My Tiny Bottles with Tammy Coxen

This tasting video was such a delight! My guest was Jennifer Querbes from Brandy Sainte Louise. We were both blown away at how similar my tiny old bottle of DeValcourt 10 Year Old French Brandy tasted to the brandy she's created! (Spoiler: they were both really delicious.) Then we moved on to taste a half evaporated bottle of Christian Brothers American brandy, which was also surprising in its own way. I hope you enjoy listening to this video as much as we did making it!

This is the oldest bottle that I’ve found so far in Grandma's collection. In fact, it’s so old that it must have already been old when Grandma got it! In this episode I dive into what was happening during World War II that got this bottle of Portuguese brandy to American shores.

Have you ever wondered why it's "The" Glenlivet? You'll find out why in this episode. This tiny bottle of Glenlivet 12 year old single malt is straight from the 1980s, and the time of the famous whisky "loch."

I had SO MUCH fun tasting my 1990s Maker's Mark with Neal. We compared it to the modern version, and they were both good, but so very different. Find out how in this episode.

Not just Bacardi, but Bacardi O! Bacardi is one of the most influential rum brands and in this episode I trace how their innovations have been changing what people drank for over 100 years. This includes - for better or worse - being the first company to release a flavored rum. Bacardi O was not the first, but it's definitely the O-iest.

What does this bottle of gold rum from Antigua have to do with the 1918 Flu Pandemic? You'll have to listen to the episode to find out why it lead me to research the role alcohol played during our last major global pandemic!

When it comes to cocktails, no place loves Benedictine so much as New Orleans. Which made legendary New Orleans bartender Chris Hannah the perfect person to meet up with to taste three tiny bottles - Benedictine from the 1960s, B&B from the 1970s, and B&B from the 1980s.

Finally! After two bottles of B&B, I finally find a bottle of the real deal Benedictine. And it's a super cute one, most likely from the 1960s. I've already told its history (see episode #17) so in this episode I talk about some of the ways it's been used in cocktails for the last 100+ years.

This unboxing episode opens with a major mystery and one of the most intriguing bottles from Grandma's collection I've discovered so far. Then it's a fun selection, mostly of liqueurs, which should make for some interesting research and future episodes!

It was a lovely surprise to find this gorgeous bottle of Suntory Royal Japanese whisky from the 1980s in Grandma's collection. In this episode I dive into the origin of the Suntory brand and how Japanese whisky became so hot!

It's a really cool and old looking bottle of Tammy's favorite orange liqueur, and it's got a great backstory to match. Find out why it used to be called triple sec and isn't anymore, and all about its 6 generations of family ownership.

Links from the episode:

Our Seagram's story continues, as I abandon trying to say anything about Cara Mia chocolate almond cream liqueur in this episode and instead dive back into the soap-opera worthy tale of the Bronfman family. By the 50s and 60s the company was a cult of personality, and that personality was named Mr Sam.

An ad from 1985 claims that nine different apple varieties were used to make Apple Barrel Schnapps. Personally, I have a hard time believing that ANY apples were harmed in the making of this product. But certainly apples have been key to alcohol for a long time before this bottle came around, and I use this episode to talk about that!

It's another bottle of Benedictine & Brandy. I didn't have much to say about way back when I found the first bottle of it, Bottle #17. So instead, I'm using this episode to talk about the fun and fascinating history of bottled cocktails.

It's a quintessentially American brand with a Russian name in a British bottle. What's up with that? Find out its story, and the story of the famous cocktail that made it a success!

There was a pretty good ratio of good bottles in this round of unboxing! One that I've been crossing my fingers for since the beginning of the project, a couple of very interesting picks, and only one stinker. Find out which were the great, the good and the ugly as I pick another five bottles from Grandma's vintage collection of miniature liquor bottles.

Oh boy, it's another tiny bottle of anise flavored liqueur. Listen in to find out who created it and why they were proud to announce it was miserable in a martini!

To tell the story of this tiny bottle of Canadian whisky, first I had to dive into the story of one of the men most responsible for making bourbon what it is today - Lewis Rosenstiel.

Check out these two great links for more about the rise and fall of Rosenstiel's company, Schenley Industries.

Bottle #42 is Dubonnet, a liqueur that's sometimes French and sometimes American. Find out how it started out as medicine for French Legionnaires and ended as a favorite of British queens!

Bottle #41 is Christian Brothers brandy. Today, this American brandy is a perfectly adequate bottom shelf brand, but it has a fascinating history.

Thanks to the help of a Polish friend I was able to unlock the story of this extra-large tiny bottle of Polish mead from the 1980s. It's got a gorgeous label, a mystery exporter, and a shoutout in the US Congressional Record from 1968! What's not to like?

If my research is right, this might actually have been the first white chocolate liqueur on the market! Find out what else I learned about this late 1990s bottle of (now mostly solid) cream liqueur from Cognac maker Godet.

It's not just a tiny bottle, it's a musical instrument! In this episode you'll find out all about that and how this bottle of anis is connected to Charles Darwin and French perfume.

Not just Sambuca, Black Sambuca! In this episode I talk about what's in this shiny black bottle and marvel at it having an origin story that might actually be true!

It's ANOTHER tiny bottle of brandy! But at least this time it's a Spanish one. In this episode I dive into what that means, talking about soleras and criaderas and other aspects of what makes brandy (and wine) from this part of Spain so distinctive!

This bottle of De Valcourt 10 year old French negociant brandy was a puzzle to figure out. And like with so many of these tiny bottles, our old friend Seagrams makes an appearance!

In my latest tasting episode I'm joined by Sother Teague from Amor y Amargo and the Speakeasy podcast. We taste his father's favorite spirit - Jack Daniels - and talk about why old whiskies taste different from modern ones, how to *really* understand a bottle, and lots more.

Well, I said there were more Seagram products lurking nearby, and here's another one! I had no idea the ubiquitous Captain got its start with our favorite friend of the pod, but so it did. Although its history goes back farther than you'd guess!

Well, at least it's not another schnapps? Instead, this Seagram's liqueur is there version of amaretto. And since that's about all there is to say about it, I spend this episode talking about how the Bronfman family enterprise became something called Seagram's.

What do Bollywood villains and polar explorer Ernest Shackleton have in common? They both drink VAT 69. In this episode I dive into this iconic Scotch whisky's story.

Last episode I told you about my tiny bottle of Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon, and this episode you can find out how it tastes! My guest is Noah Rothbaum, author of The Art of American Whiskey and co-host (with David Wondrich) of the podcasts Life Behind Bars and Fix Me a Drink. Noah and I talk about why Wild Turkey is a New York City whiskey and what's changed between when this tiny bottle was filled in 1979 and us drinking it in 2023!

It's the one, the only, Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon. This legendary bourbon is distiller Jimmy Russell's legacy, and comes with a fun backstory too!