HOD BEZALEL

A Guy Walks Into a Bar...

Not just any guy walks into a bar and finds stories that make him a spirited spirits writer. Rafi Kohan, our May OLM Table Lodge speaker and raconteur, is not just any guy who walks into a bar. He's a writer who developed both his career and his enthusiasm for alcohol - and the stories that go with every bottle - by walking into bars and liquor stores and asking: "So, what's new?"

His inquisitiveness led him to a conversation with the master distiller (at the time) for Glenmorangie, the result of befriending a bartender. When he walks into a liquor store, he looks for "store picks," which are typically one-of-a-kind bottlings from a single cask or batch. "Stores get a limited distribution of these bottlings," he said, "and once they sell out, they're gone."

Three of our tastings were store picks:

• Uncle Nearest Single Barrel from a black-owned distillery in Shelbyville, TN that modified a Jack Daniels recipe
• Short Barrel Single Barrel Rye from the very local Shortbarrel distillery in Norcross
• El Tequileno Reposado

The fourth tasting was Glenmorangie Cadboll Estate, 15 years old.

The bottles and stories sparked spirited conversations and more storytelling by the brethren in attendance. The idea, Kohan emphasized, is to discover and enjoy the variety of aromas and tastes that distillers try to bring out in their recipes. And that, he said, comes from asking questions and be willing to try something different. His questions and conversations led him to become the whiskey writer for Gentleman's Quarterly and the New York Observer.

He is the author of two books, The Arena and Trash Talk. The latter is a study in gaining a psychological edge.