Throne Reads & Bottles: Stuff I Wrote In January

January was not the most productive month for me, and I’ve got a raft of excuses for it. I was down with the flu for half the month. Once I finally recovered, New York and much of the country was gripped with a seemingly never-ending wave of gonad-numbing cold that made the idea of doing anything except huddling under a blanket and drinking tea that much more daunting. And then there was the state of the country, which was a little… distracting. It made writing about booze seem kind of irrelevant, to be honest.

But you know, don’t we all need a drink now more than ever (I’ll take my dram neat, please, because f*** ICE)? And couldn’t we use something good to read that isn’t social media or the newspaper? So with that in mind…. check out my writeup at Forbes of two of the best new booze books on which you can feast your eyeballs. Matt Pietrek & Alexandre Gabriel do the deep dive into Royal Navy and London Dock rum, while Robin Robinson pens an overview on the history of whiskey. A big subject, but Robinson breaks it down into 1-2 page sections that, as I noted in my review, make the book a great bathroom read. Fortunately, Robinson not only appreciated my sentiment but ran with it, promoting it online as the ideal “throne read.” I’m sure the rum book is a great john tome as well, though I didn’t mention it. Anyway, link is -> HERE <-.

I also wrote up a new whisky from one of my favorite distilleries, namely Bruichladdich, on the rocky shores of Islay. It’s 18 years old, it’s aged in a crazy variety of casks, and it’s pretty damn tasty. Want to find out all the relevant details, including the name? Check out my article at Food & Wine. Link is -> HERE <-.