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Skip Moore Photography

Email: skipm1@mc.net

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Whisky Fest Chicago 2008

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The Hyatt Ballroom, full of fine spirits and people ready to drink them.
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The Hyatt Ballroom, full of fine spirits and people ready to drink them.

  • The Hyatt Ballroom, full of fine spirits and people ready to drink them.
  • But don't forget about the buffet that ran all evening. Which was perfect for me, because sometime on the train ride down I realized that all I'd had to eat during the day was a 6-inch nuke-it-yourself frozen pizza. So the first stop was the mashed potato bar (sun-dried tomato topping yummy), then onto some poached salmon before my designated first stop of the evening.
  • The Laphroaig booth, where we began with the 10 and moved through the 15 to the cask-strength, and that last one is a couple hundred a bottle. Smooth. And yes, that is a kilt our host was wearing. There were several in the room. But considering the chilly walk we'd had from the hotel to the festivities I didn't have many regrets about not wearing mine.
  • They can be a bit protective of their bottles, as my pal Mike came to understand.
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  • Ah, a tasting setup in one of the seminars. The importance of wood at Glenfiddich. Wow...
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  • Did you see the Modern Marvels on whisky? See the bit on Colorado Whiskey? Can you guess what the cowboy's pouring? I thought it somewhere between scotch and bourbon - it nosed like a scotch but was smooth like a bourbon. Then again, by that time I'd sampled a dozen or so Islay scotches, so your mileage may vary. But I definitely put some of this on my shopping list.
  • It just wouldn't have seemed right without the booth babes. Okay, so they weren't really booth babes; they were just female marketing types working for the distributors. But strangely enough they were all brunettes. I kid you not.
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  • My last stop of the evening was at the Jack Daniels booth. Having been a Tennessee Squire for the past twenty years provided some compensation; I made mention of my standing and the good man in the bow tie went straight to the bottle of single-barrel and poured a bit more than the standard sip being provided to attendees. What a way to cleanse the palate, eh?
  • Alas, 9:30 came too soon and the night was young. So into a cab and off to Kingston Mines for some Guinness and some serious blues.
  • J.W. Williams and the Chi-Town Hustlers - the Japanese guy on guitar was incredible. He starting into a screaming solo and proceeded to walk down onto the dance floor in front of the stage.
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  • The night (morning?) closed out with Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang. Then it was back to the hotel and some sleep for me. Mike wasn't so lucky; he'd forgotten to close out the tab at the Mines and had to catch a couple cabs back and forth to pick up his plastic. Luckily cabs were aplenty even at 3AM.
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