Almost a year ago today, my now wife and I were in New York, shortly to elope to Las Vegas.
In our giddy excitement, heads filled with plans for sequined outfits and possible Elvis-themed venues, we hadn’t stopped to consider one very important fact about our stopover location. New York in January is cold.
This isn’t cold like we’d grown used to in London or how we’ve learned to appreciate in Dublin. Daytime temperatures during our brief visit peaked at -9 Celsius. Made all the more bewildering and terrifying by the Americans’ insistence on reporting the cold in a temperature unit apparently devised before the invention of the wheel.
As a result, much of our time in New York was spent indoors. I’ve already written up my experience of a couple of those bars: Grimm and Evil Twin. But we had a great time inside bodegas and bottle shops too, dazzled by the different cans and bottles on offer. Including this one.
Bourbon County Stout is a rare treat back home. Getting a bottle of the regular stuff is simple enough, as long as you’re happy paying the £20 cost. But the exotic special editions rarely if ever make it across the Atlantic. Until now.
Referred to lovingly as Mon Cheri, this fruited stout is a love letter to the brewer’s wife, who has a deep and abiding love for cherries. Appropriate, then, that I picked this bottle up on my way to get married!
It’s also brewed with oats and brown sugar, then aged in barrels like other beers from the BCS range. In this case, it has been maturing patiently in its bottle for more than three years before tasting.
Mon Cheri looks and pours just like a typical Bourbon County Stout: dark, thick, and syrupy. The aroma is rich and sweet, a mix of aged soy sauce and maraschino cherry.
The mouthfeel is thick and chewy. Jammy, dark fruit sweetness leads on the palate: cherry kirsch springs to mind. Then it’s a rich, satisfying bitterness and a lingering, oaky cherry mix on the finish.
This is a stunning beer, well worth the wait. My only disappointment is that I drank this on its own, and not with a bottle of the standard BCS alongside to compare.
Getting hold of these beers is hard for those of us not in the States. But if you ever find yourself on that side of the Atlantic, make some space in your check-in baggage and find yourself one of the BCS specials. They’re worth it.
Brew Report 