Storywood Tequila: FirstTaste
Scotch Cask Matured??? That sounds AMAZING!!!
When readers pointed us to Storywood Tequila after reading some of our tequila-related articles (Patron, Barsmith), we took a look at the suggestion and grew intrigued by the backstory of how these unique barrel-aged tequilas came about!
Storywood is the creation of Scotland-born, Texas-raised, FFF (food forward fella) Michael Ballantyne. He wanted to combine the famous spirit of his birthplace with the favorite drink of his home.
Storywood is the first tequila to be aged in selected oak casks (aka whisky barrels) from Speyside in Scotland. Both the Añejo and Reposado tequilas are made from 10-yr-old 100% blue Weber agave, harvested from the lowlands of Jalisco. The tequila is produced by master distiller Carlos Hernandez Ramos from La Cofradia.
Redefining tequila? Oh, you bet we want in on this!!!
Unboxing
It was an exciting day when the Storywood delivery arrived. Usually, packages are just left at the front, but this time the delivery person required us to “show some ID” before he was willing to hand over the package, as it “contained ALCOHOL.” Fortunately, everyone in the office was of legal drinking age…some of us are VERY legal, LOL.
Does “Adult Signature” mean legible with no heart over the “i?” Yeah, we have one of those (adults).
Unboxing the Storywood tequilas revealed two different types of oak-flavored deliciousness, but both aged in single malt whisky casks from Speyside:
- Anejo Speyside 14 – aged for at least 14 months
- Reposado Speyside 7 – aged for at least 7 months
Delightful on the left, delightful on the right…
What’s the difference between añejo (“vintage”) and reposado (“rested”) tequila?
While all tequila is made from fermented and distilled agave, the post-distillation aging process is what differentiates the two: añejo tequila spends more than one year and less than three years in barrel; reposado is aged for at least two months but less than one year in barrel.
Both delicious.
FirstTaste
In the FirstTaste of the Storywood tequilas, our assembled group of “volunteers” followed the recommendation of “sipping slow” to the letter! We absolutely wanted to appreciate and “pay respect to the process and time used in creating these delicious products”…from the growing of the agave, to the aging the liquid, and to the efforts required to handcraft the barrels!
“Take the shot already, we’ve got delicious imbibements we need to…imbibe.”
The slow-sipping advice was well worth following and gave rise to comments such as:
- “…hints of pepper…”
- “…smooth and smokey…”
- “…full mouth-feel…”
Go ahead, take them out to your forested glade, they’ll fit right in!
House Sipping Tequila
After an afternoon of tasting/sipping the Storywood offerings, it seems like RainyDayMagazine now has a new house sipping tequila! In our small group, the Anejo Speyside 14 edged out the Resposado 7 by a small margin, but truth-be-told, the score-keeping started to get a bit “loose” after a while 🙂
I like this one! And the other one, too! Oh cr@p…”
With the Anejo Speyside 14, the general praise concerned its complex oaky-vanilla character with its slight hint of caramel. Some suggested it might even be awesome as a whiskey-replacement in an Old-Fashioned.
Hmmm…guess we’ll have to give that a try and will let readers know!!!
It only LOOKS like we didn’t drink most of the bottle.
No, he did not drink that bottle alone. His friends helped. A LOT.
Food
Of course, as anyone who has been to a RainyDayMagazine tasting event knows, no one leaves until all the food is gone…and we do put out a good spread 🙂
RainyDay Motto: “Don’t drink tequila on an empty stomach.”
In keeping with the Mexican theme, we sous-vided some chicken for tacos, along with some other tasty bits.
How does one say “Nom-nom-nom” in Spanish?
House Margaritas
To keep the party going, we mixed up a few batches of margaritas. For the easiest to make and the best tasting margaritas, our goto mixer is the Barsmith’s Hatch Chile Margarita mix.
No, we did NOT use any of the tasting tequila in the making of the margaritas 🙂 We know they would be great for that, but we wanted to enjoy the Storywood tequilas “un-colored.”
Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy. Or lime-y, you choose.
Throw in some lime and lemon slices, a few jalapenos if available, stir it up and pour over ice. It is a “can’t miss” recipe. The 3-to-2 ratio of mix to tequila is easy to remember and impossible to mess up, even after having had a few 🙂
Pro Tip: Buy the Barsmith mixers in bottles of three…the drinks are so delicious and they go faster than you think, AND sometimes you get a discount when you buy in triplets. Win-win 🙂
Only things left at the end of the event were the lemon and lime slices…
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