Randy Brandy drinks Two Lous Pibous Armagnacs

Happy Halloween, you goons. Now go buy your mothers some flowers and apologize. FOR EVERYTHING.

Randy Brandy will be drinking up another two armagnacs from independent bottlers, L'Encantada, today. Independent Bottlers. There's a phrase that lubricates the wallets of all you Scotch fans. Let me remind you of something. An independent bottler is just like the narrator in Heart's All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You, they may sound romantic but really they're just out there screwing hitchhikers, trying to get pregnant.

(Don't make me hold forth all day on Nancy Wilson's compositions. They don't call me Randy "Barracuda" Brandy for nothing.)

Randy Brandy don't mind the hustle. I love me my capitalism. It's as American as its founder Adam Smith. Judging by your preferred politicians, I know some of you sensitive types get the vapors when you read about persons, such as corporations, doing everything they can to succeed. Just like me stealing Kravitz's brandy samples.

Unlike "independent" bottlers Signaboring and Garden MacPhart, L'Encantada's hitchhiker seduction is just a side hustle and their cask strength bottlings are priced nicely. Today's hitchhiker is Lous Pibous, whose distilling went seins en l'air in 2005. Contrary to what you've heard, Lous Pibous did not use new oak in a dry warehouse, rather their armagnac matured in a swamp log upon which the owner sang "Rainbow Connection".

That was a frog joke. I have more.

Samples from Monsieurs Florin and Mathieu:

That's supposed to be F4RB. MK gets nothing.

Here are my notes.

L'Encantada - Lous Pibous 23 year old 1993, cask 124, 52.5%abv
Nose - Freshly polished jackboots and apfelwein (see what I did there? No? Curt Schilling would). Antique shops and madeira. Almond brittle, coffee and Stizel-Weller. Yes, your Pappy's Pappiez.
Palate - The whole spice cabinet emptied into your mulled wine. Your grandma's attic. Butterscotch, ginger beer, molasses chews and Angostura bitters. Throw in some crisp old Calvados for good measure.
Finish - I'm like The Kool Aid Man at a massage parlor, "OH YYYYYEAH!"

More Notes - I get it, you still drink $100 bourbon because America. Otherwise THIS is what you should be drinking right now. No more excuses. We just need to get Brandy Boy Sku and his cadre of facilitateurs to float more of these casks across the Atlantic. Alas, the French have not won! It is we who have lost. Well, not me. I'll drink Folle blanche yeast shit like this until Rapture.

Also.

L'Encantada - Lous Pibous 24 year old 1993, cask 16, 53.6%abv, my Jesus how much information do you people need?
Nose - Peaches, roses, limoncello. A carpenter's garage, cut wood and greasy tools. Maker's Mark but better. Pedro Ximenez. Then caramel, apple candy and cloves.
Palate - More fruit and spirit in this one. Sweet lemons and small dark grapes. Fresh ginger and a moldy warehouse. Berries floating in a mineral rosé. Some tannins and caramel.
Finish - Sweet and tart. Caramel candies and limes. Sugary grapes.

More Notes - You know what? Go ahead and drink your Pistle Whigs and Forged Rhetoric. I'm sure those producers and their products are 100% American. This 100% French thing mixes white Bordeaux with wheated bourbon and doesn't throw up, somehow. In fact, it's beyond competent. I should probably drink more. In general.

There were my notes.

Cask 16 is probably great, but Cask 124 would humiliate most brown spirits. I still have one ounce left of 124, an ounce I can drink and not talk about. In fact, it's High Time I get Straight On and listen to a little Dog & Butterfly with the lights low. I suggest you do the same.

RATINGS
L'Encantada Lous Pibous 23 year old 1993, cask 124:  A-
L'Encantada Lous Pibous 24 year old 1993, cask 16:  B

Randy Brandy drinks 2 batches of L'Encantada XO Armagnac

Begging for Pearls brought the righteous Lib indignation this week. Mmmm god it's delicious. Who needs food? JUST COOK UP SOME EAU DE VIE À LA GAUCHE AND SHOOT IT BETWEEN MY TOES.

As an extra Christmas present to us all, Krabs then went full hipster with one of those This Terrible Thing That No One Likes is Actually Good gems because those posts always age well.

And since, like testicles, all good things descend in threes, so Randy Brandy is here to review TWO L'Encantada armagnacs.

At L'Encantada, François and François [Ed. note: Not their actual names.] [Better Ed. note: Shut up.] have Crafted two batches of XO: Lot 1 and Lot 2.0, also known as There Is Pibous In It and There is NO Pibous In It.

L'Encantada found two casks of Domaine Lous Pibous and you won't believe what happened next!

They blended them with three casks of not-Pibous. Brilliant. Because there is definitely an infinite amount of Pibous in the world. Anyway, Lot 1.

Hot for BILFs? Then Lot 2 is for you. 40% of it is 30+ year old fluid, so pull your cork to that. (I should work in advertising.)

That's all the intro I had the patience for. I liked it.

Here are my notes.

LOT 1 - There Is Pibous In It, 46.8%abv
Nose - It's very Christmassy. Allspice, dried cherries, apple pie and chestnuts. Wet twigs and envelope glue. Oaky like an old bourbon.
Palate - Spicy, like pumpkin pie spice. Maple, honey, cinnamon, salted butter and lemon.
Finish - Salted nuts and honey. Tannins and lemon.

More Notes - L'Encantada is good at finding armagnacs that smell like very old bourbon, but don't taste like you blew an oak tree. So, yes this will thrill bourbon geeks whose jaws are sore. The notes of apples, cherries and lemons are also much appreciated.

LOT 2 - There Is No Pibous, 44.6%abv
Nose - Black walnuts, applesauce, buttery caramel, golden raisins, grape juice, some kind of citrus juice.
Palate - Armagnac candy: toasty and very sweet. Speyside whisky aged in new oak. Brazil nuts and toasted almonds. Syrupy and oaky with a little bit of acid.
Finish - Very sweet and tannic. Cabernet Sauvignon and Brazil nuts.

More Notes - Less of the bourbon thing than Lot 1, more brandy and malt whisky. It smells good and drinks fast, but the palate could use some more fruit essence and less sugar. The tannins show its age, but if you don't want any oak in your drink, stay away from L'Encantada altogether. If you love oak then there's a certain aforementioned American beverage that misses that thing you do.

There were my notes.

L'Encantada wants whiskey drinkers and their blind whiskey money. You know who you are. Pony up because you can't take your money with you when you go, especially if you go due to cirrhosis and you're too broke to pay your medical bills. At least there will be more brandy for me then.

Merry War on Christmas, Libs. I'll see you in 2020 with some Pibous.

RATINGS:
L'Encantada XO, Lot 1 - B/B+
L'Encantada XO, Lot 2.0 - B-/B

Randy Brandy drinks Chateau de Pellehaut Armagnac twice

Wow, that was riveting.

Diving for Kravitz spent an entire month on Glenfiddich 12. Have you ever seen someone try so hard to lose his readership? Well, hold my brandy (or whatever it is that the idiot-adults-who-want-to-be-cool-like-the-idiot-kids say).

After many trips to France on the company dime, K&L's Didactic Duo brought Armagnac to this great country to slake the thirst of their destitute devotees during the Obama years. Two "blog" posts later, every whisky nut with a chile in his ass bought every bottle because they were told to do so by Jesus Driscoll. Or was it "Jesus, Driscoll"?

Now Randy Brandy's going to rewrite the Chateau de Pellehaut introduction that the ginger cartoon formerly known as Sku once composed:

In France there's a place called Armagnac. In Armagnac there are three places called Bas-Armagnac Tenareze, and Haut-Armagnac. In Tenareze there is a brandy producer known as Chateau de Pellehaut. Tenareze is near Condom.

Florin, the Pappy of Armagnac sample givers, sent Kravitz two samples of CdP because he wants him to go Haut'ing. Don't tell me that's not how it's pronounced. Both Armagnacs were distilled from the Folle Blanche grape emissions and were both K&L blue light specials.

Photos of sample bottles are very important

Here are my notes.

Chateau de Pellehaut 16 year old 2001, 48.6%abv

Nose - Dark chocolate, black cherry ice cream, lemon, cinnamon, toffee. That's the first glass. The second glass smells like milk chocolate, vanilla bean, apples and anise.
Palate - Cherries, oranges, toffee and cloves. Kinda sweet. Lots of cask, but good cask. More ginger powder and black cherry soda in the second glass.
Finish - Cherries, mint, oranges, oak spice and dirt.

More Notes - This is brandy for bourbon drinkers, and I'm definitely the first person who has ever said that. But you can keep your bourbon, I'll take this instead. It tastes good, it smells good. The oak knows its place. Meanwhile 16 year old bourbon costs as much as John Edwards' haircut. Remember that? That was great and it's still funny.

Chateau de Pellehaut 17 year old 1996, 50.4%abv

Nose - Dried cherries, apple skins, peach skins, flowers, cinnamon, almond fudge and brine.
Palate - Dominican cigars, almonds and lemon cake. Salted caramel candy, candied peels and candied ginger. There's something between cocoa and leather going on in the second glass.
Finish - Warm baked orchard fruits, oak spice, mint. It's long. Long as......well, you've seen the pictures.

More Notes - Pour this for your whisky friends and tell them it's a 30 year old sherry cask single malt. Or don't pour it for them and keep it for yourself because it's better than whisky.

There were my notes.

How whisky were these armagnacs? My wife, Brandy, walked into my man cave after this tasting was over and said, "Gross. It smells like whisky in here." That's how whisky they were. Jesus Driscoll knew his market.

RATINGS:
Chateau de Pellehaut 16 year old 2001: B/B+
Chateau de Pellehaut 17 year old 1996: B+/A-   (the A- is for the whisky people who didn't buy this bottle)

Randy Brandy drinks Darroze 40 year old Les Grands Assemblages Armagnac

Kravitz wants me to keep this brief. Yes, the James A. Michener of whisky bloggers demands a short post. That guy's idea of editing is adding more commas. If he heard the word "brevity" he'd think it was the new Ardbeg release, then camp out overnight and submit himself to a grim sexual encounter just to get a low-res blurry crooked photo of the bottle.

Too far? Good.

Darroze does this series of "Grands Assemblages", or "blends" to be not French about it, in nice round numbers like 20, 30, 40 and 50 years. And 8 and 12 years because they add up to 20. The 40 year old was bottled at the CRAZY Georges Stagg-esque abv of 42%.

I bought this sample.
Just kidding.
What kind of cheap ass--

Here are my notes.

Darroze 40 year old Les Grands Assemblages Armagnac, 42%abv

Color - Reddish
Nose - Great. Almonds, walnuts and cashews floating in red wine. Honey, cocoa powder, cassis and Fig Newtons. Cinnamon raisin bread. A snort of rubber cement.
Palate - Citrus, foremost. Sour cherries, golden raisins and salt. Ladyfingers (the cookies, maybe) in coffee. A nutty sweet loaf. After a while there are bitter herbs and minerals.
Finish - Stone fruits, but less sweet than the palate, maybe more salt. Drying.

There were my notes.

Excellent until the finish. Still, it looks a hell of a lot better than that whisky he drank. What a shame. Brandy wins. This conclusion is getting too extensive. This armagnac probably beats the cognac, but both serve their purpose. I hope Kravitz buys a bottle of this.

Darroze 40 year old Les Grands Assemblages Armagnac
NOT WHISKY RATING: B+

Randy Brandy drinks.....Delord Bas Armagnac 33 year old 1978

What's all this jilted lover crap? Pearly Coward is outsourcing his brandy reviews now? At least he picked me. I know my 'gnac. Because that's what the cool people call it. 'Gnac. How about I pour a wee dram of 'gnac and have a #TwitterTasting with the #brandyfabric? Assholes.

I do like brandy, though. Here's Krab's birthday bottle:

He told me he bought it for $90 in 2013. But that's probably a lie, because he just wants everyone to feel bad about brandy prices now.

Here are my notes. I don't do sentences. Much.

Color - Rich mahogany
Nose - Good & Plenty (my nickname with the ladies, nudge nudge wink wink, etc.). Madeira, dried cherries, black raisins, orange peel, flowers and grape juice.
Palate - Shoe polish, no, shoe leather, no, shoe polish. Very tangy. Black licorice and black pepper. There's ginger ale, plum and raisins but they're really faint.
Finish - Tangy and sharp. Pepper, prunes, black licorice and shoe polish.

There were my notes.

Wikipedia says the average infant is 73% water. Just like this brandy. But how much of the infant is boisé?

BRANDY JOKE!

Also, this:

Everyone involved should embarrassed.

Look, this armagnac doesn't suck. It's just hidden in water. This reminds me of what Angus the Acceptable recently said about Connoisseurs Choice. It took G&M 40 years of drowning excellent scotch before they bottled it at a "proper" strength. Just because one can bottle an old brandy at 40%abv, doesn't mean one should. This armagnac was probably brittle at full power. Why drown it then? You figure if someone is buying brandy, he's going to want to taste some brandy and not just smell it.

Krab wants me to give it a letter grade. Good. Numbers are a performance.

NOT WHISKY RATING: C+

Jilted Lovers on the Rebound?

Has our lover, Whisky, ditched us for the stupid coked-up rich kids? Then should we not chase prim and proper Cognac? Or maybe Armagnac, the Frenchie who doesn't shave? How about Rum, the one with the piercings and a more exotic background than our former lover?

Did Whisky free us to explore other relationships, knowing full well we'll always come back because no matter how exciting these new experiences are, nothing compares 2 U, Whisky?

I enjoy brandy. I've liked Calvados for a long time. But having once spent over $40 for a bottle of it, I shan't do that again. And though I've had some good armagnacs, I prefer cognac. With few exceptions, long-aged armagnac reads (to me) like "Wow, this is almost as good as single malt scotch!" Actually, unaged brandies from around the world appeal to me more than most brown brandies.

Same thing with rum. A good clear rum spirit registers so much brighter and enjoyable than its aged siblings. That's not to say I don't like brown rums. I've had a number of very good ones (Hampden and Caroni!). But the new pricing of decent rum makes me think, "I can just buy whisky."

Some whisky bloggers publicly shit on gin. Not I. Gin is cool, in general. There's another unaged spirit I adore even more, and I've hinted about it plenty during this blog's life.

I waste your time with this subject matter right now because I've been playing tourist at some aged-spirits social media groups. Some of these groups spawned like Athena, violently and fully formed. Others existed long before my fellow Whisky Rejected joined up. Though I like (and occasionally love) the booze they discuss, I feel no interest in engaging or arguing about the nerdy stuff. I've also noticed the gradual creep of Here's More Shit I Just Bought And Must Show The World posts beloved by the whisk(e)y world.

To get back to the starting metaphor...... As your pal from the Whisky Relationship era of your life, I must ask about your new partners:

"Are you happy?"

"Is this progress?"

"Yeah, I know whisky is a trollop (you can thank his/her parents for that), but did you really have to dip your wick that quick just because everyone else was?"

"Whisky is never coming back. It's not your fault. Actually, it is your fault, but that's another story. I forgot, what was I going to ask you?"

---

This subject came to mind on Thursday as I was pouring a few birthday beverages. I was enjoying a blended whisky, a highly hyped rum and an old armagnac. And I liked the whisky blend the best. It was thicker, more complex and (most importantly!) a better drinking experience than the other two spirits. (Here's my old review of the stuff, I'm sticking to it after three years.)

Before opening the armagnac, I knew there could be some issues with it, but I was prepared to engage fully with it even if problems arose. The rum was monolithic, but good. Yet it made me think of a cheaper rum that's of at least equal quality.

I realized this moderate cognitive dissonance wasn't because Whisky is inherently better than Brandy or Rum. And my three drinks were not perfect examples of their genres, as if there could be a good single stand-in for any of these three broad categories.

But still, I can't bring myself to review the rum and brandy. So I have decided to bring in two guest reviewers to report on their experiences with these spirits, this week. Stay tuned...