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APRIL 2013

Dear friend of fine spirits,

It’s our annual sale. Feeling weakened by the depredations of the IRS?  Here’s relief: 10% off every item in the catalogue, 15% for 12 or more bottles. Some suggestions:

Low Gap clear Rye whiskey. This product is unreal. Paul Pacult’s Spirit Journal gave it the 5-star rating: “if not the finest white whiskey I’ve tasted, damn near”. If there’s a better whiskey under 10 years old, we’d like to know it.

Pacult also thought highly of the recently-released Russell Henry gins, two 5-star and one (Lime) 4-star awards. The Ginger “finishes like silk”; the Lime is “seductively citrusy”; the London Dry is “a new landmark in American gin-making”. They are very good indeed.

There are 60 bottles left of the Single-barrel Muscat from Germain-Robin, an extraordinary brandy: intense, focused, beautifully long and complex. Another 5-star award from Pacult: “WOW! Find and buy 2 or 3 bottles”.

And here’s what David Driscoll, buyer for the great west coast K & L stores (two in the Bay Area, one in L.A.), blogged about Mescalero mezcals “The finest mezcals I’ve ever tasted. Nothing from del Maguey even comes close”.

Back in stock is a new bottling of the Germain-Robin Absinthe Superieure, which Pacult (5-star award again) regards as second only to Vieux Pontalier: ”Unblemished clarity… delicious”.

The prices of the Surrenne Distillerie Galtauld and of the Surrenne XO went up due to convulsions in Cognac because of the big distilleries trying to take care of huge growth in China. More on this in the next letter.

Who has the highest percentage of 5-star awards from the Spirit Journal? Us, way better than 50% and that’s after having submitted many many spirits from the Craft Distillers portfolio. Pacult told me that he always opens our packages first/regards/Ansley Coale