Brother Bass was an incredibly kind, joyful, and sweet man who was adept at seeing places where he could learn and continually educate and improve himself. I was personally blessed with being able to experience this through work, music, and single malts. He became a member of The KOTQ in 11Q2 and was a fervent member attending virtually every meeting. He understood the spirit of single malt scotch from the very get go and was an extremely valued contributor to our discourse and our overall membership. Bass joined the group for our 2016 trip to Las Vegas and played several jazz songs on bass, accompanying me on piano, during our pre-party event.

Brother Bass attended every single armoire night that I can remember and discovered Oban 18 at Bluff’s armoire night some time in the late 2010s. I believe it to be one of his very favorite single malts. During this past weekend’s KOTQ trip to Vegas, Bluff, Lakeview, Badger, Polo, and I learned of this tragic and horrible event and Bluff found a bottle of Oban 18 at one of the bars at our resort property. In a KOTQ-style tribute to Bass we decided to toast him with his favorite single malt, Oban 18.

Emptied Oban 18 tribute glasses to Brother Bass at KOTQ 22Q4 tasting in Las Vegas, Upside down and on their own black band in display of mourning

I leave this image in its full size to demonstrate the enormity of this loss to everyone who knew Brother Bass, and, quite honestly, the entire world is lessened without him. The emptied glasses are shown upside down, on their own black band, in a display of mourning.

He was a stalwart and a pillar of our group. His affable nature and interesting observations on all expressions will be evident in their absence at every meeting forevermore.

Rest in blessed peace, Brother Bass…

I’m just going to cut and paste this article for you all.   Fun.

Pope Francis said whisky is ‘real holy water’ in censored clip

Pope Francis’s comments were censored ahead of a new documentary

A CLIP of Pope Francis holding Scotch whisky and saying it is “the real holy water” was censored ahead of a new documentary about Scottish seminarians in Rome.

The clip showed the Pope accept a bottle of Oban malt from some Scottish student priests at an event at the Apostolic Palace last year.

Vatican media said the quip should be cut from the film before it could be broadcast this weekend.

Director Tony Kearney who made the one-hour documentary Priest School for the BBC with his company Solus Productions said they’d filmed the Pope’s meeting with the students during the 18-month project.

Kearney said the Pope was “really down to Earth with them all” and didn’t opt for the usual procedure when handed the bottle of whisky as a gift.

He said: “When they handed him the bottle, instead of just handing it to his assistant as he normally would with a gift, he held it up and said ‘questa e la vera acqua santa’ – which means this is the real holy water.

“He guffawed with laughter and it was a real ice-breaker with the students and put everyone at ease.

“But we’d agreed that the Vatican’s media office would be allowed to approve all of our footage before we broadcast it.

“So we sent them the files and when they sent it back that bit of him saying that was cut out.

“We were really annoyed at first, but they insisted they didn’t want the Pope to be seen to be endorsing whisky.”

 

While visiting the Scotch Library at the Westin Kierland in Scottsdale, AZ Brother Rambler executed his duty as a single malt ambassador, as a member of the KOTQ – Chicago, in exemplary fashion. I recount his tale here…

“I went back to the Scotch Library with a group of fairly inexperienced people. The guy was going through his spiel on single malts: nosing, tasting, etc. He recognized that I knew what I was doing and said at one point to the group, “there’s only one rule of single malt, and I’ll let this gentleman tell you what it is.” So, I naturally said the rule that the KOTQ – Chicago was founded upon, “all single malts are good…it’s up to you find the good in it”. He was going in a different direction (was going to say there aren’t any rules and you should drink it how you enjoy it), but then said, “I like that rule a lot, going to use that in the future.” Rambler: being an Ambassador everywhere!

Here is the latest update on the shipping restrictions from The Whisky Exchange and Master of Malt:

The Whisky Exchange is currently only shipping to the following US States. (Note that Illinois is NOT one of the states they are shipping to currently):

We are able to deliver your order only to the following states:

Alaska (Anchorage only)

California

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Idaho

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Nebraska

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

Oregon

Rhode Island

Texas

Vermont

Virginia

Wyoming

Masters of Malt has currently stopped ALL shipping to the US. They posted the below on their blog on April 18th:

Shipping to the USA

By Master of Malt on April 18, 2018, 12:00 pm

Ok, there’s no way to sugar coat this, so we’re just going to come right out and say it – as of today, we’re stopping delivery to the US.

We’d love to be able to have some idea how and if this is going to change in the future, but we just don’t want to give any false hope.

Suffice to say, 2 things are true:

You guys in the USA are extremely important to us, and we are *incredibly* sorry about this.

We are working very hard on ways to be able to provide services again with the help of wholesale and retail partners based in-country.

Thank you for all your incredible support over the years.

The Chaps at Master of Malt

The issue for Master of Malt is that since AB Inbev is a distributor in the United States, they legally cannot act as a retailer. It would violate the three tier system.

If and and when I see further updates, I will keep you all posted.

Brother Bass

I can’t make this up.

A pricey dram that’s all about marketing. There’s a VR app to experience while you sip. Sip what? A Macallan (admittedly high end) NAS malt that centers on sherry casks. And just so you don’t miss that, they will cut it with a 30 year old sherry. Now strap some big old goggles to me so I don’t have to look at it and it’s easily worth $95.

Bozhemoi!