My Journey – How I Got Here

How did we come to this? Me, sitting here in my office, surrounded by a whisky collection that has exploded over the last 2+ years of a worldwide pandemic. Now clumsily, and fairly haphazardly, starting up a whisky blog. It’s a question that I kind of know the answer to in my gut, but pretending that I have any degree of confidence in that answer would be a foolish exercise that anyone that knows me would see through in an instant.

In all honesty, there is an urge to minimizing what I am doing.

“Nobody will ever see this.” 

“I’ll probably give it up in a month.” 

These things are certainly possible, and maybe even likely. Yet there is a calling to try and put my thoughts and opinions down on paper. This whole whisky thing has all been a whirlwind. An obsession that took over and has led me down a path of smells, flavors, opinions, blogs, YouTube channels, blind flights, new friends, a depleted bank account, and new global perspectives. I guess I am wise enough to know that I know nothing, but I have that calling to try and sort out everything I have experienced and learned over the last few years and this seemed like the only reasonable route. The story seems kind of boring to me as well, maybe because I was there, or maybe because the story really is boring. But here goes nothing…

I grew up in Wisconsin, in a medium size town right between Milwaukee and Chicago. For those of you unfamiliar with the various cultures found in every individual state in the US, Wisconsin is known for being fond of its alcohol and cheese. Lots of cheese. I am not going to dive into a history lesson here, but  Wisconsin was a center of US beer production at one time, with Miller being the big boy on the block that still has a large presence throughout the state. Wisconsin’s cold winters and short, but hot and humid, summers contribute to alcohol being used both to fight off boredom during the winter and to celebrate just being outside and seeing the sun in the summer. Hence, quantity over quality is a driving force behind the consumption of alcohol. Somebody is always handing you a beer, which makes the proliferation of the American Light Lager somewhat understandable. It’s hard to drink all day if your beer isn’t under 5% ABV.

High proof spirits had a different role to play. Yes, they were used to mix up tasty cocktails like Brandy Old Fashioneds, the State’s claim to fame in the cocktail world. You could order these “sweet” which meant a splash of 7-Up or “sour” which meant a splash of Squirt. But as beer dominated the culture, spirits were mostly drunk as shots to really ramp things up later in the evening, or more sadly, the realm of the sots who couldn’t get what they were looking for from cheap beer anymore.  This applied mostly to the men, as women were free to order whatever mixed drinks they liked, but as big, strong, manly men, we drank beer and took shots and that was usually whiskey. If the girls were involved, you could get away with a lemon drop or tequila shooter, but if it was just the boys a round of whiskey it was. You could choose from the rail whiskey, truly terrible swill that had labels you had never seen before, or if you had a few extra bucks in your pocket you could go for Jack, Jim, or “Jamo”. I usually went for the Jameson. It had an air of quality to it, being imported, and it just went down easier.

Primarily, my journey with booze started when I went to college at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. A very good school, known for its party culture which resulted in it often being ranked #1 by Playboy magazine for that debauchery until they retired the school from the ranking because it won nearly every year. At least that’s the story I heard anyways. Surprisingly, during my time at UW, I had my first awakening to the world of “quality” alcohol. The craft beer scene was burgeoning around the US and a brewery in Wisconsin was quickly gaining steam, New Glarus. Their Spotted Cow cream ale was sweeping across the state. It still tasted like “beer” unlike the IPAs coming out of California, but it was…good? Like…”wow, this is what beer tastes like?” good. A competitor was Blue Moon, a Belgian White Ale that came from Colorado and is owned by Coors. Those were hazy and came with an orange slice which made them a little foreign, and the Wisconsin brewery was closer to home and was frankly considerably better. 

This gave us the go ahead to try some other beers and, for me, it was Guinness that stood out. There was a bar on campus where on Tuesday nights you could get a pint of Guinness for $2. It was probably stale and we joked it might have fallen out of the back of a truck, but we liked it and would “impress” random people by chugging the entire pint in a race to see who was cooler. Spirits, however, were still the realm of getting drunk and doing it quickly. As our tolerances rose, we would drink more of them in various ways with the more liberal campus culture allowing for some exploration into exotic martinis, tiki drinks and discounted mixed drinks for a couple bucks on certain nights of the week at various bars.They were all still bad though, looking back, with the sugar contents masking the cheap ingredients therein.

Post college, there was a bit of a return to the standard Wisconsin drinking culture I mentioned previously, with the exception of Spotted Cow now being a standard everywhere and most bars would proudly advertise “Spotted Cow Sold Here.” I had moved back to my hometown with no real direction on what I wanted to do with my barely earned degree while staring at a mountain of debt. The alcohol helped as a distraction and a reason to get out and not think about the creditor phone calls rolling in daily. Finally, I found a decent job in IT based on my interest in computers and I started digging out of the hole I had created. This also exposed me to some people outside of my normal group and eventually I wound up going to bars with them in towns that were not mine and was introduced to some more quality drinks. I remember Hacker Pschorr being one of the beers (this came with a lemon!) and it was a huge step up from the Blue Moon I knew from college, and I believe I was introduced to Patron as a tequila, not knowing there was another tequila other than Jose Cuervo.

It may be a good time to pause and talk about what I realize now after so many years of slowly building up to my current relationship with alcohol. What is evident today are these “eyebrows up” moments. Moments of realization that there was more out there. That my world was too small and that I had in some ways wasted time, money and liver cells on inferior drinks. Keep in mind that drinking alcohol was still something that was just supposed to be inherent to my existence based on where I lived and who I generally hung out with. I know this doesn’t make me special, but it was something that just seemed destined. People drank booze. People got drunk. It was normal and unless it got out of hand no one was going to judge or bat an eye. It would be more shocking if I didn’t. This seemed to make these moments of awakening more acute as they truly affected my outlook on my life. They threatened to alienate my friends and even extended family to some degree. Simply not drinking the cheap light beer and barely passable whisky would make me look like I thought I was better than them and that I had lost touch. Another realization I had during these times was that once you know the truth, it’s really hard to go back. Once I had Spotted Cow I did not know how I was ever going to enjoy a Miller Lite again, and I knew in my heart that there was no going back. It’s the same with food and cars and so many other things. You get a taste of the good stuff and everything else seems a little more bland. You can taste the added sodium. You notice the slower acceleration. Your department store shirts don’t fit quite as comfortably. It nags at you, always in the back of your mind. You know it could be better.

Back to The Journey. Things only accelerated from here. I got promoted at work and before I knew it, I was traveling on behalf of my company. At first it was mostly up to Canada. We started going out to nicer restaurants, and some of the older coworkers would order wine and specialty spirits that the company would usually pay for. I was in a phase of  just trying new beers as I came across them. I didn’t really know anything about them, I just knew I like trying different things at this point. Some were good, some not so much. I would occasionally accept an offer of a glass of my colleague’s red wine and generally enjoyed it, but I was more focused on my growing interest in beer. Wine was too posh. I could get away with being snobby about beer as long as I accepted whatever beer my friends tossed me without grimacing, but wine was a world I was not prepared to enter lest my social life back home collapse around me. Regardless, I was being introduced to new foods and drinks, and I had a little money in my pocket. A far cry from a few years earlier where I was selling belongings to go out for some cheap drinks with my friends.

I should mention that during all of this, I would occasionally buy myself a bottle of “nice” alcohol or order something more expensive at a bar. You see, I liked the idea of drinking high end spirits at this stage (high end being $40 a bottle at the time). However, I rarely found myself actually enjoying them. I didn’t get it, at least not like beer. I would usually just revert to mixing them into drinks or letting others drink them up and say they were living the high life at the party we were at. I now know that most of those were only “high end” because the marketing department said so, and I didn’t know how to drink them properly anyways. My cocktail making skills were non-existent and if it wasn’t making a terrible martini, I just did what I saw in the movies: pour into a tumbler and drink.

We wrapped up our work in Canada and the next target was Australia. We were deploying software and training employees on how to run their businesses on the new application. This is where I met Russell who traveled from California. He took me to a Belgian beer bar and introduced me to sour beers which, at the time, I absolutely loved. He also talked about IPAs and other craft breweries which intrigued me. Coinciding with this discovery, an Australian colleague of mine who I spent a lot of time with over my 7 straight weeks there introduced me to his favorite scotches. I knew the word “scotch” and that it was whisky, but I didn’t know what specifically made something a scotch. I had previously ordered a Macallan 12 at some point in a bar that my friend’s brother worked at because he insisted it was one of the best whiskies in the world. I hated it. I also think I ordered shots of Johnnie Walker Black at a bar at some point because they were on special, which I immediately determined was a mistake. My Aussie colleague, Robin, first ordered us a Talisker 10 year and upon bringing the glass up to my nose I was intrigued. What the hell? Why does it smell like a campfire? Still I reached down into my manhood and took a sip. I am not going to say that I liked it, but there was something there. It was interesting. Harsh and burn-y, yet alluring. I declared that it was good and made my way through the dram. Another American co-worker agreed although I do not know if he was telling the truth.  At this point Robin announced that if we thought that was good, then we needed to try another scotch whisky, which was his favorite: Lagavulin 16. I honestly don’t recall if I liked the Laga better than the Talisker, or if I could even tell the difference, but the Lagavulin name stuck with me.

A couple years later, our travels sent us to the UK. I was spending a couple weeks at a time driving around England learning how to drive on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road. That company sure did have faith in me. I only hit a few curbs and after a few two week long trips I was swearing at people for not knowing how to drive. Bloody idiots. At some point I was staying in a small town in the north of England running one of our deployment and training sessions. My aforementioned coworker Russell was doing the same up in Edinburgh. We had a few days between classes and decided to meet up in Glasgow for a long weekend. We made the decision early on that if we were going to be in Scotland, we had better drink some scotch. I believe we asked the folks at the hotel about local whisky bars, and we were directed towards a pub called The Pot Still which was within walking distance of our hotel. 

Upon entering The Pot Still, we were greeted with a wall of whisky. 500+ bottles of Scotch and other assorted golden goodness. It was beautiful, even though neither of us really knew what we were looking at. After clumsily asking the bartender for recommendations, we went back to an open table and began exploring our whisky. I do not remember what drams we had while we were there. I do not even really remember if I enjoyed the whiskies. I do remember getting pulled into a trivia night and having the bar erupt into cheers if us two Americans actually managed to get a UK/EU related question correct. We had a blast and I will always remember that day. The rest of the short trip went about as well and I ended up coming home with a few bottles of Scotch. I still didn’t know if I liked it, but I was certainly caught up in that pesky idea that I wanted to like it. I remember the bottles I came home with relatively well. All were recommended by shop owners or bartenders. A Hart Brothers Mortlach 14 year, a fairly early batch of Aberlour A’Bunadh, the aforementioned Talisker 10 year and an early release of Kilchoman Machir Bay. An eclectic selection if I may say so myself, if not beginner friendly. I also bought a bottle of Lagavulin 16 once I returned to the States. Notice I also loosed up on the wine stance while in Australia and being introduced to Shiraz.

Unfortunately, these whiskies again fell on deaf ears, I assume to the sincere chagrin of many whisky enthusiasts out there. I just couldn’t get into them. Again, I moved on both figuratively and literally. In fact, most of these bottles were left partially full with my brother when I moved across the country to the West Coast. I was California bound, looking for that “more” I had come to desire so deeply. That need that lurked deep down. There was more out there, and I was going to find it.

By the time I arrived in California in 2014, I was a full blown craft beer enthusiast. I wouldn’t call myself a nerd nor a geek, because I frankly didn’t care how the beer was made, or what flavor notes particular strains of hops imparted. I just like trying new beers and marveled at the range of flavors and styles you could experience. My understanding of what beer was and could taste like had expanded massively and I couldn’t get enough. I won’t dwell on this too much other than to reiterate I was hooked on flavor, and through Facebook, I was able to find some like minded people who became friends, giving me my first taste of community around a hobby that I had struggled to convert friends to for years.

Let’s finally get into the meat of this tale. You see, I moved to California without a job. I had quit a stable, long time job in Wisconsin, the same one that had taken me all over the world, and just said I would figure it out. I did, getting a job about a month after arriving through a former colleague. I was hired as a contractor but about three months later they converted me to full time and I was going to celebrate as my gamble had paid off. I went to the local BevMo and my desire to like whisky brought me to the scotch section, specifically the glass case. I perused their offerings and I went past the Glenfiddichs and Glenlivets which I knew were “cheaper” brands. I saw a few I had never heard of and then my eyes fell on something familiar. A bottle of Macallan 18, priced around $225 if my memory serves. I knew the brand, and I thought back to that glass of Macallan 12 that I didn’t like very much a few years back. It was supposed to be an amazing whisky, unlike those “budget” brands. I decided that I was the problem and I needed to get this bottle to prove myself wrong. Plus, it would look good when I posted a picture to social media.

Upon arriving home I went out on the balcony with my prize and a tumbler and poured a glass, snapped a photo, and posted to Facebook about my accomplishment. Upon first sip I realized that I still did not get it. It just tasted like whisky and another disappointment, this time one that cost me over $200. I powered through however as I was not going to admit to anyone that I did not like it. One thing I had realized at this point is that the one thing I liked less than a neat pour of whisky was a pour of whisky over ice. I truly despised cold, watered down scotch and honestly, that hasn’t changed much. I am not sure how long it took to finish that bottle but it was certainly a couple years. I was gifted a bottle of Balvenie 21 Portwood, which here in the US is bottled at 43%, for Christmas one year from my brother around this time. I like that one better than the Macallan but still didn’t fully connect with it.

Throughout all of this I must have given off the impression that I was into whisky. I was gifted the aforementioned bottle of Balvenie and soon thereafter my boss began giving me bottles for Christmas gifts. I distinctly remember him giving me a bottle of Stranahan’s American Single Malt whisky and said “You’re a whisky guy right? You’ll like this one.” Uh yeah…sure. I get home and decide to open the bottle up and have a taste. 

Boom.

Liquid caramel in a glass and absolutely delicious.I had done it. Finally, I had found a bottle of whisky that I enjoyed drinking and it did not take all that long for me to finish the bottle. I promptly went out and bought another. He also gifted me a bottle of E.H. Taylor Straight Rye the next year which I enjoyed as well and went out to buy a bottle of that. I found one and bought it, and I have not seen another bottle on a shelf since. The hits kept coming when I left for another company and went to a team Christmas party where I was introduced to Hibiki Harmony, a Japanese whisky which I do not believe I was aware existed prior to that evening. I went out to the store that weekend and found myself a bottle. I remember asking the store owner for the Hibiki and he said “I assume the Harmony?” Looking down I saw a bottle of the 17 year old and noticed the price tag. I sheepishly answered “Yes, the Harmony.” Still, I had a whisky collection going. I set up my half dozen or so bottles on a little cabinet I had in my home office and busted out the whisky glasses my mom had gifted me at some point and set them up alongside my bottles. Again, people thought I loved whisky at this point and I am not sure why. I was, however, starting to learn and it was fun. I was enjoying my whisky although I was only pouring a glass or two a week and still not anywhere near where I am now in terms of understanding and enjoyment. 

That changed one night as I was sitting at my computer watching YouTube. I am not sure how I came across them, but I found a series of videos featuring The Whiskey Tribe and Modern Rogue describing how to enjoy whisky. They went over how to read bottle labels, the differences between scotch and bourbon, how to smell and taste, etc.. I was enthralled. I immediately started watching more of their videos and wrote down different whiskies that they and the community recommended. I took my list and headed out to Total Wine and found a handful of their recommendations and brought them home.

I was hooked and there was no looking back. However, a mere 6 months later the world changed seemingly in an instant. My collection had been slowly expanding and I had joined a local whisky Facebook group, although I hadn’t gotten the chance to meet anyone in person yet, and COVID made sure that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. And so, I was alone in my journey once again. Or was I? YouTube, Facebook, online tastings, Reddit, blogs, review sites…I wasn’t alone after all. It also didn’t take long for liquor stores to be considered ‘essential’ in California and I had an excuse to go outside. I could leave my apartment, get in my car and drive around to local liquor stores and not be cooped up all day. Of course, my collection began to grow quickly once that started up and I had plenty of free time at home to indulge my new passion and an unending supply of online content to consume.  

At this stage, the bourbon craze had swept me up and I was experiencing all the intense FOMO that has become synonomous with being a whisky enthusiast. I had never tried these rare and expensive whiskies, but holy crap did I want to. I managed to find a few in my travels, but I probably was not ready to fully appreciate them. I told myself I loved them, however that was almost certainly my brain convincing itself that was the case. I was learning though, and I was truly enjoying the process. Eventually after moving to Colorado, I realized that chasing bourbon was just not fun. I was disappointed too often and the negative feelings I was experiencing were just not worth it. I made a decision after missing out on a bottle of Stagg Jr. that I was going to focus on scotch and if I found good bourbon along the way, then great. I quickly fell in head over heels and have not really looked back. I still love my American whiskies, but scotch is my baby. When asked if I prefer bourbon or scotch (a completely unfair comparison given bourbon’s restrictions in manufacturing) I tend to say that bourbon is my comfort food and scotch is my Michelin Star restaurant.

 I was now enjoying whisky more than anything I had gotten into in a long time. Maybe ever. I wanted to know how whisky was made, I wanted to know the differences between styles and distilleries, and I wanted to know about the people who made it. I never cared about that stuff w

hen it came to my craft beer obsession, which had raged unabated over the 6 years I spent in California. I now realize that not only did I love tasting new things and discovering flavors, but I liked the friends and characters I met along the way as well. But whisky was more than that. I always knew I wanted to love it, and my repeated disappointments were brutal. But for whatever reason I never gave up. At times I have wondered if I made whisky in a past life or something. Nothing has grabbed me quite like the wide and wonderful world of scotch, bourbon, rye, Irish and all the amazing world whiskies that are out there to discover. The history, diversity, community, characters, politics, and the booms and busts just make for a story Hollywood could never invent.   

Whisky is also art. The bottles, the (often ridiculous) packaging, the carefully and romantically written (and equally ridiculous) marketing blurbs, and of course the liquid in all its glorious shades of ambers, golds, reds, and browns. Whisky is also an amalgamation of the most intense characteristics of humanity. Beautiful, ridiculous, and capable of destruction if not given the proper respect. It’s all natural, but often tampered with to appeal to the widest audience. Cosmetically enhanced based on social constructs and what some think the rest of us want. It goes through good times and bad, is loved and then neglected, and the longer you leave it in an environment of positive influence the more it matures into something amazing. Maybe that’s why we love it so much and why rebellions and trade wars have been fought over it. Whisky is us in so many ways. One of our greatest inventions all derived from the Earth and its bounties. It sings to us, it binds us and it makes our stories so much more interesting. We romanticize those who make it and have created heroes out of the outlaws that kept it alive.

My story continues here in Colorado where I am running out of space for more whisky but I have some friends to share it with now that COVID has loosened its iron grip. I need to talk about it and to put my journey out there to some degree. I am too excited about where this has taken me and where I know I have yet to go. I can’t get enough and frankly do not want to. It took 36 years to find my passion, but I found it and I need to share it. Now approaching 40, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer to “know what I am talking about.” So educate me. Let’s chat.