Whiskey Wednesday: The Big Guns - Brora & Port Ellen

Brora and Port Ellen, Port Ellen and Brora. The names are spoken with reverence in Scotch circles. Distilleries that made great whisky but for some seemingly unbelievable reason were shuttered long ago. The remaining bottles sell for exorbitant prices and the whisky experts sing their praises. But are they worth it? How much of the reputation is hype? Are the high prices merited or simply a product of speculative collectors banking on a scarce product? Are they really that good?

I've tried whiskies from these distilleries from time to time, but within the last few months, I've had the opportunity to do some rather intensive tastings of both Port Ellen and Brora and thought I would share my thoughts. All together, I tasted seven Broras and twelve Port Ellens. These included a few official bottlings (Diageo inherited the stock of both distilleries and annually releases "official" bottlings), many indies and a few specialty bottlings that are not available to the general public. I won't list them all here, but you can find all of them on the LA Whiskey Society website.

So what did I learn from these intensive tastings? Here are my impressions.


Port Ellen

The twelve Port Ellens I tasted ranged from 26 to 30 years old and were all distilled between 1979 and 1983; all but one were independent bottlings. That's a fairly narrow range, but a fairly representative sampling of what is currently available on the retail market.

All of the Port Ellens were very good and the best were excellent. They ranged from mid-level peating to quite heavily peated, but the flavor profile was fairly narrow (which may of course be accounted for by the narrow range of distillation years I was trying). While these are very good, they aren't particularly unique. There are lots of great peated whiskies out there today, and the profile is similar enough to other peated Islays that it's hard to imagine a Port Ellen cult would exist if the distillery were still open today; rather, it would more likely be considered just another smoky Islay whisky like, say, Caol Ila. That being said, the best of these, particularly the Diageo 7th release and the bottlings by Old Bothwell, rivaled the best of other peated whiskies and were indeed quite special. And while Port Ellens are expensive, the prices on the indie bottlings don't seem that far outside of what you might pay for other similarly aged Islays.

A brief check of some of the major retailers shows that there is still a fair amount of Port Ellen out there. In fact, it may be the most plentiful of all the closed distillery whiskies, so while it won't last forever, my guess is there will still be plenty available for the next few years.


Brora

I tasted seven Broras in two separate tastings. They ranged from 22 to 30 years old and all were distilled between 1972 and 1982; three of them were Diageo's official releases. As a bonus, I also tasted a Clynelish made at the Brora distillery when it was the old Clynelish distillery.

The Broras varied much more than the Port Ellens and had a much wider flavor profile. While Port Ellen was always fairly peated, the Brora distillery varied its peat levels and reduced them quite substantially in the early '80s. In addition, both the peated and unpeated Broras have a quite unique flavor profile that is hard to compare to other whiskies on the market today, particularly the rich and densely flavored late '70s peated malts.

Overall, the quality of the Broras varied more than the Port Ellens, but the best Broras were absolutely phenomenal. My two favorites were the heavily sherried Brorageddon, a 1972 Brora bottled by Douglas Laing Old Malt Cask for the Plowed Society and my old favorite, the 2007 Diageo release, which is a 30 year old. The Brorageddon is long gone, but it is still be possible to snag a 2007. Yes, it goes for $350-$375, but this is one of those fairly rare cases when I do think a whisky is truly worth a price like that.


Summary

Comparing the two based on this admittedly limited sampling, Port Ellens seem more consistent then Broras, but while Brora may be a bit more of a crap shoot, the best Broras are among the best whiskies I've had. In both cases, I would say that these whiskies do deserve some amount of the hype. They won't be around forever, and Broras, in particular, seem to be fading rather quickly, so if you want to try them, start saving up now.

Dodger Blues - Stadium Eats

I'm not sure what's worse, the Dodgers or the food at Dodger Stadium. I know the team is bankrupt and game attendance is in the high dozens, but let's be honest. This is the twenty-first century. There are stadiums out there with full food courts, BBQ, local specialties and other things. And what do we get? Stadium food frozen somewhere in the mid-1970s (hey, is that Steve Garvey on the field?)

Dodger Dogs are a disgrace to the institution of baseball. These skinless wonders taste of baloney more than any hot dog worth its sodium nitrate. The newest innovation is the Doyer Dog, a Dodger Dog with nacho cheese glop on it. Are they really saying that the best way they thought they could improve Dodger Dogs was to throw congealing yellow goop on top?

The sad thing is that the Dodger Dogs are pretty much the height of cuisine at Dodger Stadium. I nearly chipped a tooth trying to bite into one of the churros. The state of these churros really should become an international incident. Costco and Disneyland can get churros right so why can't the Dodgers?

The garlic fries may be the one redeeming food at the stadium, but they're just okay.

Someone please tell me that there is some hidden window where I can get decent eats at this disgrace of a ballpark.

Huge Tree Pastry

I mourned the closing of Dumpling Master for a long time. When a new restaurant with the unlikely name of Huge Tree Pastry opened in its space I was curious, but not until I saw a good Thi Nguyen review in the LA Times did I give it a try. C. Thi Nguyen, who is one of the contributors to the "The Find" column in the LA Times is one of my favorite food reviewers. He has an engaging writing style, a good nose for sniffing out new finds and excellent taste. If Thi likes something, I'm pretty sure I will too.

Huge Tree is a Taiwanese breakfast spot with all manner of pastries and dumplings. Scallion pies, fried daikon cakes, beef rolls (wheat cake with beef and mustard pickle) and something called salted rice ball, a Chinese doughnut wrapped pork and pickled mustard greens and coated with sticky rice.

The secret to a lot of these dishes is the "mustard pickles," pickled mustard greens. These greens were a great mix of tangy, sour and salty and enhance pretty much anything they go on, an all-purpose relish. I even waked out with an order to go.

Also good was the sweet tofu, which went especially well with the crullers, churro sized fried, unsweetened dough sticks that taste like Indian fry bread.

The only dumplings we got were fried pork but they were quite good and next time we'll try the Xiao Long Bao and as many dishes with mustard pickles as we can find.


Huge Tree Pastry
423 N Atlantic Blvd
Monterey Park, CA 91754
(626) 458-8689

Whiskey Wednesday: Classic Whiskey Cocktails - The Whiskey Sour

Most of the whiskey cocktails I've played with are pretty intense alcohol on alcohol concoctions like sazeracs and Manhattans, but on a warm day, it's nice to have something a bit lighter. It could be a mint julep, but another good alternative is the whiskey sour.

The whiskey sour was a precursor to all of those popular sour drinks: the margarita, the daquiri and the sidecar. It's an easy drink to make and a fun one to sip. The ingredients are such:

2 oz. whiskey (I usually use a good mid-level bourbon)
1 oz. lemon juice
3/4-1 oz. simple syrup (to taste)
1 egg white

As with all drinks containing egg white, do a dry shake (without ice) first, then shake again with ice. Strain into a rocks glass with ice. The traditional garnish is a cherry but I dispense with it and usually also add two or three drops of Angostura bitters right on top, which looks cool as well.

Some people drop the egg white out of squeamishness, but I would encourage you to leave it in. I love the frothy, foamy nature of the drink; without the egg, it's just whiskey and lemonade. Yes, there are risks to using raw eggs. I use only eggs I get from the farmers market, but hey, what's life without a little bit of risk, as long as your immune system isn't otherwise compromised.

Now what would happen if we made on with Laphroaig? Hmm, maybe I'll try it and report back.

Papaya King: The Ten Year Old Perspective

When I lived in New York, I used to eat at the papaya hot dog places, so I was excited to hear about Papaya King moving to Hollywood (though I was more of a Grey's Papaya guy). I fully intended to get there and review it, but my ten year old daughter got there first, so I thought I'd let her review it and compare it to her other favorite hot dog spots. Here she goes:


As a hot dog lover myself, I heard about Papaya King, a new hot dog place that sold hot dogs and juice. I thought that I should try it because I love hot dogs and juice, but I found it quite a disappointment.

We were the only people there (not that there was any space for anyone else), and they gave us the wrong food, and they don't have onion rings, only curly fries in enormous servings.

The food was not special. The hot dog was plain and dry. It tasted skinless. The bun was warm and crispy so it was okay, but it is very hard to mess up a bun. The chili was not the hot dog chili I am used to having. It was juicy and full of whole beans and there was hardly any meat. Juice and whole beans is not what you want on your hot dog. You want a big, chunky, meaty, greasy chili.

The curly fries were good. They were greasy, curly and good.

We got strawberry and pina colada juice. The pina colada juice was good. The strawberry was a little bit too foamy but it tasted good, like strawberry, sugar and foam.



After Papaya King, we went to Pink's and Carney's to compare [Eds. note to Department of Children & Family Services - this was not all on the same day!]. They were as good as always and Pink's is defending its title as my favorite hot dog place. The chili is big, chunky, meaty, greasy hot dog chili. The bun was not as crispy, just the way I like it. The onion rings and fries were also good. It was yummy!

Carney's also had good chili but the fries were as ordinary as any fries you would get at any place like McDonald's. Carney's has the best actual hot dog, but if you put everything together, Pink's is the best.

At Pink's and Carney's, you can get most things and be eating very good food. At Papaya King, if you go there, you really only want to get the fries and the pina colada juice.

Going Wako for Fried Pork: Wako Donkasu

It just so happened that while I was on a fried pork binge (albeit a Oaxacan one), Jonathan Gold published a review of a Koreatown tonkatsu restaurant. I'm a big fan of tonkatsu, the Japanese, panko breaded, deep fried pork cutlet. The stuff is ubiquitous here in Koreatown, but most of it is sub-par - tough, dry meat, fried to death and buried in goopy sauce. But not so Wako Donkasu.

Wako Donkasu, on Olympic a few blocks east of Normandie, is a mostly Japanese style donkatsu. The only trace of Korean cuisine are two very small but very good panchan: a tangy radish kimchi and a wonderfully garlicky dish of sliced, pickled jalapeños.

The pork is tender and juicy with a light, crispy crust. For the sauce, you are initially given a bowl of freshly roasted sesame seeds with a wooden pestle to pulverize them with. The waiter then dumps the sauce on top and you mix the sesame seeds throughout, which gives the sweet and fruity (but not overly gloppy) sauce a nice nutty fragrance.

We also tried the fried New York strip which was also excellent. It was fried just as carefully as the pork but packed in even more flavor and had better contrast when combined with the sauce.

The combo comes with a fried protein (pork, beef or chicken), a pile of cabbage salad, soba noodles, a fried shrimp and a fried potato ball (think fried mashed potatoes). The soba was fine, but nothing special. The things to get here are the fried meats.

This place is dangerously close to where I work and live. I see lots of fried pork in my future.


Wako Donkasu
2904 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90006
(213) 387-9256

Whiskey Calendar: The Sku Discount is Back for SMWS's Extravaganza

As the dog days of summer start to wind into the dog days of fall, it's time to start dreaming about fall whiskey tasting season, the period from October to November when all the major whiskey tasting events take place.

This year, for the third year running, Sku readers will get a discount at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society's Single Malt and Scotch Whiskey Extravaganza. The Extravaganza includes not only tasting booths from lots of great distilleries but also a chance to taste some of the Society's bottlings which are normally available only to Society members.

This year's extravaganza will be Friday, November 11 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in Santa Monica. Dress is business casual with a jacket preferred (note to SMWS, business casual in LA does not include jackets).

The regular price is $135, but your Sku discount gets you up to two tickets for the member price of $120. To purchase tickets and get your discount, just go to the Society's website and enter SRE2011 in the promotional code box.

And if you aren't from LA, have no fear. The Sku discount works for all of the Society's fall Extravaganzas, including Chicago (October 5), Boston (October 13), Washington DC (October 26), Philadelphia (October 28), San Francisco (November 9) and Fort Lauderdale (December 1). Details on the website.

See you there!

FTC Disclaimer: Sku finally sold out and attends this event free of charge.