Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Whiskey Disks {Product Review}

Posted by Erin Wilburn / 9 comments » / alcohol

As y’all already know, I like bourbon.  Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get up on my soapbox again like I did in my Bourbon Ice Cream post.  I’m just going to tell you about a cool product I came across.  I actually get approached via email to review & write about products somewhat frequently.  Often I just don’t have time, or I’m not interested in the product.  But when I do find something I am really interested in, I love sharing it with other people.  Whether it be a new restaurant, food item or flavor, or product, if I like it I want to tell the world!  Also, I often tweet about things I’m eating or drinking, and on (a not so rare) occasion that includes bourbon.  That’s probably how the guys over at Whiskey Disks found me.  Companies will often follow me on Twitter, and the majority of the time I check out their twitter feed and go “Meh… Not interested.” and I don’t follow them back.  But not the whiskey disk guys!  They don’t fill their twitter feed with self promotion only, they often tweet humorous little ditties, and funny quotes.  I like that.  And, of course I was interested in their product.

I obviously enjoy bourbon in baked goods, and in a fabulous cocktail, but I don’t drink bourbon on it’s own too often.  And if I do, it’s always been on the rocks, never neat.  But as it were, Nathan & I were gifted with multiple bottles of bourbon (and Tennessee whiskey!) as wedding presents.  Some we already know and love (Bulleit, pronounced bullet, like what you put in a gun), and some that were new to us.  We kept saying we ought to do a side by side tasting to compare.  Well, as it turned out I got the opportunity to review the whiskey disks, and figured it would be a great opportunity to do some sampling.  We wanted to be able to taste & smell as many of the differences we could between the different varieties, and knew that taking them neat was the way to go.

I won’t go into all the details about how & why the whiskey disks works, as the guys explain it themselves so well.  But basically, the concept is, when you add ice to liquor, the ice melts, thus diluting the drink.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, bourbon, whiskey, or scotch, are all complex spirits.  The complexity is brought on by the various grains, the distilling process, oak barrels used to age it, and more.  (I’m FAR from a bourbon expert, just an enthusiast.)  The cool thing about the whiskey disks is, they bring the temperature down (to about 50 degrees) without diluting the drink.  “Keep it neat, but lose some heat” is what they say.

The whiskey disks are made entirely from start to finish in New Hampshire, using soapstone from Quebec, Canada.  They are wonderfully smooth, and won’t scratch your glass.  We thought they were just gorgeous in our glasses.  (Yes, I picked out these glasses because they were the closest thing I could find to the round glasses Don Draper uses in Mad Men.)

I won’t go into specifics of each variety we sampled, as we weren’t being super scientific and taking notes.  Just sipping and discussing.  One thing was for sure, I definitely tasted more subtleties I’d never noticed before in the Bulleit, which helped me to notice the differences in the other new to us brands we tried.  I’m really glad we used the whiskey disks!  While they don’t chill it to the same degree as ice, I’ve learned that’s a good thing, it just takes some getting used to.  If you already like to drink your bourbon or whiskey neat, then this would be great for you.  I don’t think I’m advanced enough to ALWAYS want to drink my bourbon neat, but I certainly know whenever we get a new brand or variety, we’ll definitely be using the whiskey disks to be able to fully taste & sample it.

For more info on the Whiskey Disks, or to order your own, just go visit their website, whiskeydisks.com.

***I was provided my set of whiskey disks free of charge, but was not compensated for this post.  The opinions here are entirely my own.  I would NEVER write about a product I didn’t feel strongly about.***