 and 15-year-old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskeys, the Timeless Reserve evokes memories of fresh dessert with a nose of caramel, vanilla bean, and cherry but with an added herbal depth of roasted peanuts, dried tobacco leaves, sassafras, and old wood. The palate is that of creamy sweetness with vanilla extra and molasses, complemented by fruity notes of orange, apple, and dried banana and held up with a strong, earthy backbone of oak and leather. The mature and sophisticated pour finishes with notes of caramel, leather, dark chocolate, and seasoned oak. The previous iteration of the Timeless Reserve was met with much acclaim as a Best in Class finalist at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2022 and featured in Fred Minnick’s Top 100 Whiskeys of 2022 list. The refreshed celebration of the inaugural debut release is sure to see similar fanfare.
“Timeless Reserve was our debut expression when 15 STARS was first available on shelves,” adds Johnson. “It has remained a favorite of ours over the last couple of years and we are so excited for this opportunity to revisit the expression with this updated age statement.”
13 Year Old Timeless Reserve Fine-Aged Bourbon – Aged 15 and 13 Years ($279 MSRP / 103 Proof)
About 15 STARS
15 STARS Fine Aged Bourbon crafts award-winning whiskey with a singular focus on creating luxury blends from their highly aged whiskey stocks. Founded by father and son artisan blenders, Rick and Ricky Johnson, the brand has received over 100 of the world’s most coveted whiskey awards since its debut in 2022, including several “best in class” awards. 15 STARS distills over a dozen different whiskey mash bills in Bardstown, KY, some of which include unique specialty heirloom corn (black, red, white, and blue) that the family grows for its gourmet specialty popcorn business, Black Jewell Popcorn. The 15 STARS portfolio of limited-release fine-aged bourbon is available at select retail locations east of the Rocky Mountains, as well as online at 15STARS.com. The name 15 STARS pays homage to Kentucky as the 15th state with Kentucky’s recognition on the second US flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes which was authorized by President George Washington in 1795. For more information visit 15STARS.com or follow on social at @15STARSbourbon.
Vodka Cruiser and Traffik Unveil New Flavours with a Fusion of Technology and Music
Clemenger Group’s Traffik has unveiled a five-meter-long music installation with 61 speakers and 7500 watts of power to launch the new Vodka Cruiser flavours range.
Dubbed The MixMachine, the unique installation came to life with the help of production powerhouse Made and was centre stage at the flavours launch.
The MixMachine mixes Vodka Cruiser flavours with soda water using vibrations from the music via the built-in speakers.
Traffik creative director Mark Held said: “Everyone knows and loves Vodka Cruiser as a pre-mixed drink. We needed to highlight the new format.”
“And 12-inch sub woofers did the job just perfectly.”
Made This head of creative technology Marie-Celine Merret Wirstrom said: “To materialise the concept, we used cymatics – the study of wave phenomena for sound and their visual representation.
“To get the effect we wanted, we took a lot of time in research and development with all the subject matter experts collaborating very closely. When you blend science, technology, and creativity, a lot of interesting things happen, and this mixing machine was truly one of a kind and a dream project to work on.”
The night was complete with guests being treated to DJ sets by Ayebatonye, Benson, and Winston Surfshirt.
Vodka Cruiser marketing manager Monique Di Gregorio said the creation of the MixMachine installation helped demonstrate just how versatile the new Vodka Cruiser flavours range is.
“Remixed by Music was the perfect way to celebrate the new range of Flavours with our fans, elevating drinks with fun, flavour, and colour,” she said.
Credits:
Client: Vodka Cruiser
Creative and production lead: Traffik
Specialist production and Content: Made This
Influencer + PR: Mango
Cymatics/sound design: Electric Sheep Music
Specialist fabrication: Yipee-Ki-Yay
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Rosie Drew is the senior reporter at Mumbrella. She joined in May 2024.
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Nolensville Residents to Vote on Wine in Grocery Stores Referendum This November
NOLENSVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Nolensville voters will have the power to allow grocery stores to sell wine in November, the Williamson County Election Commission announced.
Resulting from a signature-gathering campaign, the question of whether to allow wine in grocery stores (WIGS) will appear on the town’s ballot in the Nov. 5 general election.
Williamson County Election Administration Chad Gray issued a memorandum confirming that his staff validated enough signatures to meet the petition threshold for the question to appear on the general election ballot. Per state law, a certain minimum number of Nolensville registered voters had to sign the petition in order to get the initiative on the ballot.
PREVIOUS: New Nolensville grocery stores may be unable to sell wine
One group celebrating the referendum’s appearance on the ballot is the Tennessee Grocers & Convenience Store Association.
“Nolensville shoppers are one stop closer to being able to buy wine where they buy their food,” Association President Rob Ikard said in a statement. “We are excited that the Town of Nolensville will likely join the more than one hundred fifth communities statewide that have adopted wine in grocery stores.”
The Williamson County Election Commission is set to approve the petition results at its upcoming meeting, which should be held no later than August 19.
“We are encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive response we received in the petition effort, but it is now up to the voters of Nolensville,” Ikard said. “Those who want to be able to buy their wine where they buy their food must make their voices heard on November 5.”
⏩ Read today’s top stories on wkrn.com
The referendum is timely, as the town recently announced plans for two new grocery stores that would otherwise have not been able to sell wine when they opened. Both Publix and Kroger are currently in the works in Nolensville, with estimations of opening in the next year and a half.
News 2 has reached out to Nolensville officials for comment, but has not heard anything back as of publication.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
Lagavulin Offerman Edition #4 Review: A Caribbean Rum Cask Adventure
Celebrity collaborations in the spirits world are often met with skepticism, but a consensus seems to exist among whiskey enthusiasts and spirits writers that Nick Offerman’s association with Islay’s Lagavulin is a notable exception. The beloved Parks and Recreation actor has been a dedicated Lagavulin enthusiast for decades, long before he entered into any formal partnership with the brand. Offerman’s genuine passion for this particular whiskey is endearing–and lucrative, considering Diageo’s marketing resources. Bringing him onboard officially was an obvious choice when the distillery launched its Lagavulin Offerman Edition series.
So far, there have been three previous Offerman Editions, each focusing on an 11-year-old Lagavulin single malt, positioning it perfectly between the brand’s 8-year and 16-year main offerings. The first edition was a standard Lagavulin single malt, while the second edition underwent secondary maturation in Guinness Stout casks. The third edition ventured into the wine realm with STR casks–wine casks that are “shaved, toasted, recharred.” Now, the fourth Lagavulin Offerman Edition explores the Caribbean with a Rum Cask Finish, inspired by Nick’s time in Puerto Rico while filming Peacock’s underrated psychedelic mystery series The Resort.
Similar to other editions, this whiskey was aged 11 years in a combination of ex-bourbon and sherry oak before an additional 8 months of secondary maturation in Caribbean rum casks of undisclosed origin. It was bottled at a slightly higher strength of 46% ABV (92 proof), which is a bit above average, and has an MSRP of $90. How does the classic, smoke, and peat-heavy Islay single malt scotch profile blend with the rum cask influence? Let’s taste and see.
On the nose, this expression offers a bouquet of rich, sweet smoke, aromatic wood, and vibrant fruitiness. The fruity notes encompass roasted pineapple, lemon, and baked apple, enhanced by hints of cardamom buns and vanilla buttercream. There’s also a maritime character with seaweed-like brine, balanced by seasoned firewood and sweet smoke. The overall intensity of the peat/smoke presence is actually more subdued on the nose than one might expect, especially compared to other Lagavulin products, and it all feels nicely mellowed by the rum cask influence. Overall, it’s a very inviting nose.
On the palate, though, things take a bit more of an aggressive turn. Some of the fruitiness remains, but in more of a poached pear/apple sense, met by more green, briny and spicy character. The smoke that was more mellow on the nose strides to the forefront and is significantly more aggressive, even a little bit harsh at times. I’m getting aromatic wood and lots of toasted spice–especially singed cinnamon stick and black pepper–along with more seaweed like brine. Sweetness up front is moderate, but it’s counteracted by a lingering, prickly, somewhat bitter dimension to the smoke on the palate, which also favors a hot-and-spicy characteristic. In general, I like aspects of this profile–the classic Lagavulin peatiness is certainly present–but I wish that it reflected the more gentle and fruity nature of the nose a bit more. It feels like the nose promises a more exotically transformed Lagavulin experience, but then the palate doesn’t quite take you to where you think you’re going.
All in all, though, lovers of heavily peated Islay single malt scotch whisky will likely still find plenty to love here. It’s not the scotch I would choose as someone’s introduction to peated single malts, but devotees of the style will likely relish the smoky intensity of the palate in particular.
Distillery: Lagavulin (Diageo)
Region: Islay, Scotland
Style: Single malt scotch whisky
ABV: 46% (92 proof)
Availability: Limited, 750 ml bottles, $90 MSRP
Jim Vorel is a Paste staff writer and resident beer and liquor geek. You can follow him on Twitter for more drink writing.
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