A Decade of Sku: Acknowledgments

Lots of people have made the last decade of this blog possible by sharing spirits, information, friendship and conversation, giving me ideas, reading drafts or just plain inspiring me. I thought I would take a moment to thank all of the following:

Adam Herz, Andrew Goodloe, Andy Smith, Anna Olson, Arnab, Blake Riber, Brendan Prouty, Brian Haara, C. Thi Nguyen, Chris Bunting, Chris Hall, Chris Stevenson, Chris Uhde, Chuck Cowdery, Clay Risen, Dan Walbrun, Dan Zimmerman, Daniel Laurence, David Driscoll, David Othenin-Girard, David Perkins, David Wankel, Davin DeKergommeaux, Dean Chiang, Doug Philips, Eric Felten, Florin, Frank & Debra, Fred Minnick, Funky Tape, Greg Gilbert, Heather Greene, Howard Levinson, Janet Patton, Jason Beatty, Jason Pyle, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, Jim Leff, Johanne McInnis, John Hansell, John & Linda Lipman, Jordan Devereaux, Josh Chinn, Josh Peters, Josh Wright, Joshua Feldman, Karen & Carl, Keith Boyea, Ken Tanaka, Kevin Erskine, Leah, Lew Bryson, Linh Do, Mark Gillespie, Marko Karakasevic, Martin Daraz, Max Wallhausser, Michael Kravitz, Michael Ries, Michael Veach, Naomi, Nicolas Palazzi, Nina Wanat, Oliver Klimek, Paul Schurman, Ralfy, Randy Blank, Reid Bechtle, Reid Mitenbuler, Richard Anderson, Rob Gard, Ronde Ingvar, Russell Hogg, Ryan Oberleitner, Sam Komlenic, Sam Simmons, Serge Valentin, Steffen Brauner, Steve Leukanech, Steve Neese, Tim Puett, Tim Read, Tony Chen, Wade Woodard, and Winston Churchill Edwards

I'm sure I forgot some folks and for that, I am truly sorry.

Ask Me Anything!

I got tons of great questions in response to my Ask Me Anything post.  Here are answers to a number of them.

Years ago, you wrote an article for one of the whiskey magazines titled "Craft Whiskey Sucks." Now, many years later, would you write the same thing? Do you still think it mostly sucks? 

It was back in 2010 that I wrote on the Malt Advocate blog that "Most Craft Whiskeys Suck" (Whisky Advocate seems to have taken down the old blog archive but I cross posted the piece on my blog). For the most  part, I think that's still true. There are over 800 craft distilleries making whiskey in the US, but I can count the ones I've had anything good from on two hands: Charbay, Balcones, Cut Spike, Old Potrero, Seven Stills Tom's Foolery...maybe a few more, but not many. It's surprising because seven years ago, I assumed that the reason most craft whiskeys sucked was that they were too young, but now there are a number of four and five year old craft whiskeys, even BIBs, and they still mostly suck. If it isn't age, what's the issue?  I've heard lots of theories, from the stills to the yeast to the length of fermentation, but I can't claim to know.

Sku - at what point does a whisky that you own become too expensive that you don't open the bottle? For instance, I have a 2012 FR Small Batch that I'm told now sells for over $700 - that seems a ludicrous amount to spend on a bottle, and I wouldn't spend that amount on it and I'm happy I got it at retail back then. But now I find that decision to open is harder and harder, and I might not ever.

I do my best to ignore the secondary market. Every bottle in my closet is there to drink. I don't think of it as an investment except in my own happiness, so I don't hesitate to open anything.

Do Armagnac houses/domaines have recognizable profiles? For example are there specific differences in notes between Chateau de Gaube and Domaine de Busquet that you could expect to find despite the vintage?

I can't speak to your two examples as I've don't think I've had them, but Armagnacs absolutely have house styles. There are a number of variables which contribute to house style including grape varietals, types of barrels used and use of additives. Even within houses, there are recognizable differences, such as a Domaine de Baraillon Armagnacs made from Folle Blanche, which tend to be dry and earthy, vs. those made from Baco/Ugni Blanc. which tend to be fruitier.

How many spirits bottles do you tend to have in your personal collection at any given time (more or less)? of that group, what percentage consists of whiskey v. brandy v. other spirits at this point? do you have any favorite spirits categories other than whiskey or brandy (e.g. mezcal or Jamaican rum)?

-JCR 

I keep a list, so I can tell you exactly. I currently have 269 bottles of whiskey (115 of which are open), 55 bottles of brandy (25 open), and 14 bottles of rum (9 open). Beyond that I have a handful of Mezcals and  Absinthes and a dozen or so spirits I mostly use as cocktail ingredients. Other than whiskey and brandy, I love super-funky rums, and in the summer, I drink a lot of amaro (Aperol, Campari, Cynar, etc.).

1. in your opinion are micro-distillers pricing their bourbons too high?
2. is the bourbon renaissance a bubble?
2a. if it is a bubble how bad will the pop be?
3. are "tech" whiskies like cleveland viable? that is, in the long run, can a "whisky" that's aged for an hour really compete on price/quality with a bourbon that's aged for 10 years? in fact, i have seen cleveland priced higher than eagle rare and laughed all the way home.
regards,

-dan

1.  Yes.
2.  Not entirely, but there is a bubble.
2a.  Somewhere between Bordeaux and Beanie Babies.
3.  I doubt we will see amazing tech whiskey that connoisseurs will seek out, but eventually, technology will likely allow for the production of whiskey that is close enough to standard aged whiskey that it will sell successfully. I'm guessing one day there will be hour-old tech whiskeys competing with standard Beam and Jack Daniel's. Even if they aren't quite as good, if the price is significantly lower, they will be fierce competitors.

Simple: 100 duck sized horses or one horse sized duck?

The duck, assuming I get to eat it if I win.

How does it feel to be the dean of American whiskey bloggers? How much longer do you think you'll keep going? Do you think blogging about whiskey is still relevant?

1.  I appreciate the accolade, but if there is a dean of American whiskey bloggers, it's Chuck Cowdery. He had already been at it for years when I showed up on the scene.
2. At least through the end of the week.
3. Blogging, in general, is much less relevant than when I started ten years ago.  These days, people spend a lot more time on social media than on blogs, but I still find blogs relevant and read them, both for reviews and information. That being said, it does seems like a dying form...like books.

1. What is the next big thing in spirits and why is it Armagnac?
2. Do you believe that dusty bourbon/rye has a familiar profile that you don't find in today's products, i.e. "dusty notes"? If so, do you believe that's due to bottle conditioning or some other factor(s)?
3. Given the current boom and scarcity of anything allocated or limited edition, are there bottles you regret passing on years ago that you wish you would have bought more of?

-signde 

1.  I love Armagnac, but I actually think full proof, additive-free rum is more likely to be the next craze. Serge at Whiskyfun recently compared Hampden Jamaican rum to 1970s Ardbeg which pretty much guarantees that thousands of malt-heads will be seeking it out, and they should. In terms of Armagnac, there's a new new generation of Armagnacs aged in new oak (e.g. Charron, L'Encantada) which may well catch on with the bourbon lovers.
2.  That's a great question. My experience, and I think most folks who drink a lot of dusties would agree, is that those bourbons definitely have a different profile and one that's changed through the years.  For instance, prohibition era bourbon tastes much spicier than today's stuff whereas '70s bourbon is like liquid candy.  I have no idea why the differences exist and how much of it is related to so-called old bottle effect. I don't think we will ever know for sure, since there were many differences between how they made bourbon and rye decades ago and how they make it now - lower entry proofs, differences in fermentation and distillation, etc.
3. There aren't really bottles I regret passing on because I didn't pass on much. I was lucky to get into this whiskey in the early 2000s when things were cheap and plentiful, so I had some great stuff at ridiculously low prices (some of which seemed ridiculously high at the time). In terms of bottles I wish I had bought more of, one of the first bottles of bourbon I purchased was the old Wild Turkey Russell's Reserve 10 year, 101 proof - that's one that I really miss, though not enough to pay secondary prices for it.

Why "Sku"?  

It's my initials.

We often talk about the downsides of the bourbon boom? From your perspective, what are some of the positive aspects?

Great question! With all the complaining about prices, loss of age statements and the secondary market, it's easy to forget that thirty years ago, almost no one was drinking bourbon, and there were only one or two ryes on the shelf, if that. No one bothered to do special releases, experiment or put out well aged whiskey because no one cared about American whiskey. Fast forward thirty years and there's bourbon everywhere. I just did a tasting of 20 currently available, affordable rye whiskeys, and we could have probably done 40. We have a diversity of mashbills, yeast, proof and nearly everything else. It's true that compared to ten years ago, prices are higher and well-aged whiskey is harder to come by, but there are more choices in the American whiskey aisle than there have ever been, and more is coming. Everyone talks about the craft distillers, but the growth of mid-sized Kentucky distilleries is what I find most promising. These larger distilleries like Willett, Michter's and New Riff are going to have the means and capacity to produce great bourbon and rye, and I'm betting they will.

Does MAO still make you swoon? 

-Jealous in Jersey

 Nah, that guy's annoying.

Do you ever have any regrets about spending so much of your life on this whisky hobby?

Not at all. On the contrary, I've met amazing friends, had a lot of great times, and I have been endlessly impressed by the kindness and generosity of the other folks in the hobby.


That was fun! Thanks to everyone who sent in questions.

A Decade of Sku: Favorite Posts

This week marks ten years of Sku's Recent Eats, and to celebrate, I'll be indulging myself with frivolous posts all week long. 

At the blog's five year mark, I listed some of my favorite posts from the first five years, so I thought I would do the same for the last five years. These may not be the best posts, and they weren't necessarily the most popular, but they are the ones I had the most fun with.

• Sazerac, Remy & Pernod in Bidding War for Guy Who Made Whiskey in his Kitchen 
• Buy Sku Stuff
• TTB Proposes New Whiskey Definitions
• Stop Fetishizing Whiskey
• How Whiskey Geeks Appear to Outsiders (aka the Cottage Cheese post)
• Whiskey Fun Facts
• Totally Honest Whiskey Labels
• The Golden Age of Whiskey is Over

My all time most viewed post, other than my big lists of whiskey distilleries and whiskey blogs, was a 2011 post on deciphering Van Winkle bottle codes.

Ask Me Anything

One reader suggested I do a Reddit-style Ask Me Anything session. I wasn't sure I would have anything interesting enough to say, but I figured I'd give it a shot. If you have a burning question, serious or not, ask in the comments, by email or social media and if there are enough questions, I'll cover some of them in a blog post next week.

My Favorite French Brandies of the 2010s

Following up on the list of my favorite whiskeys of all time, I thought I would do something similar for brandy. Listed below are my ten favorite French brandies released in the last five years. As with the whiskey list, I made this without regard to price or current availability, though I limited it to brandies available at retail in the U.S. since 2010 (i.e., the Golden Age of Brandy). They are listed in alphabetical order by type of brandy.

Cognac

Navarre Vieille Reserve, Grande Champagne, 45% abv
Paul-Marie & Fils Cognac, Borderies, Faultline Spirits, 61% abv
Paul-Marie & Fils Devant La Porte 1951, Grande Champagne, 51% abv

Armagnac

Domaine de Baraillon 1893, Bas-Armagnac, 40% abv
Domaine de Baraillon 1933, Bas-Armagnac, 40% abv
Domaine de Baraillon 1985, Bas-Armagnac 48% abv 
Chateau de Pellehaut 1996, Tenareze, 17 yo, 50.4% abv
Domaine de Pouchegu 1986, Tenzareze, 45% abv

Calvados

Camut Privilege 18 yo, Pays D'Auge, 40%
Henri Bernard Beudin Calvados, Eric Bordelet Selection, 18 yo, 53% abv

Sku's All Time Favorite Whiskeys

I often get asked what my favorite whiskeys of all time are. It's a tough question and one I've mostly avoided answering, but given that my blog is approaching the ten year mark, I thought I would take a stab at my very favorite whiskeys of all time. This isn't a buyer's guide. Most of these aren't available anymore, but these are the very best whiskeys I've tasted without regard to price, availability or anything else, listed in alphabetical order:

• Ardbeg Provenance. I've tried two of the four releases (the two for the U.S.) and they were Ardbeg at its peaty, oily best. It captures the absolute bets of Islay. 
• Brora 30 2007 Official Release. Brora is one of my favorites and of all the official releases I've tried, the 2007 was my favorite - smoky yet balanced.
• Brorageddon. This heavily sherried Brora bottled for the Plowed Society is just incredible - with its matching sherry and peat notes. This could be my number one whiskey of all time.
• Charbay Pilsner. Something magical happened in Sonoma County back in 1999 when Marko Karakasevic distilled some pilsner from the Sonoma Mountain Brewery along with some added hops. The whiskeys that resulted were funky and magical and weedy. All of the releases are great, but I especially love releases I and IV and, probably most of all, the special release they did for the LA Whiskey Society.
• Glendronach 1972 700 Series. These perennial Malt Maniac favorites are probably the best sherried whiskeys around...yes, that means better than Black Bowmore! I've tasted casks 702, 710, 711 and 712, and they are all fantastic.
• Highland Park Bicentennary. More than any other, this was the malt that made me a whiskey geek. I can still remember my amazement at its complexity and balance when I tasted it in the early 2000s. Does it measure up all these many whiskeys later?  I don't know, and I don't know if I want to know. I haven't had the courage to try it again. I think I prefer the memory.
• John Gibson's PA Rye. I've been lucky enough to try quite a few prohibition era whiskeys, and the best thing I've tasted by far from that era are Gibson's ryes. Made in Pennsylvania, they have a lovely sandalwood note that you don't find in today's ryes.
• Lagavulin 16. It's had its ups and downs for sure, ranging from exquisite to just good, but is there any whiskey that's been more consistent over the past 15 years? Is there any whiskey that's been more responsible for creating malt fanatics, peatheads and Islay lovers? I think not. Ten years ago, it was $40; now it goes for around $70, but that's nothing in terms of whiskey inflation. 
• Willett's Bernheim Ryes (Rathskeller Rye/Doug Philips Rye, etc.). The casks of old Bernheim rye from the mid-80s purchased by Willett are legendary for a reason. They are massive spice bombs, some of the fullest bodied rye ever made. Not all of them, though, are created equal. The very best are the Rathskeller Rye bottled for the Seelbach Hotel, the two casks of Willett bottled for Doug Philips, the bottles done for Bourbon DC (Iron Fist and Velvet Glove) and LeNell's Red Hook Rye.  
• Very Very Old Fitzgerald 1952/1964. Stitzel-Weller bourbon is widely coveted for good reason. At its height, it was amazing stuff, subtle, creamy and sweet. My favorite of them all is this 12 year old distilled in 1952 which is probably the best bourbon I've ever tasted. 

Those are my all-time greatest whiskeys.  What are yours?

Booker's Rye: Is Whiskey Over?

Last week, Beam Suntory hosted a group of some of the highest profile whiskey bloggers and journalists at the Jim Beam Distillery for a tasting of Booker's Rye. Needless to say, I wasn't invited, but you can read about it on Chuck Cowdery's blog or Bourbonr.

The news that emerged from this press junket was that the new Booker's Rye will be a cask strength, 13 year old rye using a higher rye mashbill than Beam's other ryes and that it will retail for $300. Now, the bloggers who Beam hosted seemed to think this was a great rye, and I have no reason to doubt that (well, except...Beam), but $300 is a lot of money.

American whiskey prices have been heading in this direction for a while now. Wild Turkey, Michter's and Willett have all been pushing the envelope on prices, but $300 for a 13 year old rye is pretty extreme. In addition, the fact that this is Beam is important because they are the biggest game in town and have the power to set the standard for things like this. That being said, I'm not here to argue whether it's a fair price or not; those arguments have been made ad nauseam on numerous blogs and forums. Yes, the whiskey market is hot right now, yes there is a dearth of aged rye on the market, yes if it was reasonably priced it would just get bought up by flippers and resold for even more.

What saddens me is how out of reach these whiskeys have become for the average drinker. Sure, there are still plenty of decent, affordable, everyday whiskeys out there, but it used to be that someone could get really into American whiskey and taste some of the special stuff without shelling out three figures. Those days are clearly on their way out.

I never set out to write a blog about hard-to-get luxury items. While I've tasted and reviewed rare and expensive whiskey, the bulk of what I've written about has always been stuff that I think most of my readers could buy without breaking the bank. I don't have the stomach or the wallet for a world where $300 rye is the norm.

For my blog, this is an existential question. Should I still be blogging about whiskey at all or is it now akin to blogging about beluga caviar, yachts or Lamborghinis?  As I said, there are decent, affordable whiskeys out there, but I've already written about most of those, and how many blog posts do you need about Four Roses Single Barrel? After nine years of blogging, maybe I should just go ahead and call it a night before I hit the double digits...or transition into Sku's Recent Brandy.

So, I have some questions for you. What does the $300 Booker's Rye mean for American whiskey? Is it a big deal or am I overstating it? Is there anything in the whiskey world worth discussing or reading about anymore or should this be the end (at least for me)?  I eagerly await your responses.

Am I Too Hard on Whiskey?

Lately, I've had a few comments suggesting that maybe I'm too negative about whiskey, that there's nothing out there I like. Heck, maybe I don't even like whiskey at all. While I make light of it, it's a legitimate question: am I being too hard on whiskey?

I certainly admit to being a hard judge. I started this blog as recommendations for a small group of readers who were mostly my friends. My feeling was that if I recommended something for them to spend their hard earned money on, it was going to be something I felt strongly about.

Even though the audience for the blog has grown by leaps and bounds since then, I still take that same attitude. I will always honestly say what I feel about a whiskey. That doesn't mean any given reader will agree with me, but it's all I can do. For that matter, there are a number of blogs out there that give mostly very positive reviews. That's not a criticism of those blogs, and I have no reason to believe they are not being every bit as honest as I am, but if you mostly want to hear about how good most whiskey is, there are a lot of people who have palates that will accommodate you.

That being said, I don't think it's all my fault. As I recently wrote, the Golden Age of Whiskey is over, and I honestly feel that the new releases we are seeing these days (and new releases are what most bloggers write about) are simply not as good as they used to be. It used to be that new releases meant a company had something different to offer, perhaps something older, higher proof or a unique mashbill. Over the last few years though, spirits companies have figured out that people like new releases and will buy them, so you get high priced line extensions that aren't really much different from current offerings, though there is usually some story to go along with them (survived a tornado, aged on a boat, named for a felony, etc.).

The truth is that I do like lots of whiskey. In another few months, I'll release my holiday gift suggestions, and I've had no problem compiling them from this year's new releases. While I won't swoon over every new bottling, there's plenty out there that I like and even love, though it's not usually the most hyped new release.

Happy Fifth Birthday to Sku's Recent Eats!

Today marks the fifth birthday of this blog. It's hard to believe that I've been doing this for five years. Five years is a full-on Kindergartener, and in blog years, it's practically middle age. Sounds like a good excuse for some navel gazing.

Come now with me on a journey through time, back to the simpler world of May 2007. The President was George W. Bush, Facebook and Twitter existed but weren't in wide use, and it seemed like the Boston Red Sox might have a promising team, though probably not a Series winning team since they are, after all, the Boston Red Sox.

The whiskey blogosphere was very young in spring 2007. The go-to blogs were Serge Valentin's WhiskyFun for Scotch reviews, Kevin Erskine's Scotch Blog for Scotch business news and the Chuck Cowdery Blog for American whiskey. Sam Simmons was just getting started with his Malt Missions as Dr. Whisky and Chris Bunting had started a new Japanese Whisky site called Nonjatta. And that was pretty much it. John Hansell was publishing Malt Advocate, but he didn't start his blog until that fall.

When I started this blog, it was mostly about food (hence name). For the first few years, I stuck to a fairly rigid schedule of two food posts and one whiskey post per week, but that started to break down as (1) I felt I had more interesting and original things to say about whiskey than food; and (2) I got fat and needed to cut down on things like doughnuts, pupusas and gelato.

So I pivoted from a food blog with a weekly whiskey post to a whiskey blog with an occasional food post. I feel like this is when I hit my stride and really started having fun with it. And let's face it, that's what it's all about.

I have to say that I'm pretty happy with this little diversion. True, it doesn't look like much. My pictures, when I bother with them at all, mostly suck, I use the boring standard blogger template, and it's painfully obvious that I neither invest nor make any money on the blog. I'm not on the industry's list of bloggers to reach out to with important press releases (or free samples), and my blog has never been nominated for or received any sort of award.

Despite all of that, I have a great time and a great group of readers. I feel that my readers are some of the most knowledgeable, good humored folks out there, and I'm lucky to have them. I've also been lucky to have many readers who have their own great blogs and who are more than willing to share information and even samples. So thanks to all of you for reading, commenting, discussing and laughing (when appropriate, of course).

You'll find many of my favorite blogs on my links page, but I don't update it enough, so here's a quick shout out to some of those other blogs that I've been enjoying: Macdeffe's Danish Whisky Blog, Josh's Sipology, Aaron WF's Whiskey Wonka, Steve BM's Blind Tastes, Scott's Corvallis Epicurean, the Canadian based Scotch Club's ScotchBlog, Ryan's sadly defunct Value Whisky Reviews, Josh's The Coopered Tot, and the last food blogger to stick with me despite my whiskey-centrism, Tony C.'s awesome Sinosoul. So read these blogs and apologies to anyone I left out (and I'm sure I'm missing some good ones).

As part of my fifth birthday, I figured I'd put together a list of some of the posts I had the most fun with through the years. Nothing serious here mind you. This is a birthday party, and hey, nobody wants to read a post about the best dim sum place in 2008, no matter how artfully crafted I may be convinced it is. So here are some of the posts I enjoyed the most:

• The Evolution of a WhiskyFun Reader
• Prison Cheese
• Introducing a Real Craft Whiskey
• The Million Point Scale
• A Blogger with a Secret
• Ask Mr. Pyrite
• Whiskey Collectors: A Field Guide

Now, if you have any suggestions for the next five years, please let me know.

Whiskey Wednesday: Why I Don't Rate Whiskeys

I have often been asked why I don't rate whiskeys. After all, nearly every whiskey blogger, journalist, author or vlogger rates whiskeys. There are 100 point scales, ten point scales, star systems, letter grades, you name it. I understand why people like ratings. They are simple and straightforward, but they've never really appealed to me and here is why.


1. Ratings Are Linear While Taste is Multi-Faceted

Ratings are linear by nature. Everything is compared to everything else on one single, linear scale. This is, of course, what makes them useful to consumers. I know that a whiskey rated 96 is superior to an 88, end of story. But the single rating system fails to take into account the experiential nature of whiskey and the multitude of possible responses. For instance, I recently reviewed Buffalo Trace White Dog. I would probably never reach for this whiskey to sip in my leisure time, but I think it provides an invaluable window into the Bourbon ageing process and is a must-try for any Bourbon lover. If I merely rated it on my view of its pure quality as a spirit, it would receive a lesser grade, but that lesser grade would not reflect the important, academic interest in experiencing it, the intellectual joy that comes from the experience. Some things taste amazing, but some whiskeys are worth trying because of their unique flavor profiles, experimentation or other elements. Unfortunately, there is no room for such subtlety in the world of linear ratings.


2. Taste is Subjective

Of course taste is generally subjective, and each person has different likes and dislikes, but I don't see that as a flaw, and that is not the phenomenon I am referring to here. What I'm talking about is that each of our individual tastes is subjective and can change depending on any number of environmental factors. You can taste everything blind at the same time of day in the same temperature controlled room, but even then, there are factors that are hard to control. The other day I was at a tasting of seven single malts. Five or six of them were big on sherry and one was peated. The peated one stood out from the crowd and I likely had an inflated sense of it because of that. However, if I had tasted the peated whiskey along with some of my favorite highly-peated whiskeys, I probably would have had a lesser sense of it. You could try to control for this by tasting only one whiskey per seating, but not running comparisons has its own issues as you are tasting the whiskey out of context and don't have the helpful benchmark of other whiskeys to compare it to. Some tasters taste in a variety of settings, which is probably the best practice in this case (and I always taste a whiskey at least twice before writing it up just to confirm my notes), but the subjectivity of each person's individual tastes makes ratings extremely subjective.


3. Consistency is Hard

It's fairly easy to taste a group of single malts in one sitting and create a scale or rate them from best to worst. It's harder to do that over several sittings. Was the second best whiskey we had today better than the best we had last week? It gets even murkier if you are tasting hundreds of whiskeys per year. Was the Linkwood you rated a 92 seven years ago really two full points better than the Wild Turkey you rated a 90 last week? I'm fairly skeptical of anyone who makes that type of claim without doing side by side tastings. I pride myself on my own tasting consistency, but taste memories, like all memories, can be difficult to rely on.


4. One Hundred Points is Too Many

The 100 point spread seems scientific, but it's a pseudo-science (and yes, a scorer who uses a ten point scale but also uses one place past the decimal is using a 100 point spread). What's the margin for error when you are comparing ratings over several years? Is there really any difference between a 76 and a 77? I prefer to hear a more general description than see some number. Was it bad, good, great or one of the best? Any distinction beyond those terms is unnecessary.


5. The Apples and the Oranges

Unlike whiskey bloggers, most food bloggers don't give out ratings. Indeed, many old-media food critics don't give out ratings either, and those who do are usually rating only a limited selection of high-end, formal dining venues. One of the reasons is that it is very hard to compare things as different as a dinner at a high end French restaurant, a pastrami sandwich, a bowl of ramen and an In-n-Out double double (animal style, of course) on one rating system. I would rate a Langer's pastrami sandwich as one of the best bites of food around, but does that mean I should rate it higher than the carte blanche tasting menu at Melisse? There are very few Canadian Whiskies I like better than my least favorite single malt, but what if I taste something that I feel is the best any Canadian Whisky can be? Does its score reflect the "best of class" showing or does it lose out because I find Canadian Whisky overly light and sweet?


As noted above, most food bloggers don't use ratings systems and I've never had anyone ask why I don't rate food using a point system, but spirits (and wine and beer) seem to fall into a different category. People just seem to want a score. Similarly, movies and music are commonly subjected to ratings scales but books seldom are. Are these differences totally arbitrary or are there more fundamental reasons why we rate some things and not others?

All of this goes to say that because of these factors, I have resisted rating whiskeys in the past, but guess what? I've now started rating whiskeys, though not for the blog. More on that next week.

Existential Questions: Where do I go from here?

We are approaching the third anniversary of this blog which has prompted me to do a bit of navel gazing which I hope you will politely endure. It's hard to believe Sku's Recent Eats is three years old, which in blog years is teenaged at least. Back in 2007, the blogosphere was a different place. There were maybe fifteen or twenty total LA food blogs, but only two or three of much prominence, and there were only a handful of whiskey blogs. Now, there are too many LA food blogs to count; along with all of the personal blogs we have the commercial blogs like EaterLA, Grub Street, Squid Ink and Daily Dish which, with their constant posting, have created the food blog equivalent of the 24 hour cable news cycle. And even many of the formerly amateur blogs have broken out into the mainstream with book deals and TV appearances. And it seems you can't go to food fair or the opening weekend of any restaurant without bumping into tripod yielding bloggers, hoping to be the first out of the gate with a review. Even at the lower end places I tend to frequent, it's become much more challenging to find something that hasn't been Twittered, Flickred and Facebooked to death.

All of this leaves me, on this third birthday, wondering what the future should hold for this humble blog. I started the blog sort of on a whim, wanting to catalog the types of posts I'd been making for years on Chowhound. Really, just simple restaurant recommendations as well as my favorite libations, cheeses, chocolate and other fun things. I quickly fell into a formula of three posts per week with a restaurant type review on Monday, whiskey on Wednesday and another food item (often sweets, cheese or a non-whiskey spirit) on Friday.

The posts I'm proudest of in the food categories were my big roundups such as those I did for doughnuts, pupusas, gelato, the Farmers Market, Disneyland, espresso etc. Unfortunately a pressing desire to lose some weight and get healthy as I approach one of my own milestone birthdays (down 25 pounds in the last seven months!) make the roundups difficult to stomach (pun intended). I've also enjoyed adding some humor to the food blogging world (both fiction and nonfiction), but that's very occasional and comes only with great inspiration. Beyond those, I worry that I'm simply churning out more reviews of places you've already seen reviewed by the myriad of bloggers out there. Is that really adding anything to the food world at large other than more noise?

The whiskey world is very different, and I still feel like I fill a fun niche in whiskey blogging. There aren't really any other LA whiskey blogs (other than some excellent ones for our local whiskey clubs which I will highlight in some future post) and there still is a surprising dearth of blogs that spend any amount of time on American whiskey (as opposed to Scotch). I should add that some of my thoughts here were impacted by the recent announcement of Dr Whisky, one of the original and finest whiskey bloggers, now balancing the joyous burdens of work and infants, to scale down his blog.

Over the next few months, I will thinking about what lies ahead for Sku's Recent Eats, and I would love to hear your feedback. Should I abandon my self-imposed goal of posting two food items per week and just wait until inspiration hits? Or should I give up the food writing altogether and go back to Chowhound posts while converting Sku's Recent Eats to a purely whiskey related blog with occasional asides? Or should I just do whatever the hell I want and not worry about big questions about a little blog? Readers, I look to you for guidance.