Drink with Me! Balcones Texas Pot Still Bourbon

In this episode, Jesus and Murdina drink the Pot Still Texas Bourbon offering from one of their faves, Balcones!

It's a high-rye (according to Jesus...no confirmation on mashbill from Balcones, but trust in Jesus on this one), grain-to-glass bourbon using real Texas Blue Corn, Texas Rye, Texas water and probably Texas glass for the bottles. It's a Tex-up! 2 years aged, good for cocktails, just as good neat.

Find out what just one listener can make Murdina do with the perfectly placed Twitter comment. Listen as Jesus and Murdina fish for attention for all their fan-boy and girling of Balcones...isn't it time Jared, the Balcones Master Distiller, at least shared his cool t-shirt collection with us?

Murdina rants about whisky stones, we discover how AM/PM is unexpectedly flying the flags of excellence and we share the best (and worst) date idea ever.

And of course, we drink a little Balcones Bourbon!

Drink with Me! Kilchoman Machir Bay

Join Jesus and Murdina as they drink Kilchoman (pronounced "kill-hoe-man") Machir Bay. They cover the fascinating story of the first new distillery on the island of Islay in 124 years, as they celebrate Feis Ile (the mega-festival on Islay), which they couldn't actually attend this year. They try not to let that make them bitter...and they succeed!

Murdina shows off her Gringa Lass pronunciation of a variety of Scottish words, and Jesus advises against sticking your nose right into a whisky glass like "some kind of cartoon bird," right before he does it anyway. Murdina nearly has to call the paramedics.

Our former intern, Peet, is having her ups and downs at the sewing machine factory, poor thing. Bless her heart.

Jesus imagines the verbal threats hurled at sprouted barley before it gets dried and the best he can come up with is "You're going to be whisky, dummy!"

Murdina admits that she doesn't have any murdering experience, as such, but then reveals a childhood secret involving a pre-haunted house in her neighborhood...spooky!

Finally, Jesus and Murdina develop a no-miss competitor to Next Door, and need a little input from their worldwide listeners on what animals your neighbors are most freaked out about.

And they drink and discuss Kilchoman Machir Bay (plus a little note for the package designers. Constructive input, that's all)

Drink with Me Episode 7: Aberlour A'bunadh

One of American Whisky Jesus’s favorite distilleries, Aberlour produces new batches all the time of A’bundah. The word (probably) means “the original” in Scottish Gaelic, and that’s because…well, no spoilers here, but in this episode, we tell the amazing Origin Story of this whisky. It includes some of the most knuckle-headed behavior you can possibly imagine, but there’s a happy ending…

Also Murdina shares her usual candy pairing.

Drink with Me Episode 4: Bruichladdich Islay Barley 2010

We'll be drinking Bruichladdich's truly impressive Islay Barley 2010. Here's how we play the game:

I go and buy a bottle of the whisky I choose (in this case, the Bruichladdich).

You (if you're legal), do the same.

I invite somebody awesome to drink it with me and talk about it, while we drink. You press 'play' on the podcast and drink along with us.  You can't talk to us, but at least we can imagine being together.

In this episode, Murdina ditched me and went on vacation, so I call in the never not funny Arthur, and we get into some mess...and quite a lot of good whisky. Let me tell you, there's nothing like taking down some fine whisky while simultaneously trying to be entertaining and cogent for a podcast to really find out about a person. And that's what we did. The result is, well, you take a listen. It's funny.

And the whisky of course was awesome.

Let's Get this Whisky Party Started...

Whisky is art you can drink! Like art, people have different tastes and opinions, and there's no objective "right and wrong" (although there is such a thing as quality). Also like art, whisky is meant to be enjoyed, appreciated and savored.

Whisky is one of life's true pleasures. You can pound it to get drunk (if you're a Florida State frat boy. No offense, bros.), but that's not really what it's for. It's more than that. Many people don't like whisky, or think they don't and that's ok. Like most great things, it takes a minute to get it.

Photo by twstipp/iStock / Getty Images

But the point is, whisky's not for some elite group, or just guys named Hamish, wearing kilts and smoking a cigar. In my experience, it can be for anybody (of legal age, obviously) who's interested.

Whisky tastes like the land and the water and the air of the places where the barley was grown, the wood of the barrels where the whisky aged. Whisky starts as an idea in a distiller's head and eventually becomes a complex taste of nature and craft, what the old Celts called "the water of life."

My job is to help you love it as much as I do! Your tastes will vary, and I'm more than OK with that. Once, I had the good fortune to spend some time in the Lagavulin distillery, on a tour led by Iain McArthur. We were tasting some really incredible old whiskies, and one of my co-tourists, taking a sip of one of the drams said, "Am I getting a note of coffee in the end?"

Iain, a true whisky saint, looked at the well-meaning Englishman and said, "How do I know? You're the one feckin' drinkin' it, laddie!"

That was the moment of true enlightenment for me. People get particular about the whisky they drink (just as they do wine, beer, coffee and the rest) and that's ok. But the main thing is simply this:

You're the one feckin' drinkin' it, laddie. Or lassie. 

We're here to have fun, drink some whisky, occasionally disagree, and probably say a few things we'll regret tomorrow.

Sound like a party? It does to me. Let's go, my children.