Whiskey Review: Rock Hill Farms Single Barrel Bourbon

Rock Hill Farms is one of the single barrel bourbons distilled at Buffalo Trace using their 'high rye' mash bill. I got a sample of this bourbon from Florin, one of my readers, as I'd been itching to try it since reading Josh's review. Rock Hill Farms is an actual location near BT, the home of Albert Blanton - the founder of the distillery.

While reading the comments on Josh's post I became aware of one of the confusing things about Buffalo Trace - they distill whiskey made from a number of different mash bills - a wheat recipe bourbon, a low rye (8%) bourbon, a high rye (15%) bourbon, and a rye whiskey (51%). However, despite a number of flagship products including Blanton's, Elmer T. Lee, and Rock Hill Farms coming from the high rye mash bill, the distillery's name never appears on those bottles.

It turns out this is because the brands associated with the high rye mash bill are actually the property of  a Japanese company owned by Takaro Shuzo, Age International, who previously owned a major stake in Buffalo Trace and also owns a number of other spirit companies (the Tomatin whisky distillery, for instance). This came about due to the distillery's rather turbulent history during the late 1980s and early 1990s - at that point the distillery was still known at Ancient Age and Age International bought in after a less than successful attempt by executives from the previous owner, Schenley, to run the distillery on their own. Subsequently, the Sazerac corporation, which had previously bought bourbon under contract from Heaven Hill, purchased a majority stake in the distillery in the late 1990s so that they would be able to distill their own bourbon and renamed the distillery Buffalo Trace. This ended up pushing AI into a minority shareholder position, creating quite a bit of friction between the two companies. However, BT still produces bourbon using the high rye mash bill under contract for AI, as well as distributing it in the US. AI does international distribution on its own - meaning that some versions of their bourbons are only available abroad. This also explains why none of the high rye whiskey produced at BT has made it into their top-of-the-line Antique Collection - BT doesn't actually own any of it.

From Buffalo Trace

Rock Hill Farms Single Barrel

Nose: red wine/brandy notes (acidic and grape-y), underlying dusty corn and rye grain, berries, dark chocolate, sandwich bread, rich caramel/toffee, a bit of vanilla. After adding a few drops of water, it becomes lighter and airier, the rye retreats but corn gains more ground, there's a touch of oak,  it seems sweet and dry at the same time, and there are stronger berries and vanilla.

Taste: brief sucrose sweetness up front - which subtly rides underneath the subsequent flavors, then big black/chili pepper spice and grapes/berries mid-palate, ending with mildly bitter oak notes. After dilution there is a more integrated flavor profile - the sweetness extends further back and the pepper/berries/oak come in sooner, and the berry flavors become much bigger with spikier pepper notes.

Finish: berries, rye, lightly bitter oak, toffee/vanilla, coffe beans, pepper, corn

This is a very, very good bourbon. While I will once again state my annoyance that there's no info about the barrel that this whiskey came from on the bottles, the person picking it did an excellent job. The only stumbling point comes when you want to talk about value. Out here in the great state of Oregon, Rock Hill Farms is above $50. Even from cheaper sources it's above $40. That's single malt whisky territory where there's a lot of stiff competition. If you want a bourbon of this caliber I'd lean towards something like Wild Turkey Rare Breed, which has a similar flavor profile and is also a whole lot cheaper.

New Cocktails: And to All a Good Night...

This drink comes from Tim Stookey of the Presidio Social Club in San Francisco via the 2008 holiday cocktail guide from Imbibe. A bit of a puzzler on its face, it was much tastier than I thought it might be.

And to All a Good Night...
1.5 oz bourbon
0.75 oz reposado tequila
0.75 oz cherry Heering
2 dashes orange bitters
1 dash Angostura bitters

The nose is dominated by the cherry Heering, with flashes of agave. After the drink warms up, corn notes from the bourbon start to emerge. It begins sweetly, but that is quickly tamed by a combination of the bitters and tannins from the bourbon, with the tequila weaving through it. The finish is bittersweet chocolate.

This is a somewhat peculiar cocktail. The combination of bourbon and tequila is rather unique. I feel like the results are going to be dependent on which spirits you pick. The Elijah Craig 12 I used is a dominant force in the drink, pushing the tequila into the background. It doesn't help that higher proof tequilas are pretty thin on the ground, so all of the ones I own feel a bit outmatched in this situation.

Most of all, while I liked the drink, I don't think it's something I'd serve to anyone other than a booze nerd. It's not quite harmonious enough, at least with the ingredients I picked, to sit well with most people. Maybe with a wheated bourbon and a lighter tequila, it'd all fit together better. And either way, I'm not sure that there's anything particularly festive about it. Still, it piques my interest in seeing how well tequila works with other spirits, so at least it will make me investigate further.

Beginners Guide to Bourbon and Rye Whiskey

On the heels of my guide to scotch whisky, I thought I would turn to something a little bit closer to home. While rum may have launched the United States, bourbon and its cousin rye whiskey are the spirits now most closely associated with America.

American whiskey production grew out of the settlement of the Ohio River Valley. After independence, white settlers began to move west of the Appalachian Mountains, which had previously been restricted by the British government, eager to keep their colonists close to the coast where they could be more easily taxed. The farmers who grew crops in the extremely fertile region, including lots of corn, rye, and barley, found that it wasn't economically feasible to transport their grain east of the mountains where most of the demand for their products was to be found. However, if those grains were fermented and distilled, the resulting whiskey had a lot more value per pound, meaning that money could be made even after shipping it over the Appalachians. This fueled the almost insatiable appetite for liquor during the 19th century, when the average American drank about five gallons of absolute alcohol in a year (this translates to roughly one 750 mL bottle of 80-proof liquor in a week).

Column still at Wild Turkey via Alcademics

These early whiskeys would have been rather rough 'n ready, with thousands of small distilleries producing spirits from whatever grains were cheapest at the time. Most would have been using small copper pot stills and without the tools to precisely measure alcohol concentration, relying on experience and guesswork to judge when to make cuts. That meant significant amounts of unpleasant compounds from the heads and tails of a run would have made it into the hearts cut. Batch variation would have been significant - without purified yeasts to inoculate the wort and less rigorous decontamination of their equipment, wild yeasts and bacteria would often infect the mash, producing all sorts of peculiar compounds. Direct fired stills making for uneven heating of the wort, producing another set of potentially off compounds. Barrel aging would have been more often than not incidental, a product of shipment rather than planning. Which is all to say that these whiskeys would have been very different from the mellow and refined spirits we know and love today.

Now there are very tight regulations about how bourbon and rye whiskeys must be produced if the distillers want to label them as 'straight' bourbon or rye whiskey. First, bourbon must be made from a mash of between 51 and 80% corn, with the balance being made up with rye or wheat (the flavoring grain) and malted barley (the enzymes in malt convert starches from the other grains into fermentable sugars). Distillation must be to no more than 160-proof (80% alcohol) and the distillate must be diluted to no more than 125-proof (62.5% alcohol) for aging in new charred oak barrels. At that point it can be called bourbon whiskey. To gain the 'straight' moniker, the bourbon must be aged for at least two years. Bottling, whether straight bourbon or not, must be at least 80-proof (40% alcohol). American rye whiskey conforms to the same requirements, except that the mash must contain at least 51% rye, with the balance being made up with corn and malted barley.

The main axis for understanding bourbon and rye whiskey is the percentage of rye in the mash bill. Rye both adds spiciness to whiskey and covers up some of the inherent sweetness from the corn. Just outside the spectrum are wheated bourbons, which use wheat as a flavoring grain instead of rye. This makes for a much softer bourbon, without the chili pepper burn found in most rye recipe bourbons. The most well-known wheated bourbon is Maker's Mark, but I generally prefer Weller bourbons. At the beginning of the rye recipe bourbon spectrum, go for something like Buffalo Trace with 8% rye in its mash bill. Rye flavors will be present, but tend to give way to corn sweetness. In the mid range, Wild Turkey, Ezra Brooks, and Evan Williams bourbons are all made from a 13% rye mash bill and most of Jim Beam's whiskeys are made with a 15% rye mash bill. Here rye becomes a more significant presence, but is still in balance with the corn. Above this, we enter what is generally thought of as 'high rye' territory. Four Roses uses two different 'high rye' mash bills, one at 20% and another at a whopping 35% (the latter is the source for Bulleit bourbon). Jim Beam maintains a legacy 30% rye mash bill for their Old Grand Dad and Basil Hayden expressions. In those whiskeys, rye will be more more prominent, making the bourbon both more spicy and less sweet.

From there exists a bit of a gap until you hit rye whiskeys. At 51% rye in the mash bill, Jim Beam (and their Old Overholt label) Rye and Sazerac 6 Year are just over the legal line. So while these are definitely rye whiskeys, with all the spicy herbal flavors that implies, they also retains a fair amount of corn sweetness, making them a good bridge between the two styles of whiskey. From there, it's a jump to whiskeys made with 65% rye in their mash bills - Rittenhouse, Wild Turkey, and Russell's Reserve. These are very spicy and much drier than bourbon. Finally, LDI/MGP uses a 95% rye mash bill for whiskey that is now released by a wide range of independent bottlers from Bulleit to Willett to Templeton to Redemption to George Dickel (if it's a new rye whiskey brand, then it's probably from LDI/MGP - they're the only distiller with spare rye capacity). To get above that, you'll have to turn to Canada - Alberta Distillers makes a 100% rye mash bill whisky. While usually blended into Canadian whiskies, it is also sold as Alberta Premium and now bottled by a number of American independent bottlers, ranging from Jefferson's to Masterson's and Whistle Pig.

The other axis to look at is age. Because bourbon and rye are aged in new charred oak barrels, they soak up flavor very quickly. This means that even a year or two can make a significant difference in flavors. It's best to keep the mash bill of the whiskeys you're comparing the same or similar to remove that variable from the equation. Many distillers offer whiskeys from the same mash bill at different ages, such as Buffalo Trace (~4-5 years old) and Eagle Rare (10 years old) or Wild Turkey (6-8 years old) and Russell's Reserve (10 years old) or Weller Special Reserve (~7 years old) and Weller 12 Year. Older whiskeys will tend to be more oaky and tannic, but also with more caramel and toffee flavors.

While this feels like a lot of information, hopefully it gives you a few places to start or expand your exploration of American whiskeys. Bourbon and rye are fantastic choices these days because there are still so many great whiskeys available for under $30, making it a very economical way to drink well.

Mixology Monday LXIX: Fortified Wines - Sherry

This month's Mixology Monday theme is fortified wine, so for my first post I decided to dip into the variety I know best - sherry. This nice little punch comes from Imbibe magazine.

Misa de Gallo is the mass celebrated near midnight on Christmas Eve in Spain and Portugal - a tradition going back to the second century. The name comes from the cock's crow that would herald the start of the day.

Misa de Gallo Punch
2 oz bourbon
0.75 oz sherry
0.75 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz simple syrup
0.125 oz allspice dram
1 dash Angostura bitters
2 oz soda water

Build over ice, saving soda water for last. Stir briefly to combine.

The nose is dominated by corn and barrel notes from the bourbon along with savory hints of sherry. The sip begins smoothly, along with bubbles. The proceeding flavors are rather dry, trending towards acidic, with bourbon, sherry, and spices from the allspice dram and bitters.

While this drink was designed with PX sherry, I decided to take it in a slightly different direction with a full dry oloroso. The drink becomes more of an aperitif/digestif, even with the healthy dose of bourbon, as the soda water keeps it relatively light and the dry/bitter finish gives it snap. I think this would be a great warm-weather punch. You can adjust the final flavors with different sherries. Oloroso for full dry, amontillado/East India Solera for medium-sweet, or PX for lots of sweetness.

Looking forward to all the other MxMo contributions!

Classic Cocktails: Improved Whiskey Cocktail #3

The last and final version (for a while) of the Improved Whiskey Cocktail from the series I've been posting.

Improved Whiskey Cocktail #3
2 oz bourbon
1 tsp blackberry liqueur
0.5 tsp Swedish punch
2 dash Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients, stir with ice for fifteen seconds, then strain into a rocks glass.

The nose is redolent of overcooked berries, rye spice, and smoke. The sip opens with moderate sweetness, split between corn and stewed fruit. The flavors slowly progress towards bitterness, with smoke, tea and oak tannins, and Angostura's classic notes.

It's hard to pick favorites, this one may take the cake. The interplay of bourbon, blackberry, and tea smoke is just transcendent. Some of this may have to do with using a bottle of blackberry liqueur that's been open for almost three years, resulting in enough oxidation to turn the brighter fruit flavors into something richer and almost cooked. Whatever, this one was magic. Highly recommended if you have the ingredients on hand.

Classic Cocktails: Improved Whiskey Cocktail #2

Next up in a short series of posts of variations on the Improved Whiskey Cocktail, one that I decided to take in a rather different direction.

Improved Whiskey Cocktail #2
2 oz bourbon
1 tsp St. Germain
0.5 tsp Yellow Chartreuse
1 dash Fee's grapefruit bitters
1 dash Peychaud's bitters

Combine all ingredients, stir with ice for fifteen seconds, then strain into a rocks glass. Squeeze a large piece of grapefruit peel on the drink and then add it as garnish.

The nose has a solid bourbon base, which is accent by floral and herbal notes from the liqueurs and bitters along with a healthy dose of grapefruit oil. The liqueurs give the drink an excellent mouth feel. The sip begins with moderate sweetness, which transitions through a burst of coffee, grapefruit and herbal bittersweetness, to pleasant bitterness with a different set of herbal notes (more from the Peychauds than the Chartreuse).

This was a much lighter version than the other two I've tried. I really like how much even small amounts of liqueurs could drag the bourbon in a new direction. It helps that Knob Creek is kind of middle-of-the-road in terms of rye spiciness, so it can be complemented in either direction.

Classic Cocktails: Improved Whiskey Cocktail #1

After posting about David Wondrich's Imbibe! a little while ago, my interest in the Improved Whiskey Cocktail was piqued. There has been an explosion of liqueurs on the market in recent years, which gives all sorts of options instead of the maraschino/absinthe combination of the original. Here's the first one I cooked up.

Improved Whiskey Cocktail Variation #1
2 oz 100-proof bourbon
1 tsp allspice dram
0.5 tsp Campari
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters

Combine all ingredients, stir with ice for fifteen seconds, then strain into a rocks glass. Squeeze a piece of orange peel over the drink and add it as garnish.

The nose has a lot of dry orange notes from the Campari and orange bitters and peel, along with some corn sweetness from the bourbon and hints of allspice. The sip begins smoothly, with orange and caramel, which slowly becomes bitter and spicy. First the Campari comes out, then the almost smoky notes of allspice, which then become bitter coffee.

I also tried this with Luxardo Bitter instead of Campari, but that version was actually too smooth. The Campari version needs to warm up a bit before it becomes fully integrated, but eventually everything finds its respective groove. I really like how the Campari and allspice play off of each other, augmented by the bitters. A very tasty drink and hopefully indicative of more good things to come.

Whiskey Review: Redemption Bourbon and Rye

While at the Great American Distiller's Festival here in Portland, one of the booths that caught my eye was serving up the spread from Bardstown Barrel Selections. While there, Dave Schmier served me everything their range of bourbon and rye whiskeys, which was quite educational. All of their whiskey is sourced from MGP (formerly LDI). However, as I didn't get to spend as much time as I like to with these spirits, my notes are more sketchy.

Temptation Bourbon

Nose: balanced corn, rye, and wood

Taste: sweet and sour up front, moving into caramel, mild wood spices and raspberry

This is the medium rye recipe bourbon of their bunch, with a mash bill of 75% corn, 20% rye, and 5% malted barley. This is a rather young bourbon at only two years old and a fairly low bottling proof of 41%. While a perfectly decent bourbon, nothing about it really stood out to me. While LDI puts out solid juice and there are surprisingly few rough edges on this for being so young, there is also little to recommend it over other bourbons. Worth a try, but I won't be working to buy a bottle.

Redemption Bourbon

Nose: more depth, seems older, a whiff of berries, corn/wood, rye grain

Taste: corn sweetness, wood spices, mint, young-ish but very drinkable

This is the high rye recipe bourbon, with a mash bill of 60% corn, 38% rye, and 2% malted barley. Redemption is the same age as Temptation, at roughly two years. However, it does get bottled at a higher 46%, which helps to give it more oomph. While I enjoyed it more, it's not good enough to recommend it over other high rye whiskeys like Old Grand Dad or Bulleit seeing as they're all around the same price.

Riverboat Rye

Nose: very minty, citrus, light caramel, pine

Taste: thin, lots of pine, some caramel

This is the standard 95% rye/5% malted barley recipe from LDI, but aged for less than four years (if I remember correctly, it's closer to a year for most of the juice) bottled at 40%. This is meant to emulate what rye whiskey was like back in the 18th century, when aging in barrels was usually an incidental side-effect of transport. It is very clearly a young rye, with so much pine that it almost tastes like gin. For me it was more of an interesting experience than something I would want to drink regularly, but it might work better in cocktails.

Redemption Rye

Nose: much more wood, lots of pine, rye grain, cacao

Taste: sweet up front, lots of rye spice and pine, green, drying

This has the same mash bill as Riverboat Rye, but is aged for at least two years before bottling at 46%. It definitely shows more maturity than its younger sibling, but is still decidedly youthful. Again, not something I would be too keen to sip regularly (Rittenhouse BiB and Sazerac 6 do a much better job), but the higher proof means that it would be an even better choice for making cocktails.

As Chuck Cowdery pointed out, whiskeys like these are most likely bottled at a younger age specifically so that they can be balanced out by the other ingredients in cocktails, rather than having the internal balance necessary for sipping whiskeys. What might appear to be a defect from one perspective can be an asset from another.

Whiskey Review: Wild Turkey 101

Wild Turkey 101 is the best known and probably best loved whiskey in their core range. I've reviewed their Rare Breed and Russell's Reserve bourbons before and wanted to see what their more humble sibling was like.

The distillery was founded in 1869 by the Ripy brothers and passed through a number of hands until it was bought form Pernod Ricard by Campari in 2009. The image of the brand has been improving since the mid-1990s, as higher end releases such as Kentucky Spirit, Rare Breed, and Russell's Reserve have been added to the basic 81- and 101-proof bourbons and ryes.

Wild Turkey 101

Nose: ripe berries and vanilla ride over a grainy core of hot breakfast cereal along with a hint of mustiness or dustiness. After adding a few drops of water, the nose becomes a bit less sharp, with the balance shifting towards the grain

Taste: begins slowly with a bit of corn sweetness, sweet berries build from mid-palate where they are joined by growing chili pepper heat, and a bit of baking spices and oak. After dilution the palate becomes sweeter throughout and just a bit flatter, with some emerging yeastiness and cacao

Finish: lingering burn, savory chili pepper heat, residual berries and oak. After adding water, the cacao carries through into the finish, giving it just a ting of bitterness

There isn't necessarily a lot going on here, but what it does it does magnificently. Especially coming from a mini, which sometimes have quality issues, I really enjoyed this bourbon. The raspberry/chili pepper combo was excellent and while I felt like it lost just a bit of oomph after adding water, the extra notes of cacao more than made up for it. Overall, I would highly recommend this whiskey, especially if you want something a little bit lower on the price scale.

Tiki Classics: Port Light

The Port Light is one of the few tiki drinks made with bourbon rather than rum. It was developed by Sandro Conti for the Kahiki in Columbus, Ohio in the early 1960s. The Kahiki was one of the last major tiki temples, a multi-building complex topped with a three-story tall fireplace in the shape of a moai.

Port Light
1.5 oz bourbon
1 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz passionfruit syrup (B.G. Reynolds)
0.25 oz grenadine (or raspberry syrup)

Combine all ingredients with a handful of crushed ice, blend for 5 seconds, then pour unstrained into a chilled rocks glass with more crushed ice.

The nose is relatively weak, but the bourbon manages to assert itself through all the ice. The sip opens with bourbon barrel notes, which transition into a fruity melange of passionfruit and raspberry, which continue through to the finish while a bit of lemon bite pokes out.

With the right amount of crushed ice, this is basically a bourbon/fruit slushy. What's not to love? The passionfruit/raspberry syrup combo works really well keeping the drink from becoming insipid, with just about everything providing some snap. Overall a very tasty drink and a good way to ease whiskey-drinking friends into the world of tiki.

Classic Cocktails: the Artist's Special

This drink comes to me from the Savoy Cocktail Book via the Cocktail Database and Erik Ellestad's Savoy Stomp project. According to the Harry Craddock, the book's author, the recipe was developed in Paris.

This is the genuine ‘Ink of Inspiration’ imbibed at the Bal Bullier Paris. The recipe is from the Artists Club, Rue Pigalle, Paris.

Artist's Special
1 oz bourbon
1 oz sherry
0.5 oz lemon juice
0.25 oz grenadine

The nose is redolent of amontillado sherry, with savory hints. The sherry is bolstered by the wood of the bourbon, while hints of raspberry peek around. The sip begins without a lot of sweetness. A bit of acidity from the lemon comes in, but is quickly superseded by the sherry and bourbon. The finish goes out with sharp fruitiness from the raspberry syrup.

While a little bit thinner than I expected given the fairly high proportion of booze, this is a very nice cocktail with good evolution. All of the ingredients make themselves present at various points, weaving in and out. I was fairly surprised by how much the bourbon hides itself, especially as I used Bulleit, which tends to be pretty assertive.

Like Erik, I took a few liberties with this recipe. Since it's what I had in the fridge, I went with TJ's amontillado sherry, which is just off-dry. Since I don't have any grenadine or red current syrup, I made the drink with homemade raspberry syrup, which I think fits quite well. Overall it's a very pleasant drink that would do very well year round.

New Cocktails: Heart of the Palm

I'm striving to run down my liquor cabinet this weekend. A lot of what's getting low is bourbon, so I decided to make an Old Fashioned. Just to change things up a bit, I went for more of a tropical-style drink, with a number of different syrups accenting the whiskey.

Heart of the Palm
1.5 oz bourbon
0.5 tsp dark falernum
0.5 tsp palm sugar syrup
1 tsp B.G. Reynold's passionfruit syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients, stir with ice for 15 seconds, and strain into an old fashioned glass.

The nose is relatively sweet, with the bourbon's caramel notes accented by the palm sugar and passionfruit syrups. Some spice notes (cinnamon especially) from the bourbon mingle with the falernum and bitters. The sip is initially sweet, but restrained. A hint of tropical fruit and sourness comes in just behind, which segues into spice and wood notes from the bourbon, falernum and bitters, which carry through to the finish with lingering fruit.

While this is something of a complicated beast for nominally being an Old Fashioned, I think there's a lot that can be done by taking that basic form and accenting it with the tools of tiki drinks. High rye bourbons like Bulleit have a lot of spice that play well with ingredients like cinnamon, falernum, and ginger syrups. So you can get some nice tropical flavors while still producing a strong, punchy drink.

The NAS Dilemma: Blessing, Curse, or Simple Reality? Part I

One of the growing trends in both the scotch whisky and American whiskey industries is the proliferation of 'no age statement' spirits. In some cases, these are new expressions, in other cases spirits that were previously age dated have dropped their claims. Change is almost always contentious, especially from long-time consumers who want to keep buying the same whisk(e)y that they always have. So is this good, bad, or something that we're simply going to have to live with?

Age dates present a certain amount of difficulty for distillers. First and foremost it means that they have to sit on stocks of whisk(e)y until they pass a certain point before they can be blended together to make their final products. Whiskeys/whiskies must be labeled with the youngest spirit going into the bottle. Even if, say, a bottle contained 99% 30 year old spirit and 1% 5 year old, the label would have to say that it was a 5 year old spirit.

In a sense this is a bind of the distillers' own making. For decades, marketing departments have created a perception among consumers that older spirits are inherently better and should command exponentially increasing prices with age. Old spirits were made to embody luxury and sophistication, while younger expressions were often thought to be downright plebeian.

Whether this is actually true is extremely complicated. Spirits extract flavors from barrels and oxidize at varying rates depending on a host of factors including temperature shifts (as the liquid heats up, its volume increases, pushing it into the pores of the wood), location in the warehouse, the quality and type of wood that the barrels are made from, and any other number of things that are difficult to quantify (though Buffalo Trace is striving mightily to nail some of them down via their Single Oak Project). So when new make spirit is dumped into two nearly identical barrels that are stored side by side in the same warehouse, it's entirely possible that years down the road they will taste very different from each other. This is why single cask/barrel releases are often so fascinating, as we get to see the variation that is normally swallowed by the skill of the master blender in creating a consistent flavor profile from a wide variety of casks or barrels.

So while most distillers have used the system of age dating to their advantage, many are now presented with a dilemma: demand for scotch and bourbon is increasing strongly right now, but few predicted this rise ten or twenty years ago when the stocks that are now ready to be bottled were originally laid down. So many are struggling to keep up with demand. But there is a potential out - dropping the age statements. Without that constraint, it's theoretically possible to use younger stocks that have the flavor profile the blenders are looking for to create something the same or at least very similar to their previous age dated expressions.

This is the tack that that Macallan is currently taking with their whiskies in the UK. The company recently announced that all of their whiskies younger than 18 years old would become NAS and from here on out be graded by color. Reactions have been, to say the least, mixed. As some have pointed out, Macallan has been selling NAS whiskies for years now, but they haven't always been flying off shelves. It is kind of galling to hear a major distiller intimate that there is any correlation between quality and color, though Macallan has stated that their whiskies will not be artificially colored with E150 caramel color. Older whiskies can actually be quite pale, while newer whiskies can absorb quite a lot of color quickly, especially from first-fill casks. So as far as I can tell, this is mostly a gimmick and just replaces the old constraint of age with a new one, which means that the blenders now have to find barrels with the appropriate color, not just the appropriate smells and flavors, to make their whiskies.

Macallan's new NAS "1824 Series" via Master of Malt

And we get to the ultimate question: are customers willing to pay the same, or sometimes more, money for younger whisk(e)y in the bottle, even if it tastes the same? There is a certain logic behind paying more money for older spirits. Evaporation means that a barrel can lose anywhere between twenty and seventy percent of the spirit it started with over the course of a decade. Warehousing isn't free. Aging whisk(e)y means that capital is tied up for a very long time. Older whisk(e)y can become over-oaked, making it nearly useless for anything but bucking up younger whiskies.

The announced prices for Macallan's new whiskies mirror the old age-dated expressions, with the entry level single malt coming in around $55 (same as the old 12 year) and rising from there. On the one hand, it doesn't feel quite right to be paying the same amount of money for younger whisky. However, it might take more work from the blenders to sample a larger range of casks to pull the NAS whiskies together. But ultimately we don't know and it's harder for a regular customer to judge what an NAS whisk(e)y should be worth.

Ultimately that may not matter. As David Driscoll of K&L Wines has noted, a lot of customers really just don't care. They're buying an NAS whisk(e)y because a friend suggested it, they heard good things about it, the brand has been talked up, or any other number of reasons. Some, like Black Maple Hill bourbon, have been flying off shelves despite the lack of age statements on their labels. And many will argue quite rightly that how the whisky tastes is more important than anything else. But for distillers, it is still a risk. They can do all the market research ever, but no change is guaranteed to succeed. Only time will tell whether Macallan's almost wholesale switch will come off well or if consumers will drift to other brands that continue to use age statements.

What are your feelings about the trend so far?

Whiskey Review: Maker's Mark Bourbon

The history of Maker's Mark goes back to 1954 when the distillery was founded by William Samuels Sr. with the first bottle coming out of the plant in 1959. While the brand remained under family ownership until the early 1980s, it then passed through a number of hands before settling under its current owners, Beam Inc (via the now split Fortune Brands).

There are two main things about Maker's Mark bourbon that stand out - that it was the first brand to sell itself with the 'small batch' moniker (definitions vary, but MM has stated that they aim for batches of ~20 barrels) and that they are one of the few bourbons made with wheat as the flavoring grain rather than rye. The whisky (they use the spelling more traditionally used by scotch and Canadian whiskies) is bottled at a very respectable 90-proof with their trademark red wax seal.

Maker's Mark

Nose: mellow corn, sweet vanilla, some toffee/caramel, woody cinnamon, a hint of fruit. After adding a couple of drops of water, the whisky acquires a slightly artificial cast, with bubblegum sweetness and deeper vanilla notes, along with a tiny puff of wheat and raspberries, while the corn still peeks through and more oak emerges.

Taste: opens with mild sweetness and slightly thin flavors of corn, which carry through the palate, mild oak appears part way through, followed by a blossom of vanilla and dry cacao with a small prickle of pepper near the back. After dilution, the opening sweetness becomes somewhat cough syrup flavored, while the other flavors become somewhat flatter, with more bitter oak coming out at the back and continuing on into the finish.

Finish: corn, mild oak, very little burn, slightly bitter and peppery. After adding water, the cough syrup/bubblegum flavors come back in the finish.

While I don't find it to be a terribly compelling bourbon at this point, I do have to acknowledge a small debt to Maker's Mark. Back when I was an undergraduate, my college would regularly have a week or so during winter break when students and faculty could teach classes on just about any subject they liked. One student decided that he wanted to do a bourbon tasting. Out of curiosity, I decided to attend. Unfortunately I had almost zero experience with neat spirits at that point and most of the whiskeys just tasted like burning. The one exception was Maker's Mark, which was noticeably smooth and palatable, even after almost half a dozen, often barrel-strength, bourbons. It nurtured a small flame that I might actually like whiskey, though it took many more years before that dream was realized.

So ultimately, even though I think I'll be sticking with Weller Antique for my wheated bourbon needs, Maker's Mark has its place. Their bourbon is almost the definition of smooth, gliding across the tongue with barely a bump. Just don't add any water if you want the best of what Maker's has to offer.

If you're trying to introduce someone to bourbon who tends to prefer smoother whiskeys, this isn't a bad place to start. But once they've dipped their toes in, there are all sorts of more interesting bourbons to choose from.

Whiskey Review: Woodford Reserve Bourbon

This review also comes care of The Party Source's copious supply of miniatures. I was really interested to try this bourbon, because it gets rave reviews from so many bourbon drinkers.

Woodford Reserve is the premium bourbon label for Brown-Forman, a drinks conglomerate that also owns such well-known brands as Jack Daniels. Woodford is nominally produced at its eponymous distillery near Versailles, Kentucky in what was formerly known as Labrot & Graham's Old Pepper Distillery, a location with history stretching back to 1797. However, its latest incarnation came about when BF repurchased the distillery in 1993, launching the Woodford line in 1996. This timeline suggests that at least initially, Woodford must have been created from whiskey made at other BF facilities, as NAS bourbons must be at least four years old. Woodford is made from a high rye mash bill of 72% corn, 18% rye, and 10% malted barley. As I mentioned, there's no age statement, but the whiskey is bottled at a very reasonable 45.2% ABV.

Woodford Reserve


Nose: lots of sweet aromas of butterscotch/toffee, bubblegum, and artificial sweeteners, along with some hints of vanilla, grainy notes of corn and wheat, herbal rye tang, musty oak, berries, and plastic wrap. After adding a bit of water, almost everything but the sweetness and oak are turned down, with more vanilla, some maple syrup and grape soda.

Taste: initially there is a huge wash of artificial sweeteners, grape soda, and bubblegum, with flashes of citric acid (not fresh citrus), there's some rye pepper near the back, with a hint of orange peel. After dilution, the sweetness becomes even more syrupy, with more pepper, oak and some green wood near the back.

Finish: pepper carries through, sweetness becomes even more unpleasantly artificial, with some stale bubblegum notes, leavened by a bit of oak.

It's hard to describe just how unpleasant I find this bourbon to be. It's the first time I've actively disliked a whiskey, rather than just finding it uninteresting. The cloying, aspartame-like sweetness is extremely off-putting while bubblegum and grape soda notes just make me think of Dave Chapelle's sketch about grape drink (1:30 into the clip). The flavor isn't even grape, it's purple.

It's hard to tell that this whiskey was actually made from plants, rather than having been concocted in a lab out of 'flavor chemicals'. The unrelenting sweetness would be much more tolerable if it just seemed to be real, like the caramel or maple syrup notes that one would expect from a barrel aged spirit.

In the realm of confounding rather than bad, I also find it peculiar how little rye influence I get out of this bourbon. While I picked up a little bit on the nose, it seemed much more like a wheated bourbon. This is odd as the 18% rye in its mash bill pushes it well into high rye recipe territory and plenty of bourbons with a lower proportion of rye in their makeup have displayed much more robust influence. However, I guess that just goes to show how complicated the process can be. Mash bill matters, but there are ways to get around it.

It's entirely possible that this is all just some quirk of my own sensory equipment. As I noted at the beginning of the post, quite a lot of people like this bourbon, though I'm not the only person to find it too sweet. But from where I stand, it's not something that I can recommend. If you really want to try some, get a mini or a pour at a bar before splurging on an entire bottle. I can only hope that your experience will be better than mine.

Classic Cocktails: the Imperial Punch

There are a number of different drinks with the name 'Imperial Punch', but this version comes from the CocktailDB - an invaluable resource when you have leftover ingredients and want to figure out what to do with them.

Imperial Punch
1.5 oz bourbon
0.5 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz orange liqueur

Build over ice in a tall glass and top with sparkling wine, then stir briefly to mix the ingredients.

The nose has subdued notes of prosecco with a hint of bourbon barrel and orange. The sip is initial crisp, from the prosecco and lemon, which is briefly smooth and sweet, then dries out again, finishing with the sparkling wine and bourbon.

This is a nice medium weight drink. The bourbon gives it a little heft, but lengthening it with sparkling wine keeps it from being too heavy. Just keep in mind that you're drinking something that's mostly made of booze, so it can sneak up on you. Especially true if you're like me an prefer to make bourbon cocktails with 100+ proof whiskey. I went with Weller Antique 107, which makes for a very smooth drink, but a spicier bourbon like Old Grand Dad 114 could definitely give it a bit more pep.

Whiskey Review: Wild Turkey Rare Breed

This is going to be the first in a series of reviews from minis that I picked up from the voluminous shelves of The Party Source. Seriously, if you want minis, they've got tons of 'em.

I've reviewed a couple of Wild Turkey products before from their offshoot Russell's Reserve line, both the 10 year old bourbon and 6 year old rye. I liked the bourbon more than the rye, so this made me rather interested to try WT's higher proof Rare Breed expression. Since the minis were only $2.50 a pop, I got two, which means that I got to spend a bit more time with the whiskey than I usually do when reviewing from minis.

Wild Turkey Rare Breed


Nose: light brown sugar with a burnt tinge to it, super smooth caramel, pastries, yeast, strong berries, a little grassy, vanilla, and some floral notes. After dilution, the nose becomes a bit mustier, with corn and grain become more recognizable, but not assertive, rich caramel and vanilla with a hint of rye.

Taste: bubblegum sweetness with an acidic edge, kind of like raspberries or slightly under-ripe blackberries, then caramel or toffee in a dry-ish mode, segueing into big pepper, a bit of rye grain, and bitter oak. After a few drops of water, the taste becomes a little more subdued with less acid attack and slightly softer pepper.

Finish: bubblegum returns under pepper and heat, with some caramel and berries.

At times, this bourbon reminded me very favorable of a good single malt whisky, with the strong berry and floral flavors. However, while the usual caramel and grain of bourbon were someone reserved, it remained a distinctly American whiskey. The higher (54.1% ABV) proof is definitely present, but I feel like it's sufficiently balanced to not be a hindrance while drinking it straight. And if you do want to bring down the proof a bit, it doesn't fall apart like some whiskeys do. All in all, a really great effort from Wild Turkey. It's an excellent whiskey at a very reasonable price. Coming up, I'll be reviewing their standard 101 bourbon, so it'll be interesting to see how they compare.

Classic Cocktails: The Avenue

I got this drink out of Dr. Cocktail's always-useful Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails. The cocktail originally comes from the Café Royal Cocktail Book published in 1937. For more about the Café Royal and it's eponymous cocktail book, check out Our Libatinous Nature and their review of this cocktail.

The Avenue
1 oz bourbon
1 oz apple brandy
1 oz passionfruit syrup (B.G. Reynolds')
1 tsp lemon juice
2 drops orange flower water

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The nose is an interesting melange of the oak and corn bourbon notes with restrained fruit from the apple brandy and passionfruit. Using passionfruit syrup gives this drink a fantastically creamy mouthfeel. The sip opens with fruit from the syrup and apple brandy, which transitions to bourbon, then back to the passionfruit. It finishes with the orange flower water. A very elegant cocktail.

A few notes about the way I put this together. The drink originally called for passionfruit juice rather than syrup and a dash of grenadine. As per VSFC, I subbed in passionfruit syrup and balanced it with a bit of lemon juice. I think this worked out well as the drink was sweet without becoming overwhelming. Lastly, Paul Clarke and I appear to think the same way as we both reached for Weller 12 Year bourbon, as its soft wheat mashbill makes it a good pairing with the apple brandy and passionfruit. A rye-recipe bourbon might give the drink a bit more pep, but I like the way everything comes together in a very smooth fashion with a wheated bourbon.

Second Anniversary - Another Year of Booze Blogging

As per last year and in keeping with traditions, it seemed like a good time to reflect back on the previous year of blogging.

•I'm still really enjoying blogging, though there times when it feels like I've let its demands get ahold of me too much. It's funny, but I just don't drink fast enough or often enough. However, the liver transplant surgeons of the world would probably disagree with that assessment.
•It's amazing what a regular posting schedule has done for my traffic. It took about a year and a half to get my first 10,000 page views, but only four months to get the next 10,000. My one New Year's resolution was to post twice a week and I've pretty much stuck to that. And tried to make up for it when I've slipped. Hopefully I get can get to three times a week or more at some point, but there is that small matter of the rest of my life in the way. Time will tell.
•It's been very interesting dipping my toe into the world of whisk(e)y. From those first few tentative steps through rye and bourbon, I've since come to love grain-based spirits from across the globe. It's pushed me to think a lot more about the details of the spirits I drink, both on their own and in cocktails. However, it's also kind of an expensive hobby.
•On that note, it's been interesting to note the relative output of the cocktail and whisk(e)y blogospheres, as it feels like the former has been ebbing a bit while the latter picks up more and more steam. Admittedly there's a little confirmation bias there because I've been searching out new whisk(e)y blogs, which means they're more likely to be active, but the updates on the sidebar have definitely taken on a new pattern.
•With that said, tiki continues unabated (thanks, Doug). Sometimes with a vengeance.
•I've really enjoyed sinking my teeth into the world of rhum agricole. After a rough start, we are definitely good friends now.
•Still not much of a garnisher, but I'll dabble from time to time. Getting a channel knife for Christmas helped.
•Still enjoying making my own ingredients and looking forward to covering more of them in the future.
•Still thankful to the Horde for all the traffic and the booze conversation that comes my way via the OTAN.
•While there are some really excellent distilleries in the area, as I noted last year, some of the newer entrants are incredibly disappointing. I'm hoping they'll step up their game, but they're in a tricky position.
•I've found some great new places to get a drink and should be reviewing a few more soon.

Once again, thanks to everyone who's read my blog over the last year and here's to many more to come.

Whiskey Review: Weller Antique 107 vs. 12 Year Bourbon

Weller bourbon occupies a relatively small niche in the American whiskey universe, being one of the few wheated bourbons along with the ubiquitous Maker's Mark, lesser known Old Fitzgerald, Rebel Yell and the lauded Van Winkle bourbons. Wheated bourbons take the usual bourbon formula of corn, rye and malted barley and replace the rye flavoring grain with wheat. This makes for a less spicy but generally sweeter bourbon, because rye tends to mask the underlying corn sweetness in the whisky. Wheat lets the sweetness shine, which makes them very approachable spirits.

Weller bourbons are owned and made by Buffalo Trace. BT acquired the brand during the breakup of the old Stitzel-Weller distillery and has been producing wheated bourbon in the same mold ever since. As best I can gather from a bit of research, all of the wheated bourbons I mentioned above except for Maker's Mark are made with the same 75% corn, 20% wheat, 5% malt mash bill, which is also a legacy of the Stitzel-Weller distillery. There are four different bottlings of Weller bourbon - a 90-proof, No Age Statement (previously 7 year old) Special Reserve, a 107-proof NAS Antique 107 (also previously 7 year old), a 90-proof 12 year old, and a barrel proof NAS (but roughly 11 year old) William Larue Weller that's part of the yearly Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. Here I'll be reviewing the middle two, the 107 and the 12 Year.

W.L. Weller Antique 107


Nose: caramel, corn, wheat, a bit of vanilla and oak, cinnamon brown sugar, which becomes sweeter and creamier with more prominent corn and vanilla after adding a couple of drops of water

Taste: sugary sweetness up front, transitioning into sweet cinnamon and spice, then pepper, oak and wheat further back, which becomes smoother with more pronounced pepper after dilution

Finish: good length, pepper and oak, somewhat drying and astringent

If you want to try a wheated whisky, this is what I'd direct you towards. It's usually in the mid-$20 range, which is a very reasonable price given the bottling proof and the intensity of flavors. I was rather surprised by how much pepper shows up in the palette and finish, given that there's no rye in the mash bill, but it does lean more towards black pepper, rather than the chili pepper that I tend to get out of rye-recipe bourbons.

W.L. Weller 12 Year


Nose: sweet wood, caramel, toffee, slightly fruity bubblegum candy, vanilla, a whiff of corn and wheat, which becomes grainier, with fresher toffee, baked apples and brown sugar after adding a few drops of water

Taste: not too sweet, toffee and caramel, softer than the Antique, slight pepper, transitory oak, a touch of wheat, which becomes sweeter and smoother, but with less pepper and reduced complexity after dilution

Finish: medium, pepper and oak

The 12 year old Weller is unsurprisingly more barrel-driven, with heavier toffee/caramel and oak flavors. The lower bottling proof also means that it has a bit less punch than the 107, though this can also be seen positively as increased smoothness over its younger sibling. Given that there's only about $5 between the two whiskies, I'd say that it's going to come down to personal preference rather than value when deciding between the two. I lean towards the 107 because I like bolder whiskies, but for a nice evening sipper, the 12 Year is going to be a good companion. Either way, don't let the somewhat low-rent packaging turn you off of these fine bourbons. While I'm usually wary of plastic screw caps, in this case they hide some really well-made American spirits.