Atlanta's Best Double Stack Burgers (Part 1) - One Eared Stag and Stationside

Sometime after the H&F ten o'clock burger blew up, restaurants all over the city started putting classic diner-style double stack burgers on their menus. These places have taken a classic double quarter pounder with cheese style burger and reinterpreted it with top notch ingredients and expert preparation. This style has everything I want in a burger. Made well, these burgers are super juicy and cheesy with great crust and have the perfect bun-to-meat ratio. I love these burgers so much that I recently declared that I must try them all. Yep, all of them. For science.

Well, this is gonna take a while. So far, I've counted over fifteen double stack burgers around the city. I'm going to work my way through them and and rate each of them from 1 to 100. I'll revisit burgers I already know and love and try any new ones I can find. I'm not limiting myself to traditional versions with only cheese onion and pickles, but the burger has to be in the thinnish double cheese burger family to receive consideration.

To start things off, I went with a burger I've had and one I haven't: The Meatstick from One Eared Stag in Inman Park and The Caboose from Stationside on the West Side.

Irish Whiskey Showdown: Powers John's Lane vs. Redbreast Cask Strength

Today we compare two of the most well received Irish whiskies available in the states, Powers John's Lane and Redbreast 12 Cask Strength. Both are 12 year old single (pure) pot still whiskies made by Irish Distillers at the Midleton Distillery. Both are matured in a combination of ex-bourbon barrels and Oloroso sherry casks. Both are non chill filtered. With all of these similarities, I was really interested to taste them side by side.

First, a little history. Irish Distillers has a great comeback story. By the late 1960s, demand for Irish whiskey was nearly non-existent. In order to survive, the John Jameson & Son, Powers & Sons, and the Cork Distillery Co. merged in 1966 to create Irish Distillers. The old distilleries were closed and operations were consolidated a facility in Midleton (Cork County), where the New Midleton Distillery was built in 1975. The company was purchased by Pernot-Ricard in 1988. Today, Irish whiskey is the fastest growing whiskey category in the U.S. market, and Midleton produces many of the most highly regarded whiskies within that category, including Redbreast, Powers, and the Green and Yellow Spots. (Yellow Spot is not yet available in the U.S.)

The Redbreast Cask Strength and the Powers John's Lane are single pot still (f/k/a pure pot still) whiskies, meaning they are distilled from a combination of malted and unmalted barley (single malt scotch uses only malted barley) and in a copper pot still rather than a column still. The pot still is known for imparting round and creamy quality that I really enjoy.

Okay, enough history. Let's taste 'em.

Cocktails and Oysters at Kimball House

I finally made it to Kimball House last weekend. It was the first stop in a long night of eating and cocktails in Decatur. The place hits all the right notes, and the bar program is really exceptional. The marble bar is 30-or-so feet long and is backed by library shelves (equipped with ladder). Many of the bartenders are recognizable from their stints at other cocktail destinations around town, and the drinks are creative and tasty. I was particularly fond of the New Tokyo, which somehow managed to use Ardbeg 10 year old scotch to make a lightly smokey but refreshing drink with the addition of pear brandy, lime, ginger, and yuzu.

To go with the great cocktails, there is a raw bar with one of the most extensive oyster lists I've ever seen in Atlanta or otherwise. Each variety on the menu has helpful tasting notes like "face full of seawater" or "sweet, zesty, and super balanced." The accompaniments are smartly limited to lemon and a dropper full of mignonette, which do not overpower the oysters. I prefer my oysters on the briny side, and our bar waiter recommended the Puffer's Petite's (Wellfleet, MA), Island Creek (Duxbury Bay, MA), and Potter's Moon (Potters Island, RI). All three were insanely good. I will be back.

Left to Right: Sazerac, New Tokyo, Pecan Old Fashioned

Kimball House
303 East Howard Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030

The Sandwich Files: The Aporkalypse Now from Muss & Turner's

Muss & Turner's in Smyrna has a huge list of great sandwiches on their lunch menu, the most popular being the Big Green Egg grilled burger. For today's sandwich, however, I went with something off of the "Divine Swine" section of the menu:  The Aporkalypse Now.

This lunch-only Thai-inspired sandwich comes on a soft, french bun (the same bread used for the burger) that is toasted on the flat top. The bun is smeared with cilantro mayo, and piled high with warm, thinly-sliced pork loin. The pork is topped with a slaw made with cucumbers, cabbage, red onion, and cilantro. A cup of "spicy nam prik" made with fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, sugar and chiles is provided on the side for french dip style dunkage. The sandwich is not very spicy, but overall the Aporkalypse Now is a solid sandwich.

Muss & Turner's
1675 Cumberland Parkway
Smyrna, GA 30080

Friday Cocktail: The Kirkwood

Today's cocktail, the Kirkwood, is a variation on the Red Hook that was created by Atlanta's own Miles Macquarrie, formerly of Leon's Full Service and now at the uber popular Kimball House.

The Red Hook (named after a Brooklyn neighborhood) is part of a series of derivative cocktail riffs based on the Manhattan and was named one of the 25 most influential cocktails of the past century by Imbibe magazine in 2010. For the Red Hook, Milk & Honey's Vincenzzo Errico replaces the Manhattan's sweet vermouth with the spicier Punt e Mes vermouth and adds Maraschino liqueur.  For Macquarrie's variation named after the the great East Atlanta neighborhood, he replaces the Red Hook's Maraschino with the bitter and herbal Cynar and adds St. Germain elderflower liqueur and grapefruit bitters for brightness. 

A fantastic cocktail worthy of a great Atlanta neighborhood.

The Kirkwood

- 1.5 oz. Rittenhouse Rye (or other high proof rye)

- .5 oz. Punt e Mes 

- .5 oz. Cynar

- .5 oz St. Germain

- 2 dashes grapefruit bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir 30 seconds and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with grapefruit peel.

Whiskey Review: Rittenhouse Rye Bottled in Bond (DSP-KY-1)

So why review a whiskey that everyone already knows and loves? Because the Rittenhouse in stores now is completely different whiskey than the stuff that was on shelves a few months ago. After Brad Kaplan of Thirsty South (a great blog) joked Monday night on Twitter about the whiskey-geekiness of comparing the new DSP-1 Ritt to the old DSP-354 stuff, I figured I owed it to my inner geek to take a closer look.

A little background: Rittenhouse is a Heaven Hill brand that was distilled at the old Heaven Hill Distillery (DSP-KY-31) until November 1996 when the place was destroyed by fire. After the fire, the company bought and relocated to the old Bernheim Distillery (DSP-KY-1) but did not produce any rye there until 2008, which is what is now hitting the shelves. The Ritt we've been buying for the last several years was distilled for Heaven Hill at Brown-Forman's Early Times facility (DSP-KY-354).

So, what's the difference? Potentially a lot. It is true that the Brown-Forman and Heaven Hill whiskies were both distilled with the same mashbill, yeast, and under the same conditions. Whiskey is a strange thing, though. Each distillery has its own distinct characteristics, and the differences can be quite noticeable. See, e.g., Buffalo Trace distilled Pappy Van Winkle.

So, how is the new stuff?

Fear and Loathing at the Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival

Do you love beer, bourbon, and BBQ? Do you also love fighting through large crowds of 22 year olds attempting to power-drink their weight in Fireball and Four Loko? Yes? Then hopefully you were at Saturday's Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival at Atlantic Station.

Lured by the promise of warmer weather and a shared love of all three elements of the event, a group of us decided to check it out. It was an interesting experience, to say the least.