The Underground Brewery Stories about brewing beer and train traveling from Tom Coughlin

It’s very tough to put together a small bar for a railroad car. In the space of a 4′ by 3′ cupboard, you have to represent the latest trends in spirits, while offering the passengers their favorite old standards and traditional refreshments.

In honor of visiting the Old South and for some seasonal adjustment, I added a couple of new whiskies. Concannon Irish Whiskey is new on the market–I’m curious to see how passengers like it. It’s a traditional four-year-old barley whiskey from Cooley Distillers in Ireland that received a few months of additional aging in petite syrah barrels from the Concannon Vineyard in California. Rye whiskey, a beverage that fell out of popularity about 40 years ago, but is making a slow comeback, is represented by both single malt and blended offerings.

Bourbon is a traditional railroad lounge car drink, and you can’t get more traditional than Jim Beam. Knob Creek is a popular new era product that is much less sweet and a tad more serious than the old guard. Just for fun, I added Eagle Rare 10, which is a single barrel bourbon from the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky. Single barrel bourbons are unusual–as an unblended product, a lot of variation between bottles is possible. Some bottles will be brilliant, others not so much.

For the Beer list– half of our passengers have asked that we serve hoppy ales, so American Pale Ales and India Pale Ales are deeply presented. By adding some UK ales into the mix, we pick up some historical perspective, and with homebrews we’ll try out some experimental ideas and really get to explore the APA/IPA styles.

For the wine list– Meg did it, I wasn’t paying attention. She’s been working with Chef Charles for about six years, and it usually works out great.

Water:
Poland Spring (cooking, coffee service, and for passenger use)

Soft Drinks:
Hansen’s Natural Creamy Root Beer
Hansen’s Natural Ginger Ale
Snapple Arnold Palmer (diet)
Ice Tea
Lemonade (made to order)
Diet Coke
Original Coke
Sprite
Diet Pepsi

Bar mixers:
Seltzer
Tonic Water
Lemon Juice
Tomato Juice

Beer:
Sly Fox Royal Weisse
Sly Fox Rt. 113 IPA
Sly Fox Phoenix Pale Ale
Oscar Blues Old Chubb Scotch Ale
Oscar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Southern Tier 2xIPA
Southern Tier Harvest Ale
Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA
Brewdog Punk IPA (Scotland)
Brewdog Hardcore IPA (Scotland)
James Watt (of Brewdog) Old World IPA (Scotland)
McNeill’s Firehouse Amber Ale (VT)
Black Sheep Ale (UK)
Selected assortment of award-winning homebrew beers.

Wine:
The Stum Jump Shiraz
–McLaren Vale 2010 (Australia)
Sauvignon Blanc
–Oxford Landing Estates 2011 (Australia)
Pinot Noir
–Mark West 2010 (California)
Chardonay
–Concha y Toro 2011 (Chile)
Xplorador Chardonay
–Concha y Toro 2010 (Chile)

Spirits and Fortified Wines:
Blended Scotch Whisky:
Chivas 12 year
Seagram’s VO
Dewar’s White Label
Tangle Ridge 10 year (Canadian Rye Whiskey)

Single Malt Scotch Whisky:
Glenfidditch 12 year (Speyside)
Glenfarclas 12 year (“Highland” Speyside)

Irish Whiskey:
Concannon

Bourbon:
Jim Beam 4 year
Knob Creek 9 year
Eagle Rare 10 year single barrel Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Vodka:
Seagrams
Ketel One

Rum:
Bacardi 8 year dark rum

Gin:
Tanqueray

Vermouth:
Tribuno Sweet Vermouth
Martini and Rossi Dark Vermouth
Martini and Rossi Light Vermouth