These garnishes are optional — and flexible.

But I wanted to support my friend who owned the coolest, most anarchic liquor shop I'd ever seen, taught me almost every single thing I knew about whiskey, and was delving into bottling the stuff herself.. Matt Taylor-Gross.The Best Rare Bourbons for a Whiskey Drinker's Collection.

To hear LeNell Camacho Santa Ana tell it, I was a regular customer at her pioneering Red Hook, Brooklyn bottle shop from pretty much the get-go in 2003, and seeing as I dorked out every time I came in, she offered me a job to which I replied, "You can't afford me."In my recollection, that is true up to the last part of the sentence, because A. I'm not prone to that kind of sass and B. what I imagine I was trying to convey is that the last time I'd worked in a retail shop where they sold something that spoke to my passions (that'd be the HMV record store in Herald Square, kitty-corner from Macy's in the mid '90s) I couldn't actually afford it because I took full and frequent advantage of the employee discount and essentially had to deposit my paycheck right back into the till.Still, she didn't seem to take great offense and I hung on her every bit of wisdom about whiskey in all its forms, as well as life, love, and the importance of not missing a chance to open the good stuff.

On a random weekend in the winter of 2008, for instance, she'd busted out a couple of bottles of 1970 Lafite to enjoy alongside a. potato-chip-topped squash casserole.my husband and I brought over to her loft because that's just how she lives.. Just a few weeks prior to that classy casserole night, LeNell had noticed the vultures beginning to circle.

She was several bottlings into her limited Red Hook Rye production, which she'd carefully selected from four barrels of 1984.

Willett whiskey.Although oak from several states does make its way into barrels, most of the American white oak used for making wine barrels hails from Minnesota and Wisconsin, with Missouri close behind.. American oak has proven extremely popular with winemakers in.

Rioja region and with.producers of Shiraz for its full, rich flavors — namely coconut.

It's also about half as expensive as French oak, costing around $500-$600 per barrel.. "American oak is less porous and richer in tyloses, which seals the xylem vessels — meaning it can be cut in more ways than French oak," Keeler explains."Oak has to be cut along sap channels so that it doesn't leak.