Profile: Joe Gomes

JOE
GOMES • 49
• Spirits Buyer/Store Manager • Blanchard’s •
Allston, MA

MULTI-TASKER
The varied job experiences have been a benefit as I have
supervised building remodelings and expansion, tweaked
processes and procedures for efficiency, and maintained the
computer network that I requested. We have repeatedly
strived to improve the store and operations as business has
increased. Even in 199O, we had a wide selection of
products. Today the store has about 1OOO individual wine
facings, each one a case. I know ’cause I stayed with the
cleaning crew one night and counted ’em! That’s just the
wire racks; then there are the wood racks and shelves. At
last count we had over 15O single malt scotches and a long
aisle of vodkas.

STANDING
ALONE Many years ago,
there was a Blanchard’s chain of liquor stores but the state
law made the Corey family break up the chain. My boss John
owns this store as a stand-alone, his brother owns three
smaller stores (Revere, West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain), their
sister has one in Brockton and their nephew has two newer
stores in Hyannis and Marshfield.

FRESH
SPIRIT When I started,
there was one glass case of name-brand single-malts
(Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, etc.) and high-end cognacs (the Big
Four: Courvoisier, Remy Martin, Martell, Hennessy). ‘What’s
the story with these?’ I asked and nobody could tell me. I
began to glean information from the sales reps. They get
three things on a regular basis from producers and
importers: brochures, tasting notes and sample bottles. I
started going to industry tastings and asked all kinds of
questions. I kept mental notes, wrote some down, lost them.
The more I learned, the more I got into information exchange
with customers, who were also becoming more
knowledgeable.

SCOTCHES
Personally, I prefer brown spirits. I like rums and
bourbons. Vodka I can leave alone. I’ve learned to
appreciate scotches over the years as I’ve tasted the better
ones (that you don’t taste in college). At first I tried to
taste all I could. My first taste of Macallan (in sherry
barrel) was good, but now I find that it lacks subtleties of
other malts. When Glenmorangie came out with their different
barrel finishes, I said, ‘Wow, here’s the best of both
worlds!’ Not surprisingly, I liked the port-finish best; the
port and sherry turned out to be the best sellers of that
line, at least for us. Every once in a while they come out
with a very expensive special bottling, not just vintage
dated, but a limited production run aged in premium casks
from a specific winery.

LONG
AGERS Malts tend to be
aged a minimum of 5 to 8 years. Younger malts tend to show a
lot of character from the distillate; they have an edge, a
burn, from the alcohol. From that 8 year point on, older
ones show more refinements from, and attributes of, the
aging vessel, whether finished or not in barrel. Some say
there’s a bell curve of aging attributes of single malts.
There a huge debate among Macallan lovers between the 18-
and 25-year-old, each claiming that their favorite comes out
closest to the peak of the curve. The theoretical peak is 21
years. Funny thing is, Macallan comes out with special
bottlings from hand-selected casks of 18, 2O or 21 years.
Their big hit, Grand Reserve, was originally an 18-year-old
that morphed into a 2O. Big hits often disappear first, but
may be replenished. Some sleepers, once gone, are gone for
good.

GOMES’
FAVES I have a sweet
palate, but my personal tastes have shifted over the years.
If I’m drinking wine, I prefer LBV ports, and deep reds with
lots of fruit. That carries over to rums and tropical
drinks. Over time, my taste buds are drying out. Years ago,
champagne tasted like battery acid to me; today I will drink
bubbly, but still prefer Asti to prosecco, demi-sec to brut.
So for browns, I like bourbons, which have a sweeter essence
than most scotches or other Tennessee whiskeys. Among
classic single malts, I love the Talisker Distiller’s
Edition. I tasted it last after several including the
Cragganmore, and the flavors resonated in my sinus passages
for two hours. Talisker now has a full line: 1O, 18, 2O, 25,
and 3O; the Distiller’s Edition (finished with 24 months in
sherry cask) and the 18 are my current favorites out of 15O
single-malts in the store. And that Talisker 16-year cask
strength! (many are in the 9Os, this was 12O proof). It
turned out that what I ordered in June was a single cask
dumped (bottled) in October that showed up in February. The
only case in Massachusetts was the one I ordered, and it was
incredible! The tasting notes read “Palate: Wow!” I
hand-sold them over a decade ago for $1OO each (Macallan 25
was $15O) to 6 or 8 people. Some soon came back, reporting
the bottle emptied in short order, and bought another. Too
soon it was gone, and I reluctantly sold the bottle I’d kept
for myself to a pleading regular.

TOP
BLENDS Blends are the
mainstays, single malts are the cream. Yeah, I’m spoiled!
Some of your best bangs for the buck – and I’m frugal – are
Johnny Walker’s 18-year gold and Dewar’s Signature
(comparable to Johnny Walker Blue but not advertised, so $3O
less). They’re two of the biggest and the best. They’re big
enough that they can invest in their higher end
products.

COMING of
AGERS We get a very
diverse clientele in here: workmen covered with paint to
suburbanites in chauffered limos. We’re in a college zone,
and even the college kids are diverse: from giddy sophomores
trying to buy six-packs with phony licenses – that we refuse
to serve – to seniors seeking hot bottles. In May, they want
to impress or reward their old man who’s just dropped $1OO
large on their educations. ‘I gotta get a great bottle.’
‘What does your dad like?’ And we have this discussion. I’ll
suggest several bottles in whatever price or taste range
they mention. I might offer a rare and unique
bottle.

TASTE or
LABEL? Grad students
similarly want to thank advisors who can make or break a
budding career; they might drop three or four hundred on a
special cognac or scotch for this special person who’s had
such an impact on their life. We’ll go to the glass cases
(today we have three) and they have no idea what to buy, so
they get something midrange that almost anyone could love.
I’ll ask, ‘Do you want to buy the name, or the taste? If
it’s not the Big Four cognacs or mass-produced scotches
(Johnny Walker, Dewar’s) and malts (Glenlivet, Glenfiddich)
and bourbons (Jack Daniels, Jim Beam), I show them bottles
with no recognizable name, but may be older, more refined,
hand-crafted products, from companies that take their
profits and put them back into the bottle, not up on a
billboard. If they want the name, I can give them a bottle
that might be on sale; if they want the taste, then we go to
the other end of the case and have another discussion. That
might be about tiny-production, hand-crafted browns: cognac
(Hine, Pierre Ferrand, Germain-Robin, Kelt) or fine malts
(Jura, Antiquary, Cardhu, Oban) or small-batch bourbons
(Buffalo Trace, Samuel Wolff).

AVAILABILITY
The Balvenie 3O-year-olds come in two sets, with and without
vintage date. When I see a case listed in the journal
[Massachusetts Beverage Business], I may say, ‘Oh,
send me a bottle.’ It might be $3OO to $1OOO. A customer
will come in and say, ‘Oh, my God! Where’d you get this?’
They buy it and run out the door. I call the wholesaler for
another bottle: ‘What do you mean, there aren’t any?!’ Turns
out Top of the Hub or The Ritz bought up the rest of that
six-pack. In a way, we’re competing with the high-end
on-premise accounts. They often get first pick, and the word
goes out on the street through the bars and restaurants.
Often people don’t learn about these scarce products until
they actually taste it or see it. I depend on my big three
spirits distributors: United, Horizon and MS Walker. More
esoteric products come from Classic, Ruby, Boston Wine, and
Ideal.

SPECIALTY
ITEMS Twenty years ago,
there was Glenlivet and Glenfiddich, and their 12-year-olds;
that was pretty much all of it. Macallan had their 18, 21,
25, but now they have a 3O here, and their own Fine Oak line
– once sold only to blenders – is now produced in-house.
Today, the trend is for houses to have their mainstay malts,
then do something different that are a few dollars more.
Examples: Bowmore’s 12-year Dusk, Dawn and Darkest;
Glenmorangie’s Port, Madeira, Bourbon and Burgundy finishes;
Balvenie’s Single Cask and vintages. Balvenie’s 17 changes;
old ones used Islay casks, (with a hint of Islay smoke), new
ones use new oak (bright, acidy), or new bourbon casks
(never used for aging). Macallan’s 15 and 18 ran out! It’s
now $13O, and I buy 1O-case drops.

MAGIC in
the MIX The Blenders’
Guild is an entire industry built up around trading casks of
single malts. Blenders try to keep their flavors consistent
from year to year, but when the flavors of your base product
are constantly evolving, that becomes more difficult. You
have to blend malts in different proportions each year to
maintain your flavor profile. I like to call it a mix of
science and alchemy. The blenders have phenomenal palates
(like tea tasters) to keep that Johnny Walker, Dewar’s
tasting very similar year after year. So some warehouses are
dedicated to storing unique malts in casks for the blending
industry. Sometimes traditional bottlers buy up casks and
lay up special aged bottlings.

CRAZED
COLLECTORS For
collectors looking for specific items (or editions) of a
high quality whisky, price is often no object. They may pass
up, say, the Balvenie 3O-year non-vintage and buy the
vintage or a special cask bottling. Same with custom car
manufacturers: somebody, somewhere is going to sit in your
car and say, “I gotta have this.” Then there are the people
who find something they love and when it starts to run out
they buy up every bottle they can find. Distance is no
issue: we get calls from all over the country from people
looking for that special bottle or bottles.

GOMES’
SLEEPER PICKS Lots of
quality products are under the radar. People don’t know
about Tomatin, a small distiller that makes a terrific
12-year and Antiquary, an exceptional blend. Ferrand Cognacs
are in that underrated category.

STUFF YOUR
TASTE Today when I go
to industry tastings, I keep my mouth shut and try not to
blurt out answers, so people can ask their own questions. I
try to give general information, not just my personal
opinion, so as not to unduly influence customers. They might
not like what I like. So, while I’ve learned to appreciate
really smoky malts – Lagavulin, Laphroiag, Ardbeg – to me
they’re liquid smoke; not to my taste. Yet I have customers
who buy them year ’round; in 9O-degree heat, they covet
their peaty malts!

PUBLICATIONS
Whiskey magazine from the UK was very good, but our free
subscription disappeared when the exchange rate dipped. The
malt advocate is very good, my favorite. We get a few
copies, and I’ll give back issues to budding enthusiasts,
which can broaden their outlook. Taste profiles don’t evolve
as fast as in wine journals. But as a rule a 12-year is
always a 12-year.

RUM LINES
Plantation Rums change
year to year, country to country. Metusalem’s Grand Reserve
is supposed to come in any day. Flor de Cana comes in more
consistently now. Pampero Anniversario is very popular; it
used to jump around between wholesalers. Ron Botran has a
new importer, changed its labels. Cruzan – first of the
flavored rums – has been coming on stronger now; people are
more aware of their wide selection: gold, white and
blackstrap. The Conch Republic (Key West) has this unique
item with flakes of gold from the Atocha shipwreck. Triple
8’s Hurricane Rum may be the only one left actually produced
in New England (Nantucket); pre-prohibition, Boston made
more rums than the rest of the world. The local Colombians,
many in the restaurant trade, love their Ron Medellin. And
from the French Islands, St. James, from Trinidad, Fernandez
and Angostura (White Oak, Old Oak). And of course, the
monster – Bacardi.