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Whiskey Review: Four Roses 2017 Limited Edition ‘Al Young’ 50th Anniversary Small Batch Bourbon

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Few people from any generation spend 50 years working for a single employer. These days, five months seems a long stretch for some; clearly not for Al Young. When a newlywed in 1967, he was a bottom-rung clock puncher at Four Roses Bourbon Distillery who would go on to become its Lawrenceburg, Ky., distillery manager, and the brand’s lead ambassador in 2007.

Al Young, brand ambassador, Four Roses. | Photo courtesy of Four Roses

In his work, Young has earned the love of his Four Roses peers and bourbon fans across America. As the brand’s chief storyteller and archivist, his baritone pipes rarely get a rest from task of sharing the history of this storied brand. So, it seems only fitting that Four Roses would release a bourbon honoring him and his career—which isn’t ending, by the way.

The 2017 Limited Edition 50th Anniversary Small Batch Bourbon, created by Young and master distiller Brent Elliott, is a blend of four of the distillery’s 10 recipes: 23-year OBSV (5 percent); 15-year OBSK (25 percent), 13-year OESV (50 percent) and 12-year OBSF (20 percent). The June 10 release (to premier during Whisky Live Louisville) of the bourbon will see 10,000 bottles moved to market for a suggested price of $150. If you love retro packaging, a great bourbon story and tasting the skill of great blenders at work, this might be your bottle. (Click here for a piece with Young’s comments on the whiskey’s creation.)

Four Roses 2017 Limited Edition 50th Anniversary Small Batch Bourbon

Appearance: Bronze to deep amber, depending on directness of light

Nose: Just delicious: toffee followed by green apple followed by maple syrup, toasted wheat bread and magnolia bloom. As it opens up, cereal grains arrive, followed by sawn cedar, bourbon ball candy and packaged chocolate chip cookies.

Palate: This doesn’t drink like a 108.9 proof bourbon, especially a Four Roses bourbon of such proof.
Some of the distillery’s high-rye recipes positively vibrate with aggressive spiciness (which I like, though in small doses or with ice), yet were one able to convert silk to liquid, this is what it would feel like at the midpalate. As revealed on the nose, the whiskey delivers on toffee, maple syrup, cotton candy, ripe apple and a bit of banana before returning to rye on the finish. It belies its age on the finish, which is barely dry and only mildly tannic. It is bourbon through and through, redolent with caramel and citrus and oak; dignified and complex, yet ever comprehendible. Just like Al Young himself.

My take: $150 easily qualifies this as a super-premium category offering, but if you’ve got the urge to splurge, put this one on the list. I’ve tasted many similarly priced whiskies this year that don’t stand up to this one. Consider it a great buy—if you can find it.

Lucie Slone Meyers is cooking with a purpose

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Four days before Valentine’s Day, Lucie Slone Meyers held court at a table in her nearly opened restaurant, The Red Light Kitchen & Lounge (780 N. Limestone).

Lucie Slone Meyers. | Photo by Bill Straus, Business Lexington

Between directing staffers on where to place tables, décor and bottles behind the bar, the grande dame of the Lexington restaurant scene talked shop with some of her peers: Debbie Long, owner of Dudley’s on Short; and Larry Dean, general manager at Chatham’s, among them. Each wanted to know if Slone Meyers, their 66-year-old friend, was ready to open the sixth, and likely final, restaurant of her storied, four-decade career.

Long stood while Meyers stayed seated, and the pair discussed the usual: other restaurants opening, the challenges of finding good help, whether a Valentine’s Day opening for Red Light was a good idea.

“Oh, they’ve all been wandering in,” says Slone Meyers, watching Long head out the door to her own restaurant. “We all do that to each other: check in and see what everybody’s doing.”

Slone Meyer’s phone rings and she takes the call, while employees wait to ask her more questions. The call ends, and without hesitation, she gives instructions, confident she knows what she wants done.

“Oh, opening on Valentine’s: I’ve lost my mind, haven’t I?” she says, her coarse laugh sliding into a cough. “I’ve always opened on a holiday; Halloween once. But Valentine’s: red heart, Red Light. It works.”

Suddenly, the discussion shifts.

“I have lung cancer. You know that, right?” She says it as casually as you might mention the unseasonably warm weather. Last year, one tumor was discovered in her left lung, and another behind her sternum. She’s endured rounds of radiation and chemotherapy to battle it and responded well. Recently, however, doctors have grown concerned about another tumor on her pancreas.

Click here to read more.

BULLEIT DISTILLERY OPENS STATE-OF-THE-ART FACILITY IN SHELBYVILLE, KY.

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Published first on EatDrinkTalk.net

SHELBYVILLE, Ky.—If Tom Bulleit didn’t buy a lottery ticket on March 14, he should have. As the founder of Bulleit Distilling Co. welcomed a crowd of about 200 to the ultra-modern, Diageo-backed distillery that day, he mentioned that Tuesday was not only his birthday, but his 30th wedding anniversary. 2017 also just happens to mark 30 years since the longtime lawyer revived his family’s whiskey business.

If the next Powerball number is 30, credit Bulleit with your share of the win.

Tom Bulleit, founder, Bulleit Distilling Co. | Photo by Steve Coomes
Tom Bulleit, founder, Bulleit Distilling Co. | Photo by Steve Coomes

Heaven knows he was busy crediting everyone else for the success of his Bulleit Frontier Whiskeys: family and friends who supported him, the spirits giant that bought the brand and gave it international wings, architects, engineers and construction workers who designed and built the $115 million facility, bartenders who turned drinkers onto said whiskeys—even lowly spirits journalists who wrote about Bulleit booze. He is, if anything, a gracious and friendly guy.

“As you can imagine, this is somewhat surreal for me,” Bulleit said. Recalling the first time he glimpsed the distillery’s fully constructed buildings from a distance, the ex-Marine and colon-cancer survivor said he asked himself, “How did this happen? This is absolutely incredible.”

The answer, of course, is drinkers like his liquor. In 2016, year-over-year sales of Bulleit whiskeys rose 29 percent, pushing six-bottle case sales past the 1 million mark for the first time. By comparison, it took Maker’s Mark 40 years to reach that case number.

The column still at Bulleit Distilling Co. | Photo courtesy of Bulleit Distilling Co.
The column still at Bulleit Distilling Co. | Photo courtesy of Bulleit Distilling Co.

Deirdre Mahlan, president of Diageo North America, said that despite the new modular distillery’s 1.8 million proof-gallon capacity, “we are already exploring expansion opportunities. Based on increased sales of Bulleit, we are looking at doing this sooner than later.”

Set on 300 acres of Shelby County countryside, the new distillery’s modern structures are brand-new, hospital clean and detailed with the precision of an amusement park. Expanding here would pose no problems, especially if, as Mahlan said, Diageo adds visitors’ experience in Shelbyville to complement its existing tour at the historic Stitzel-Weller campus in Shively.

During a brief tour, reporters weren’t allowed to photograph the distillery’s control room, which is fully computerized. No dials, knobs or switches here, just an array of flat-screen monitors detailing the grinding, fermenting, distillation and bottling the 15 to 20 million bushels of Shelby County grain delivered here annually. For now, only bourbon is in production, and no timeline was given for rye.

The new distillery fills about 720 charred oak barrels each day, about half the volume produced at Jim Beam’s Clermont plant. Instead of using ricks, barrels are palette stacked 25-feet high in four, single-story warehouses holding 55,000 barrels each. If you’re not a bourbon nerd, just know that that’s a lot. Most warehouses at major distilleries hold about 20,000 barrels. Last year, Heaven Hill opened a 56,000-barrel house in Cox’s Creek, where others of the same size are under construction.

A full warehouse at Bulleit. | Photo courtesy of Bulleit Distilling Co.
A full warehouse at Bulleit. | Photo courtesy of Bulleit Distilling Co.

Bourbon is a boomin’, ain’t she!

In its effort to operate with minimal environmental impact, the spent mash is sent to a 50,000-gallon centrifuge that separates the spent grain from the backset. Backset is used in future fermentations and the grain is dried for livestock feed supplement. The site also employs the first industrial solar panel array in Shelby County, which collects enough energy to run all on-site mobile equipment.

Yep, we were impressed. Hopefully visitors will soon be allowed to see what we saw.

AQUATIC BARREL AGING GIVES NEW MEANING TO “WHISKEY AND WATER”

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When two barrels of Jefferson’s Bourbon—caged to the back of a 24-foot runabout—set off down the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky, last June, Walter Tharpe kicked himself. Symbolically, at least.

“I said, ‘Dadgumit! I knew somebody was going to do it,’” said Tharpe, owner of Cane Land Distilling Co. in Baton Rouge, La. “I’d thought about doing it for a long time—sending some (barreled) whiskey down river to see if it would change it much—but I guess I thought too long.”

Given that Jefferson’s Bourbon cofounder Trey Zoeller had already conducted a similar blue water aging experiment with his Jefferson’s Ocean Aged at Sea bourbon several years ago, the idea wasn’t new. And to be fair, neither was Zoeller’s Oceans work either. Moving barreled booze across blue waters has happened for centuries, and pushing it across the brown waterways of the southern U.S. became common in the 19th Century. It’s how Kentucky whiskey got to big ports like New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.

With the same aim of recreating that journey and testing its effects on whiskey, Tharpe, like Zoeller, wanted to peek back into history for a closer look.

“What we did is certainly nothing new, but it’s reenergizing what was done,” said Tharpe, who shipped 150 barrels of his whiskey to Louisiana aboard a barge last month. “I think a lot more people are going to do it as a result.”

Perhaps they’ll do it his way—aboard a modern barge pushed by a diesel-burning tug boat and stored away from the elements below weatherproof cover—rather than Zoeller’s more rustic approach. His Jefferson’s Reserve barrels were left out in the open to endure the intense summer sun, hail storms and salt water spray of the Gulf of Mexico as it moved toward its currently unmet goal of landing in New York City. By the time the barrels got to Sarasota on Florida’s west coast, their heads warped and their metal hoops rusted. To save the whiskey, he had to transfer their contents to new barrels and continue the journey, which stopped in Ft. Lauderdale.

“We wanted to be in New York by September of last year, but the weather caught us,” Zoeller said. Inhospitable encounters with Hurricanes Hermine and Matthew and an unnamed tropical storm slowed progress dramatically. “On any given year, you could encounter a tropical storm and two hurricanes—or encounter none at all. But that’s part of why we’re doing this: to experience what these guys did a long time ago.”

Click here to read more.

The Restaurateur in the Arena

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Influenced by Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” quote.

Steve Coomes. | Photo by Nancy LaRocca

Steve Coomes. | Photo by Nancy LaRocca

It is not the restaurant critic who counts; not the man or woman whose poison pen points out how the restaurateur stumbled, where the chef could have seasoned the food better or the bartender stirred the Old Fashioned colder. The people who count are those actually in the restaurant business, people with faces marred by flour and sweat, hands scarred by burns and cuts and minds muddied by the myriad demands of hungry customers.

They strive valiantly, yet err, for their efforts will always yield some shortcoming in the minds of self-appointed experts given the power of the press. They strive to serve guests as best they know with great enthusiasm and devotion, and spend themselves in a worthy but increasingly unprofitable cause. They know their best gives only a fleeting feeling of triumph and high achievement on a 14-hour day—yet they live haunted by the thought that a critic may deem it otherwise and say the restaurateur failed by daring greatly or playing it safe.

Such cold and detached critics haven’t the knowledge of the operator’s tiny victories and agonizing defeats. They know nothing of the hard times hunched over a stove or bar or dish tank or the endless job interviews required to find just one skilled and loyal employee. They know only their solitary views writ large as if gospel.

Their opinions should be ignored.

Restaurant soft openings are practice runs, so don’t complain!

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I love restaurant soft openings, but not for the food or even the drink. I like seeing the excitement in the eyes of owners who’ve worked their brains loose trying to get their vision from blueprint to fruition. I appreciate the risks required to move from a well-capitalized business to modestly liquid before a paying customer is served. I also love hearing the pre-opening horror stories and then congratulating them on getting to the starting line in one piece. Those are mighty fine feel-good moments.

Steve Coomes. | Photo by Nancy LaRocca

Steve Coomes. | Photo by Nancy LaRocca

I like that everything is new and shiny and clean, that employee uniforms match—or at least are “correct to theme.” The feeling I get when eating at a new restaurant is akin to that of buying a new car, only the aroma of cooking food is far more pleasant and the meal less costly.

But I’m long past the dubious thrill of “getting there first” since the first experience can be the worst experience one may have in a restaurant. It is just a soft opening after all and employees are in training mode, so I expect some rough edges. It’s a rare “softy” that goes really well, which is why operators generally pick up the tab (save for alcohol, since Uncle Sam gets his star-spangled skivvies in a wad over untaxed drinks.)

It doesn’t hurt my feelings either to be invited to such events. I’m flattered each and every time. Be it passively implied or deliberately acknowledged, it says, to some extent, that what I will write about that restaurant matters to someone, even if it’s read by just one restaurateur and three to five people killing time at work.

But what I don’t love about soft openings is the lack of some guests’ flexibility. No one is a paying customer at a soft opening, they’re invited guests, which implies the use of certain social conventions, such as grace. This is especially troubling when veterans of such events quibble and quack over service being slow or having to wait a few minutes past their scheduled seating time or seeing their dish arrive with a less-than-camera-ready look. It’s just practice, people, so lighten up!

Some complain about the view from their tables or their server’s style or the operator’s suggestion that they order only certain things on the menu. Somehow it’s lost on such entitled sorts that this is staff training for the cooks, too, a scheduled fire drill designed to test the mettle of a new crew before the joint opens to the public.

Worse, some of these chronic complainers don’t know how to tip at soft openings. Just because the check reads “$0.00” doesn’t mean a tip of $0 or $5 or $10 is sufficient. The expected gratuity is 15 percent or more (I usually start at 20 percent) of the total of the items on the check, the food and drinks consumed by your table. Though it’s a training period, the cooks are on the clock, and the servers are working for tips as if it were an ordinary day. It’s as real as it gets to them.

I also don’t like the abundance of calories consumed at these events. Yet that’s not a criticism of the restaurant, it’s an acknowledged job hazard. ​Successful as I’ve become at just nibbling at this or that, too many tiny tastes still add up to more than I’d eat at home or during a normal restaurant visit. My body eventually signals, “Seriously? Another bite of dessert? Haven’t you learned yet?” and before I know it, I’m clutching my right side (this trade has ruined my gallbladder) and wincing a bit.

In all, I’m fortunate to do this for a living, especially when someone is so gracious to foot the bill. And as far as I see it, that leaves me no right to complain on a shakedown run.

Here’s a must buy bourbon: Westport Whiskey & Wine’s Maker’s 46 Private Select

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I’m like most folks whose liquor shelf is lined with bourbon bottles costing between $10 to $50. There are a few moderately higher priced goodies thrown in, but I don’t generally recommend spending $75 or more on liquid—until today.

"French Spice," one of five expressions used to blend a Private Select batch of Maker's 46 cask strength. | Photo by Steve Coomes

“French Spice,” one of five expressions used to blend a Private Select batch of Maker’s 46 cask strength. | Photo by Steve Coomes

Go to Westport Whiskey & Wine and get a bottle of Maker’s Mark Private Select Single Barrel Bourbon. This was chosen by the store’s owners, who traveled to Loretto, Ky., last December to Maker’s Mark Distillery to craft their own version of a cask strength (111 proof) Maker’s 46.

This experience is not a barrel pick where buyers thieve barrel samples and have that lone barrel bottled for them. Cool as that is, Maker’s Private Select 46 program goes beyond even that. I know this because I got to experience it in January with a crew from Prospect Party Center (whose bottles will come out next month.) Here’s what happens:

Buyers sit before six expressions of 46: the standard 46 you find on retail shelves, and then five unique expressions aged with unique staves. (See the bottom of this post for detailed explanation of those staves.) Each different expression is then blended by buyers, tasted, discussed, sometimes argued over and re-blended until everyone is satisfied.

The process is led by Maker’s Jane Conner, who does a terrific job describing the flavors each unique stave adds to the Maker’s 46. She also is a bit of a cheerleader, encouraging buyers to keep experimenting with different blends and not settle for just one.

Trust me, this is not a toilsome business. Scientific effort has never been so enjoyable!

When the final blend is settled on, the buyers’ choice of staves is added to a hoop inside a freshly dumped Maker’s 46 barrel. The whiskey goes back in and it’s aged 9 weeks—only in the winter so there’s no angel’s share lost—and then bottled.

I was invited to taste Private Select Barrel No. 1 at Keeneland earlier this month, and though it was quite different from what my group picked, it was still remarkably good. Had they sold bottles there, I’d have bought one. All those bottles, unfortunately, are committed to the spring meet, so make sure to get some if you visit the track in April. My advice is to sip it neat and then add some rocks.

So, here are a few reasons I suggest you spend $75 on one bottle (no more than two allowed) of this bourbon:

  1. Cask strength 46 is the best Maker’s bourbon I’ve ever sipped. (Truth be known, I’m not a fan of base Maker’s. Too light for my tastes.) It’s bold, complex, spicy, aromatic, just everything you want bourbon to be.
  2. Westport’s blend is truly one of a kind, as are all Private Select bottlings. (By comparison, Pappy’s great, but every bottle of Pappy made in a particular year will taste the same.) Each barrel yields only 250 750ml bottles. That’s unique.

    Barrel No. 1 blended by Keeneland. | Photo by Steve Coomes

    Barrel No. 1 blended by Keeneland. | Photo by Steve Coomes

  3. While a $75 bourbon is “special occasion whiskey” for me, I’m hard pressed to find anything on the secondary market for the same cost that will even touch these editions of Maker’s 46. It’s truly that good.
  4. These will eventually find their way to the secondary market for exorbitantly high prices. Trust me, some day, you’ll regret not spending a mere $75 on these.

So if you want something special to share with friends coming to Louisville for Derby, go get some today. They will not last long.

And if you’re still not convinced you need a bottle, keep watch at places like The Silver Dollar and Down One Bourbon Bar, which also did Private Select blendings. You can get a single pour there and decide if you want a full bottle.

And before you ask, Westport Whiskey & Wine isn’t paying me or giving me any bottles to write this. I’m just that enthusiastic about this program and confident that you’ll find these 46 expressions as amazing as I have.

OK bourbon nerds, here are the flavor profiles on the five unique staves. Notice the uniqueness of these woods and how they were dried even more with widely varying methods.

  1. Baked American Pure 2: staves were made from a 100-year-old American oak, dried one year; smooth traditional cut stave; toasted low and slow in a convection oven.
  2. Seared French Cuvee: a Burgundy barrel made from 200-year-old-oak dried for more than 2 years; cut with ridges, grooved to create more surface area for better whiskey exposure; toasted in an infrared oven.
  3. Maker’s 46: the stock stave, made from French white oak dried 2 years; smooth traditional cut stave; seared with infrared toasting.
  4. Roasted French Mocha: made from French oak, dried one year; smooth traditional cut stave; cooked at a very high heat in a convection oven.
  5. Toasted French Spice: French oak, dried one year, smooth traditional cut stave; flash cooked at very high heat then left at a low temperature for a long time in a convection oven.

After 3 years, Lynn’s Paradise Café sold to mystery buyer

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It took more than three years to sell one of Louisville’s (formerly) busiest restaurants, but according to WDRB.com, Lynn’s Paradise Café has been sold.

To whom, I don’t know. The story mentions a restaurant group that “will reveal itself in a couple of months,” but in the meantime, even my best restaurant real estate sources haven’t a clue.LPC_outside_Nation_web

Of course Fernando Martinez’s name came up on the quick short list, so I shot him a “You buy Lynn’s?” text. His answer was a succinct, “Hahahahaha.”

A former journo, news photographer buddy said he heard it’s a barbecue concept out of Nashville, so I’ll follow up on that one.

The good news is a restaurant will return to this once-bustling spot. Nearby businesses saw sales plunge when LPD shut down because it was a crowd magnet. Without that foot traffic, some closed up shop—like Lynn’s and because of Lynn’s.

And if the micro-story reported by WDRB tells all, former owner Lynn Winter will not be involved with it. Doubtless her demand that any buyer keep her involved in the business after the sale was what kept the lights and coffee brewers off at the Barret Ave. kitsch kingdom. Winter seemingly could not accept the message that No. One. Wanted. To. Work. With. Her.

The super successful restaurant (reportedly $4 million in annual sales) found itself in a tailspin in January 2013 after one of its servers revolted over a change in policy regarding the amount of cash each had to carry on the job. The server’s grievance, posted on the least friendly spot on the planet, Facebook, started a firestorm of anti-Winter sentiment that would not die down. Yet instead of moving to battle the bad publicity over the alleged mistreatment, Winter shut it down and sent the staff packing.

Winter is a complex character. Always has been. And she walked that fine line between creative genius, visionary, brilliant marketer and flighty-forceful entrepreneur for many years. Yet her regular retreats away from the restaurant to her second home in California harmed the business. As “the personality” behind LPD, her absence was notable and it showed in declining service and food quality. Plus, any veteran LPD staffer will tell you she was not easy to work for.

Best of luck to the mystery operators who will take over that space. It’ll draw diners to that midland between the Highlands and Germantown, an area of town I’d love to see take off.

If I had any advice at all to give to the next owner, it’s this: Make sure it looks not a thing like Lynn’s Paradise Café. That brand is forever besmirched in this city.

It’s a good deed to watch hoops in a Louisville bar this weekend

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DennieHumphrey

Dennie Humphrey, owner, The Monkey Wrench.

It was bad news for local bars when the University of Louisville announced it would self-penalize its men’s basketball team by sitting out the post-season in the wake of a salacious recruiting scandal. Without a reason to head to one’s favorite drinkin’ haunt to cheer on the Cards, it was predicted local watering holes would see business drop by about 25 percent for March.

Twenty-five percent! Imagine going to work some day and hearing from your boss that sales at your company were predicted to drop 25 percent in the coming month. You’d start figuring out how to spend that long-postponed vacation time and avoid a salary-free short-term layoff.

The second round departure of the Lady Cards only ground salt into those same bars’ wounded balance sheets, but the worst was yet to come: the premature end to the University of Kentucky men’s hoops team’s NCAA tourney run on Saturday. Yes, Louisville is Cards country, but even those fans are outnumbered by UK fans.  And the reality of no hoop-Cats and no hoop-Cards in the tourney means no whoop-di-doo March sales.

Bars in the Whiskey Row area will fare better since one of four NCAA tourney Sweet 16 rounds will be played this weekend at the Yum Center. But go just a couple miles away and you’ll find bars suffering from reduced sales. Imagine what’s that like for bartenders and servers who make their best tips all year long to know they’ll come up short without a local connection to the NCAA hoops-la.

But at least one bar owner is making the most of a bad situation. Dennie Humphrey, owner of The Monkey Wrench (1025 Barret Ave.) will host a March Sadness party on Friday, March 25, and show video replays of U of L’s 1980, 1986 and 2013 NCAA tourney championship wins. That’s not only clever, it’s smart. Any hardcore U of L hardcourt fans with that much time on their hands would love to watch all three games in one sitting. Whether one can drink and eat for what will be at least a six- to eight-hour stretch is another story.

I can’t imagine the place won’t be packed. The chance to review the unraveling of UCLA’s basketball dynasty in 1980, the denial of Duke’s dreams of its first NCAA championship in 1986, and the “return home empty-handed” outcome of Michigan’s spunky offense in 2013 is a one-time shot for most folks. (I know I don’t have DVDs of any of those, much less all three.)

No, it won’t make up for the $35,000 Humphrey told Insider Louisville he’ll miss out on in this maddening March, but it will help and it will be fun.

So do a good deed and visit The Monkey Wrench on Friday, or at least show some local bars some love by watching some basketball games at those spots rather than home this weekend.

Ignore restaurant critics and eat where you like

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During a recent restaurant meal, I saw the kitchen door swing wide to reveal pictures of two restaurant critics taped to its backside. Printed on separate 8 ½ x 11 sheets were the visages of The Courier-Journal’s Nancy Miller and Louisville HotByte’s Robin Garr, Louisville’s lone remaining restaurant critics. Clearly they were posted there to keep staffers mindful of their looks should either darken that restaurant’s door with poison pen in hand.

Steve Coomes. | Photo by Nancy LaRocca

Steve Coomes. | Photo by Nancy LaRocca

This isn’t a new practice. Even when I served in that dastardly role from 2007-2010 at Louisville magazine, at least one restaurant I knew of had my pic pasted to a wall. And to that staff, I apologize. To this day you probably can’t un-see that!

But it’s also not a practice to which I object. It’s smart to be as careful as possible since bad reviews can hurt even the best restaurants—and the place where I was that night is among my favorites. (Notice I didn’t say “best,” because what I think is great may not align with your view of greatness.)

Still, it bothers me to think that great business people like many of our local restaurateurs live in fear of a visit by a restaurant critic. It implies that the opinions of people possessed with the power of a media channel matter more than that of a regular customer.

I’m not saying regular diners get short-shrift compared to critics. I’m saying it bugs me that critics of all stripes garner extra attention to ensure their dubious professional sensibilities aren’t offended.

I simply don’t care about the opinions of restaurant critics, and I recommend you don’t either. Everyone’s palate is different, as are everyone’s expectations of a restaurant visit. So why do so many care about the opinions of so few?

A big flaw in most restaurant critiques is critics attempt to judge all restaurants similarly in hopes of being viewed as fair to every establishment. But the result is usually an application of some vague one-size-fits-all standard that allows the critic to be questionably and confusingly graceful in some write-ups, while unpredictably savage in others. (The indecipherable way the Courier-Journal awards stars for restaurant reviews is the most confusing I’ve ever seen. And I’m not alone in that opinion.)

Too often the savagery goes well beyond the key elements of food and service. Some critics wax devilishly about dated drapes and furniture while others spend time correcting menu misspellings and server mispronunciations. We all appreciate well-decorated places and the effort to leave no menu stone unturned, but no one really gives a hoot about these things in a write-up or report on any restaurant. Readers want to know if the food and service are good. End of story, so report on those, not whether you think the wall colors scream 1980s.

Yet even nailing down the particulars of good food and drink is a slippery slope. No human tongue is alike, and what may appear too salty or sour or sweet to one tongue may be perfect in every way to another. Personally, I’m amazed at how much restaurant food I find bland and unimaginative overall is beloved passionately by others—the majority of others, in fact. So why does my lone opinion matter?

Or the lone opinion of critics?

I’ve spent 36 years either working in or writing about the restaurant industry. But just because I know more about that industry than most people doesn’t mean my opinion is more valuable than another’s. At the end of the day it’s about what people like and don’t like. Haughty critics’ opinions be damned.