Upright Brewing is quickly becoming my favorite Portland brewery.

I first had their brews at a small venue in downtown PDX.  After that, I attended a beer release party for their Gose beer.  Last week, head brewer Alex Ganum was at a bar near my apartment pouring samples.  Chatting with him about his wares—and his internship at Brewery Ommegang—may have sealed the deal for me.

“Like many a great brewer, Ganum, 29, started as a cook…”

So there’s hope for me yet!!

These are my notes from the PDXWhisky tasting I attended last Friday.  A friend of mine has been attending these meetings for several years now and I finally had the opportunity to go.

Unlike other tastings I’ve attended, this event wasn’t tied into any particular bar or brand.  Instead, a friendly gentleman named Ian invites whisky lovers to his home for dinner, drinks and some intensive tasting.

Since I know next-to-nothing about whisky, the event really opened my eyes.  Not only does Ian possess ninety-something different bottles in his liquor cabinet, but also most of the folks attending the tastings know their hooch; I was very impressed by a stocky, bearded union fellow with an arm full of tattoos and a head full of cornrows.  His look said Coors Light but the man was a walking (and drinking) encyclopedia of scotch knowledge.

Besides drinking a whisky that was older than me—a 24-year Inchgower scotch provided by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society of America, it smelled like a Port wine and tasted like a sour ale—I was able to toy around with a box containing twenty-four vials of scents.  Each vial (think perfuming testing) came with a strip of litmus paper that allowed the user to aromatically sample different common whisky scents; everything from peat to smoke to decay was provided.  Let me say this: until you take a big whiff of a bottle labeled decay you don’t know what it is for your nose to cry.

Despite my malodorous mishap, I now know the difference between Whisky (Scotland) and Whiskey (everywhere else).

In honor of my little barrel of boozy joy I’ve been incorporating aged alcohol into my daily schedule as much as possible.  After deciding on this resolution, I was pleased to discover that the Full Sail taproom in Portland was hosting a tasting of their Top Sail Bourbon Imperial Porter.

Now I enjoy beer releases as much as the next person, but for the most part they usually involve three things: 1) the keg being tapped. 2) your glass getting filled 3) standing around talking about the beer until you’ve had a few pints.

There is nothing wrong with this equation, but I’m happy Full Sail decided to shake things up a bit.

Top Sail is a blend of porter aged in three different bourbon barrels—Maker’s Mark, Stranahan’s and Four Roses.  Not content to only sample the blended, final product, Full Sail stashed some kegs of each individual batch so their thirsty patrons could swirl, sniff and taste the subtle nuances of the different brews.

For me, this meant that I could try and learn about the flavors and variations from different barrels.  Now I know that Maker’s Mark barrels make beer chocolaty and tangy while Stranahan’s are smoky and Four Roses’ are scentless but boozy as a late night whiskey bender.

Considering that I now have my very own 2-liter barrel of joy, this information will soon come in handy (i.e. one year from now).

This picture was taken by my pal Damian.  This stuff really shouldn’t be poured in pints…

On the left, we have two quarts of some soon to be delicious Italian moonshine, limoncello.  Ready for my gullet in one week.

On the right, we have two liters of Wasmund’s single malt.  I received two liters of the white dog whiskey as a gift and I’ll be keeping tabs on its development monthly.  It should be ready to drink in half a year but my tastebuds will have the final say on that.

Although I have to wait a year to drink my whiskey, these two ingredients will join forces to create some delicious limoncello in about a week.

Classy.