2013 Last Minute Gift Guide

So, you've let your holiday shopping go, and now you're behind the proverbial 8-ball, with Solstice and Christmas parties bearing down on you, with Christmas and Boxing day themselves just around the corner. Fortunately, in most places in the US and other developed countries, the local liquor offers a selection of gifts for the adults in your life. As an added benefit, if you choose wisely, you'll appear thoughtful and erudite, as opposed to desperate.

To that end, here are some ideas for good  gifts, and some that aren't even too dear.

A Bottle for the Party

Looking to bring something to share for the holiday party, that's distinctive, good, and not too expensive? Here are some ideas:

Old Weller Antique Reserve - Usually under $25 a bottle, and under $20 in some places, this is a great choice for parties where you know there will be bourbon drinkers.

Redemption Rye (not yet reviewed) - Price ranges from $22 - $30 a bottle. Youngish, but mature enough to be drinkable straight. It makes a great mixer for cocktails, like Manhattans (originally made with rye, before Prohibition all but killed it off) and other bourbon-based drinks.

Auchentoshan Classic Single Malt Scotch (not yet reviewed) - $28 - $32 a bottle, generally. This is the only single malt that's triple distilled. The results is a light, sweet spirit with honey notes and none of the divisive peat or smoke flavors that often divide whisky drinker. The resulting wide appeal makes a great choice for parties.

 A Bottle for Under the Tree

For starters, I've reviewed several scotches, bourbons, as well as a rye, a rum and an Irish whisky that I've labelled as good gift choices. They are mentioned in the list below, along with a couple of extra ones that I haven't had a chance to formally review yet.

For the Bourbon Lover

Angels Envy (not yet reviewed) - runs between $40 and $50 a bottle, and well worth it. Angels Envy is finished in used port casks. This has been done by scotch makers for years, but it's a rarity in the bourbon world. The resulting blend of flavors is excellent, and as gifts go, it's a real winner: rare, good, and not to expensive.

Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel  - runs $25 - $30 a bottle, if you can find it. A great gift for the bourbon lover, because it is quite good and honors the man credited with starting the bourbon revival. And the reasonable price doesn't hurt at all.

Woodford Reserve Distller's Select - runs around $30 a bottle, plus or minus a couple of bucks, depending on where you live. One of my top 4 bourbons of all time, and solid choice for the bourbon aficionado. Even if they have a bottle on their bar, they're going to need another one sometime soon.

For the Scotch Lover

Auchentoshan Classic Single Malt Scotch (not yet reviewed) - see above.  An excellent scotch, and one whose price has not yet gone through the roof.

Laphroaig Quarter Cask -  Moving up the price range a bit, the Quarter Cask will set you back between $50 to $60 for a 750ml bottle. As gift, you wan't to be a little more careful with this - you need to select a recipient who likes peaty scotch. However, for such a person, this bottle makes an excellent gift. Not only is the whisky excellent and relatively new to the market, it gives the enthusiast a chance to see how changing the wood/whisky ratio in the aging cask affects flavor.

The Macallan Cask Strength - Prices for this are all over the map this holiday season, ranging from $60 - $100 a bottle, and stock seems to be limited. If you can score this for $90 or so, it makes a good gift for the scotch connoisseur, assuming you love or need to impress somebody $90 worth.

Ardbeg Uigeadail - Running from $55 to $75 a bottle, and worth every penny, even at $75. Peaty scotch partially aged in used sherry barrels, the resulting flavors are surprisingly rich and well blended. For the scotch drinker with any taste for peat at all, this is a heavenly dram and thus a wonderful gift. Ever folks who find the standard Ardbeg too peaty and harsh like Uigeadail. However, if the maximum amount of peat a person can tolerate is zero, another choice, alas, might be better for them.

For the Rye Lover

WIllett Family Estate Bottled Single Barrel Rye - Around $35 a bottle, and simply the best rye whiskey I've ever tasted. Now, some folks simply don't like rye, much like some folks don't like peat. But if they like rye, and you can locate a bottle of this, it's a surefire winner of a gift.

For the Irish Whiskey Lover

The Tyrconnell - Runs around $35 a bottle. A rarity in the marketplace, this is a single malt Irish whiskey (most are blends).  That, plus the fact that it's plenty good whiskey, makes it an excellent gift for the person who fancies the lighter Irish take on whiskey.

For the Rum Lover

Zaya - About $25  - $35 a bottle, which makes it a little on the expensive side for rum. However, this is special stuff: quintuple distilled, aged for 12 years, and so sweet and smooth and rich you can drink it straight. And I've seen nice gift packs in the stores with excellent glasses for the same price as the bottle alone. You can mix it, but if you do, be aware of how sweet Zaya is on its own.

 

The Dimple Pinch - Cool Bottle, Decent Whisky

 

The triangular bottle is one of the most distinctive shapes on the liquor store shelf. Filled with 15 year-old whisky and wrapped in gold netting, it practically screams out: "I'm unique, I'm cool, I'm premium!"

So, the Dimple Pinch bottle, actually patented in the US in 1958, is a master stroke of marketing. Does the blended scotch whisky inside match up?

The short answer is: maybe. It depends on how much you pay for it.

I've never seen such price variation in a whisky before. Checking online, I found prices ranging from $22 for a 750ml triangle, to $47 for that same bottle. It's $43 on the North Carolina ABC store shelves where I live.

At the high end of the price range, you can get better for your money. If you like the Dimple (as it's known outside the US), a bottle of the Auchentoshan Classic single malt will only set you back $30 - $35, and it has a very similar flavor profile. Cragganmore and Dalwhinnie are also on the light site of single malts, and run about $45 - $50 a bottle  and offer substantially more character.

On the other hand, if you're fortunate enough to live in a place where you can obtain Dimple for $22 a bottle, then it's a right good deal and well worth the price.

Dimple is a blended scotch, in this case the product of more than 30 different malt and grain whiskies, blended together in whatever proportions are needed to achieve the signature Dimple taste. Everything in the bottle spent at least 15 years in a wooden cask.

Unlike Johnny Walker Black, Dimple is not a frankenscotch that tries cover all the things a scotch can be. It's blended to offer a much more restricted palette of flavors and true mass market appeal.

Dimple is sweet, medium bodied whisky. Bottled at 80 proof (40% abv), it sips smoothly straight out of the bottle. I don't pick up much of a nose, a little oak, a little honey, a little alcohol. Nothing that really stands out.

Flavorwise, Dimple is sweet, with honey fading to hint of oak and alcohol, and then away completely - it's a short finish. The mingling of the 30 plus component whiskies smooths off almost all the rough edges, and there are none of the peat or smoke flavors that so divide folks into love it or hate it camps. Adding water doesn't make the flavors bloom like it does with other whiskies, it just thins the honey notes a bit and cuts alcohol burn part of the finish down even some.

This makes it a perfect social whisky for the bar. You can offer it to all sorts of people, secure that you're not giving anyone something so strongly flavored that they hate it, and yet good enough to make them feel as if they had been given something premium. The distinctive bottle shape will only reinforce that impression. In a party atmosphere, it goes quickly, as I can attest.

Of course, you can get the same effect with a bottle of Auchentoshan Classic, and play the single malt snob appeal card at the same time. You just don't end up with a cool triangular bottle that your crafty and artist friends will bug you for.

(Addendum - I finished my bottle as I was writing this review. Unless I can find a place selling it for $25 or less, I have no intention of replacing it.)

Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel Bourbon - A Fitting Memoriam

 

Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel Bourbon is one of the amazing variety of bourbons that flow from the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. I've previously reviewed a different bourbon from this distillery: Old Weller Antique Reserve, which is just about my top value bourbon.

The whiskey is named after Buffalo Trace's former master distiller, who recently passed away. Lee was credited with reviving bourbon drinking in the US by creating the premium bourbon category with Blanton's Single Barrel Bourbon in 1984. I haven't reviewed Blanton's yet, but it's one of my top 4 bourbons ever, and has a permanent place on my bar.

Despite being from the same distillery, these are distinctly different offerings. First off, there's the grain bill. While both are, by law, required to be at least 51% corn, the grain bill for Elmer T includes rye, whereas Old Weller replaces that with wheat. As a result, you'd expect the Elmer T be spicier, and the Weller to be sweeter.

Elmer T is also bottled at 90 proof (45% abv) , which means it's watered down to sipping strength, while Old Weller is essential cask strength at 107 proof (53.5% abv). I drink both with some water added, which mean I likely end up making them pretty close to equal strength in my glass.

However, they are similar in the incredibly reasonable prices they go for on store shelves. Elmer T. Lee runs around $25 a bottle in the US, which makes it an easy choice for a regular dram.

Which is good, because the flavor will keep you reaching for the bottle. This is an amazingly well-balanced bourbon. It starts off sweet, then there's some fire, and then the spice of the rye and oak comes in and then it all fades away to honey. This is a medium-bodied dram that smells of vanilla and honey and oak, and the rich amber color looks lovely in the glass. It sips nicely, cleanly, with a medium long, sweet finish.

One quick not about the bottle. You can't tell from the photo, but the bottle has a distinctive feel in the hand. The unlabeled sides are hollowed in, providing a perfect hand grip. It's a small touch, but a well thought out one.

I'd say it's a fitting tribute to a bourbon pioneer. And now that my bottle is empty, I'll be hunting for a replacement - this deserves to be a permanent fixture on my bar.

As to where this fits on my bourbon continuum, I'm provisionally putting it above Old Weller Antique Reserve and just a hair below the my personal top quartet of bourbons. I reserve the right to reevaluate and possibly promote it once I procure another bottle for further tasting.

In terms of absolute value, I'd score this equal to the Old Weller Antique Reserve. As a gift idea for a whiskey enthusiast, this a definite step above the Old Weller: the cork stopper (as opposed the Old Weller's plastic cap) makes a better impression, and the link to the master distiller and fact that it's a single barrel whiskey push it a couple of notches higher up the gift chain.

 

 

 

Zaya - Rum Good Enough to Drink Straight

 



 

Curveball - this week we're venturing into a place I rarely go: the world of rum.

As a younger man, I drank a fair amount of rum in a small variety of mixed drinks. As I aged and started drinking my spirits straight, or with a little water, rum became something I kept  on the bar for my friends who didn't like whiskey. It was a lonely bottle of either Ronrico or Bacardi, light, and lasted a long time, since it only got consumed by visitors.

Last year at our annual Solstice Party, though, a friend whose opinion on many things, including booze, I greatly respect, insisted I try a dram of this Zaya Grand Reserva dark rum he had brought.

With a little trepidation, I did. What a surprise.

It smelled of vanilla and caramel. It had a slightly heavy, but pleasant mouthfeel when taken neat.

And, oh my, the flavor. Sweet, so very sweet, with rich vanilla, caramel and chocolate notes. You can taste some alcohol, but there's almost no alcohol burn, which is simply stunning for an 80 proof (40% abv) spirit. It has a nice medium length finish, with maybe just a hint of oak towards the end.

Zaya Grand Reserva is a blended rum, made from a blend of different rums that have been aged in oak barrels for at least 12 years. It's also supposed to be quintuple distilled.

For those who have forgotten, rum is made from sugar cane. And while all drinking alcohol is produced by yeast eating sugar, the source of sugar the yeast consumes greatly affects the flavor of the alcohol created.

You could make mixed drinks with this, I guess, but stay away from mixing it with cola. Your tongue will go into a diabetic coma.

I recommend at least trying this as I take it: neat, at room temperature. It will have you seeing rum in a whole new light.

You can find this around the country, and even in North Carolina, for $30 - $35 a bottle, which is a decent price for an excellent 12-year-old spirit.

And, yes, my friend was kind enough to leave the bottle with me...

 

The Best Damn Rye - Willett Family Estate Single Barrel Rye, Rare Release

 

WIllet Family Estate Bottled Single Barrel Rye is simply the best rye whiskey I have tasted. All my whiskey-loving friends who like rye rave about it. Even those who don't like rye admit that it's the best rye they've ever had.

If you manage to find this, buy a bottle. It's not too pricey (around $35 a bottle in the US as I write this) and even if you don't like rye, it's a fantastic addition to your bar for your friends who do. It also makes an excellent gift to a rye whiskey drinker - I gave myself a bottle for my birthday, in fact. :-)

This is the whiskey that redeemed rye whiskey for me. My first taste of rye was horrid: astringent and unpleasant and completely off-putting. I was planning to give rye a complete miss, until a friend convinced me to try the Willet Family Estate Bottled Single Barrel Rye (hereafter referred to as Willett SBR).

That designation, detailed at length on the label, as a single barrel whiskey, makes this a rare bird in the marketplace. Most whiskies of all types (bourbon, scotch and so on) that are bottled are produced by mixing the contents of many, many barrels to produce the desired flavor and amount of product. This is necessary because different barrels of whiskey age differently, depending upon a host of factors, such as temperature, place in the warehouse, the wood of the barrel, variations in the quality of the grains in the mash and so on.

So, each individual barrel can have its own unique taste. However, successful branding requires a consistent product, and successful business minimizes waste.  So barrels are mixed to smooth out the variations and maximize utilization of the distilled spirit.

Willett SBR is one of a handful of whiskies on the market where the contents of the bottle came from a single barrel of whiskey: no mixing. Flavor consistency is maintained by the taste buds of the Master Distiller, which leads to an interesting phenomenon - WIllet SBR bottles don't carry a consistent age statement. I have bottles that were aged for 4 years, and bottles who had to spend another year in the cask to become "right".

This is also a cask-strength whiskey. The strength varies a little from cask-to-cask, but the bottles I've seen or drank have ranged from 109 proof to 116 proof ( 54.5% to 58% ABV).

In the glass, this has a rich reddish gold color. The aroma is of oak and alcohol and spice.

I occasionally sip this straight, which is frankly amazing for such a strong spirit, but I generally prefer it with a little water. That cuts the hefty alcohol content down and lets some of the other flavors come through.

WIllett SBR has a nice rich mouthfeel. I taste notes of mint and spice, maybe some oak, and a lovely sweetness that's not quite honey.

I think it's delightful. But rye, because of it's spicy notes, tends to divide folks more than a sweeter grain, such as barley, does when it is the primary ingredient in the mash. As an American Rye, WIllett SBR is legally required to have at least 51% of the mash grains be rye. I have found several places online claiming that the mash bill is actually 95% rye and 5% barley, but I haven't found what I consider to be an authoritative source for that information.

As I said at the beginning - if you can find it, buy it. If you don't like rye, buy it for your bar anyway. Trust me, you will find folks who do and will love you for introducing them to the Willet SBR.

Laphroaig Quarter Cask - Laphroaig Refined

 

Off the southwestern coast of Scotland lies the Isle of Islay. The signature taste of Islay whiskies is peat, with peatiness generally increasing as you move from west to east, and north to south, across the island.

Thus, at the southeastern corner of Islay, you find the three distilleries that define the outer limits of peatiness in scotch whisky: Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Laphroaig.

The standard Laphroaig expression is  a 10-year-old single malt, that, to my taste buds, is the least interesting of the standard expressions of these three distilleries. The others (Ardbeg's 10-year-old and Lagavulin's 16-year-old) offer more complex flavors to complement the peat, while the standard Laphroaig is just peat, peat and more peat.

Enter then, the Laphroaig Quarter Cask.  It comes with no age statement, but an intriguing back story.

Laphroaig takes whisky that's been aging in their standard reused American Bourbon barrels, and moves it into much, much smaller American Oak barrels of the size used 200 years ago. These barrels are about 1/4 the size of modern barrels, thus the name.

This dramatically changes the wood-to-whisky ratio -  more of the spirit in these smaller barrels interacts with the wood, altering the flavors substantially.

Quarter cask is also bottled at a slightly higher proof than the 10-year-old Laphroaig - the Quarter Cask is 48%/96 proof, the standard is 40%/80 proof - but still doesn't qualify as a cask strength whisky. It has a lovely golden color.

You can really taste the difference the change in the aging regime makes. Quarter Cask has a wonderful sweet lead in to the trademark intense peat flavor, that slowly, slowly fades gaining notes of iodine and hints of sea water.

The aroma is slightly less intensely peaty and iodiney than the standard Laphroaig,  promising something different, yet familiar.

Laphroaig recommends taking your Quarter Cask with some water, and I agree. A bit of water accentuates the sweetness and cuts the alcohol burn down, allowing your tongue access to all the available flavor.

Make no mistake - this is still Laphroaig. Peat is the main attraction, and if you don't like peat, you will not like this. Conversely, if you like peat, this will not disappoint.

I think of it like this: the Laphroaig 10 is a teenager, full of piss and vinegar, but obsessively passionate about peat and with no conception of elegance or grace. Quarter Cask is that same teenager at 30, still intensely passionate, but softened a bit by age and experience, and having learned the value of grace and refinement in getting his way.

I can take or leave the Laphroaig 10. Quarter Cask, on the other hand,  I will endeavor to keep stocked on my bar.

 

Tyrconnell - Sweet Irish Single Malt

 

The Tyrconnell is a rarity in the marketplace - a single malt Irish whiskey. Most Irish whiskies you find on the shelves int he US are blends of whiskies from several different grains, and possibly  different distilleries.This includes heavyweights like Bushmills (although they do have a single malt offering) Jameson's and Tullamore Dew.

It is, by Internet reports, double-distilled, as opposed to the triple-distilling most Irish whiskies undergo. This seems to be born out in the heavier mouthfeel of the Tyrconnell when compared to a triple distilled whiskey like Tullamore Dew.

The Tyrconnell is aged for some years in oak barrels. How many? Who knows. There's no age statement on the bottle, nor on the official Website. Barrels are ready when the  master taster says they are.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as barrels of whiskey in a warehouse age at different rates depending on where in the warehouse they are. Some will be ready sooner than others.

And I certainly can't complain about the end result. The Tyrconnell has a wonderful, intense fruity smell that immediately surprises. It's got a pleasant light golden color.

Taste-wise, it's a nice mix honey and fruit sweetness with just a little oiliness at the end (which seems to support the double distallation hypothesis). The finish is short - the flavors don't linger long.

I find it to be quite a pleasant dram, especially in summertime. I take mine neat. Water seems to weaken the wonderful aroma, and reduce the honey and fruit notes in the taste and bring out the alcohol flavor.

At $30 - $35 a bottle, it's a solid value in the whiskey world. It's a quite accessible drink, and makes a nice addition to the bar of somebody who wants to offer something a little different from the standard Irish whiskies most Americans are familiar with.

If you're a scotch drinker who likes Auchentoshan or Glengoyne, you'll find Tyrconnell to be most agreeable.

And a side note on globalization: Cooley Distillery used to be the last independent distillery in Ireland. It's now owned by the parent company of Jim Beam.

Historical note: the packaging claims a heritage that goes back to 1762. However, the Watt Distillery, which was the original producer of Tyrconnell, went out of business in 1925. The brand was acquired by Cooley Distillery in  1988, and subsequently the Tyrconnell was resurrected.

Michter's Unblended American Whiskey - Oh, That's Nice

 

Michter's Unblended American Whiskey shares something in common with its stablemate and previous dram, Michter's Sour Mash Whiskey - a mysterious set of ingredients.

It's not labelled as a rye or a bourbon, which means that it's likely less than 50% corn or rye in the mash. Outside of that, what's in it is anybody's guess. Well, Michter's swears there are no neutral grain spirits in there, so we can rule that out.

My guess is some combination of corn, wheat and barley - if there's rye in the mash, it doesn't seem to be a a lot, as there's not much in the way of the spicy, peppery notes I associate with rye.

Michter's American (my AC is out so I'm in no mood to retype that damn long name in full anymore) is aged in used bourbon barrels, and then cut down down at bottling to 83 proof. How long is it aged? Good question - Michter's isn't saying.

Of course, the real question, the only questions that matters are:

Is the whiskey in the bottle any good?

Is it worth the price ($40-45 in the states)?

The answer to the first question is yes - it's good. There's honey and caramel and vanilla in the nose. Like the Sour Mash, it's a lightish whiskey on the tongue. The flavor is sweet, especially with a little water, more honey and caramel notes and hints of distinctive bourbon flavor that accent but don't overwhelm. The sweetness  fades moderately quickly to light bit of spice, and then it's mostly gone.

Is it worth the price? Just like with the Sour Mash, I'm undecided. It's good, and I'm glad I took the chance on the bottle. Will I buy another bottle when I finish this one? Perhaps. I like it more than the Sour Mash, but for that price, there are still other whiskies I like more.

 

 

Michter's Sour Mash Whisky - Tasty, Tasty Mystery Meat

 

So far, this whiskey wins the title for most meaningless name.

Normally, you can glean a little something from the name of the whiskey. In the US, a straight bourbon whiskey has to be at least 51% corn in the mash recipe - usually closer to 70% corn. A straight rye, likewise, must have a grain bill of least 51% rye, although it can run as high as 95% rye. And a wheated bourbon can be assumed to have wheat in it's grain bill.

A pure malt whiskey will be made from nothing but malted barley, even if the whisky is made by blending the outputs of several distilleries. And a single malt scotch will be the all malted barley product of a single distillery.

However, sour mash refers the process of conditioning or starting the mash with leftover mash from the previous batch. This helps create better fermentation and batch-to-batch consistency. The mash is the collection of hot water and ground grains, some malted, that you add yeast to produce the low wine that gets distilled into whiskey.

The grain bill and the yeast and other microorganisms in the mash combine to produce part of the flavor of the final whiskey. Using the sour mash method helps inhibit the growth of unwanted bacteria whose by-products might produce unwanted flavors in the low wine, and the resulting whiskey.

Almost all bourbon in the US is mashed using the sour mash method, and there doesn't seem to be a distinct flavor profile associated with the method. So using sour mash as the focus of the title is equivalent to saying: American Quality Control Process Produced Whiskey.

Not particularly helpful to the curious whiskey drinker. Especially since Michter's Sour Mash Whiskey is new to the market. Their website claims that it is the resurrection of the deceased whiskey of the same name that went absent from the market for more than two decades after  the previous iteration of Michter's went bankrupt.  There is no way to tell how close the two namesake whiskies are.

In fact, what the label doesn't say is more instructive than what it does. It doesn't claim to be bourbon, so one can safely assume the grain bill is less than 51% corn. It also doesn't claim to be a rye whiskey, so I feel safe in assuming that it's less than 51% rye. And it's not pure malt, so it's made from things other than barley. There's no age statement, but according to the Michter's site, it's aged in new, fire charred, American Oak barrels.

So what's in it? Nobody outside the company really knows, but the consensus of other reviewers seems to be an almost equal mix of corn and rye, with maybe some barely in the mix. That squares with what I'm tasting - a whiskey nicely balanced between rye and bourbon.

In the glass, this has a nice dark gold color. The aroma (nose) is sweet, with hints of honey.

On the tongue, the whiskey is fees lighter than the color suggests. It starts sweetish - the corn, and then smoothly transitions to a pleasant gingery spiciness - the rye, and perhaps the oak. It has a short finish - it does not linger around long.

The light mouthfeel and short finish actually work quite well here. This a very pleasant sipping whiskey with enough complexity to make it interesting. It's a great mingling drink for parties - it's got good flavor, but the short finish ensures you wont miss your conversational openings  because your taste buds are endlessly living that last sip.

Your mouth will, however, demand another sip pretty soon. Which is perfect, because it's good manners to shut up and let others have their say, so as to avoid monopolizing the conversation. You'll be able to offer another brief nugget of wisdom and hilarity soon enough.

Maybe after just one more sip...

Michter's Sour Mash is bottled at 86 proof (43% abv), which means it's been cut down from cask strength. A little water, a splash will do and no more, can open up the flavors a little, but it drinks perfectly well straight.

Michter's Sour Mash will set you back around $40 - $45 a bottle in the US, depending up your locale. If you like bourbon or rye, it's definitely worth trying.

Personally, I'm glad I took a chance on the bottle. I'm not sure yet if it has a permanent home on my bar, though, because in that price range, I have other whiskies that I like more. Still, it seems to be growing on me.

 

A final note, just because it is interesting. Michter's website and bottle talk about the brand's proud Pennsylvania heritage. However, the current owners of the brand are just now finishing their distillery in Louisville, Kentucky. Ever since the brand was purchased from bankruptcy and recreated, it's products have been distilled under contract elsewhere - usually by Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, according to Wikipedia.

Johnny Walker Black Label - The Safe Haven

Johnny Walker Black Label is a 12-year-old blended Scotch. So what does that mean?

For starters, it means all the constituent whiskies have spent at least 12 years aging in wooden barrels, most likely oak. Since it's blended, it means that the whisky in the bottle is a mix of the products of many different  distilleries (several places online claim that about 40 whiskies go into the making of Black Label) .

And finally, since it doesn't advertise itself as a pure malt whisky, it means that whisky made from other grains, such as wheat, corn or rye are involved in the blend as well.

There are two reasons to blend whiskies like this:

• To create rich, complex whisky based on the interplay of flavors;


• To cut costs (usually the reason for the addition of non barley malt whiskies).

Blended scotch has gotten a bad rap among single malt fanciers, because all cheap scotch is blended, and makes liberal use of the non-barley grains. And cheap scotch is generally really bad scotch.

However, blended scotch doesn't have to be wretched. A talented master distiller can mix up a tasty, complex dram using the interplay of flavors from various distilleries as point, counterpoint, highlight and base.

In fact, if you're not buying single barrel whisky, your bottle of single malt (or bourbon or rye) is a blend  of various barrels from that distillery's warehouses, chosen and mixed by the master distiller to produce the consistent signature flavor of that expression. Otherwise, given that different barrels at different places in the warehouse age differently, as well as the effects of weather on the aging process, the final product would be wildly inconsistent.

So, where does Johnny Walker Black Label fall on the crap-to-gold continuum  of blended scotch?

For me, it's definitely drinkable straight, unlike its younger brother, Red Label. That immediately elevates well above most blended scotch.

Black Label is bottled at 80 proof (40% abv), which means it's slightly more watered down from cask strength than most single malts, which are generally bottled at 86 proof ( 43% abv). Even so, I prefer to drink it with a splash of water to open up the flavors.

The nose doesn't give me much, a little sugar, a little oak. It's got decent weight on the tongue, even with the water.

Flavor-wise, there's some honey, some peat, some oak. Black Label has a moderately long finish, with hints of oak and peat and caramel late in the game.

If you sense a lack of wild enthusiasm there, you'd be correct. Black Label is decent enough, and it has the advantage of being almost ubiquitous world-wide. That makes it sort of a safe haven for a scotch drinker - a tolerable dram you can find almost anywhere you end up.

What it does not do for me, is excite me. The flavor is muted compared to a good single malt, or a pure malt blended scotch made from a smaller number of  whiskies, like the Johnny Walker Green Label. It just doesn't have much character.

And, frankly, given the price, it doesn't offer a compelling value. For about the same price, you can pick up a bottle of Highland Park single malt,  Old Pulteney single malt, or  Bowmore single malt, or, if you like bourbon, a bottle of Woodforde Reserve, or Willett Pot Still, all of which have more interesting character and flavor. For significantly less, you can get a bottle of Old Weller Antique Bourbon, which matches or betters Black Label, in my opinion.

Go another $5 to $10 higher, and you start being able to buy things such as Macallan 12-year-old single malt or the Balvenie Double Wood single malt, or Dalwhinnie 15-year-old single malt: all of which a far more interesting drams than Black Label.

If you offer me a glass of Johnny Walker Black Label, I won't refuse it, and I'll enjoy sipping it. But this is not a whisky I would ever seek out, unless the bar was bereft of anything better.

 

 

The Macallan Cask Strength

[caption id="attachment_57" align="aligncenter" width="200"] Finished the opened bottle writing the review - good thing I had a spare on hand.[/caption]

Macallan is known for its single malt scotches aged in sherry casks from Spain. Whisky always picks up flavors from the wooden casks it's aged in, and wooden casks always absorb flavors and liquid from the spirits aged in them.

Aging a whisky in a cask previously used for another spirit means that the whisky will pick up flavors, aroma and even some of the color from the bit of that other spirit that seeped into the cask staves.

In Macallan's case, their whisky mates wonderfully well with the sweet sherry left in the casks, and creates what many consider the standard for scotches aged in used sherry casks.

The Macallan Cask Strength comes with no age statement, and is the product of mixing many barrels, potentially of differing ages. However, it is not watered down or chill filtered. It weighs it at heft 58.4% abv, or 116.8 proof .

In the glass, it's a wonderful mahogany color. I highly recommend adding water to your glass to cut back the alcohol and let the other flavors and aromas come through. It's worth noting that Macallan's standard distillery expressions are bottled at 43% abv (86 proof), and many folks feel that even those whiskies need a splash of water to bring out their best flavor.

With some water, the aroma smooth and pleasant to the nose, with an inviting sweetness. On the tongue, Macallan Cask Strength has a wonderful weight: it's not overly heavy, but it feels substantial.

The flavor is a rich mix of sherry and malt sweetness blended with highland scotch fire and tempered oak spiciness. It starts rich and sweet and melts to the a pleasant fire and spice combo that lingers for a while, joined by some residual sherry notes.

Macallan Cask Strength is an excellent whisky, and makes a great addition to any whisky lover's bar (and thus, a great gift for a whisky lover).

If you already have Macallan 12-year-old single malt on your bar, I can't say that you have to add the cask strength. But, when that bottle of 12-year-old Macallan runs out, a bottle Cask Strength would make for a nice change of pace replacement, assuming the extra $30 is within your budget.

 

NC Readers - Old Weller Antique On Sale

One of the few good things about North Carolina's state-run liquor store system is that prices are the same throughout the state. Also, sales tend to be month-long affairs.

So, in June 2013, the NC ABC stores have put the Old Weller Antique I reviewed several weeks ago on sale for $19.50 a bottle, making it even more of an amazing value.

So go thou and buy!

Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select - Superb Bourbon

 

If you like bourbon, you owe it to yourself to give this one a try. It's both an excellent whiskey and and good value.

In fact, I'll cut to the chase. This is part of my top-flight bourbon quartet: 4 bourbons that stand above the rest . If you wish to give a bottle of bourbon as a gift to an aficionado, or want to stock your bar with a single top shelf bourbon, Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select is a can't miss choice.

Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select comes in old-fashion looking, flat-sided, almost rectangular bottles. The 375 ml bottle, as result, hits quite nicely in backpack pockets, jacket pockets, or even in the deep snap pockets of some cargo pants. The 750 ml bottle contrasts nicely with all the round bottles on my bar. The 1.75 L, on the other hand, looks a bit ridiculous.

The bottles carry no age statement, but do carry a bottle number and a batch number. Each batch consists of a number of different barrels blended together to achieve the Distiller's Select taste. If you're really, really, really, obsessively into taste consistency, you could try tracking down only bottles from the same batch. Given that the of the blending of the barrels will effectively smooth over the barrel-to-barrel differences, I doubt it's worth the effort.

The whiskey inside is a deep amber. It's 90.4 proof, which means it's been lowered from cask strength. The aroma is sweet and spicy, and the flavor, straight, is refreshing blend of the same. It sips smoothly straight, the alcohol fire tempered by the sweet and spicy down to a pleasant heat. It's got a nice medium body - not too thin on the tongue, not too heavy. The finish is pleasant, but not overly long.

Add a splash of water, (really, it only takes a little) and the aroma loses a little spice and gains more sweet and caramel notes. Likewise, more caramel and vanilla come out in the flavor, along with stronger hints of pepper. The oakiness recedes somewhat in the initial tasting, only to assert itself a little more strongly in the finish. The heat also turns down a notch to nicely warm.

This truly a smooth sipping whiskey. It's triple distilled, which is much more common for Irish whisky than bourbon, using scottish stills, another rarity in the bourbon industry. The extra bit of spice comes from the increased propoportion of rye in the grain bill (72% corn, 10% malt, and 18% rye, according to the Woodford Reserve website).

A 750 ml of this retails for about $30 - $35. Since the flavor matches well against other bourbons and scotches that sell for $40-$60 a bottle, I consider this to be a solid value.

It has a permanent home on my bar - as soon a bottle is finished, it's replaced.

For comparison, I like Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select more than the Old Weller Antique and Willett bourbon's I have already reviewed. It's just a bit smoother, a bit more complex flavor wise, a bit more polished, a bit more everything good to me.

Willett Pot Still Reserve Bourbon (Single Barrel) - Keeping the Bottle's Promise

[caption id="attachment_38" align="aligncenter" width="546"] Such a cool bottle.[/caption]

First things first - that is a damn cool looking bottle. It's shaped like a pot still, which makes it self-referential as well as striking.

Also interesting is that this a single-barrel whiskey, not to be confused with cask-strength whiskey. A whiskey can be one or both.

In this case, it's single-barrel, but not cask strength. It's been watered down a little to 94 proof (whiskey tends to come out of the barrel around 110 proof or higher, unless it's been aged a couple of decades or more). Mine is bottle 80 of 259 from barrel 80, for what that's worth.

"Single Barrel" denotes a bottle whose contents come from a single barrel. This is distinct from the normal practice of marrying the contents of many, many barrels together to smooth out the barrel-by-barrel variations that occur during the aging process and create a distinctive, but repeatable, flavor for the expression.

So, while the master distiller does his best to choose the representative barrels for single barrel bottling, it's reasonable to expect more variation between bottles from different barrels than you would  between bottles from different mixed barrel bottlings. So, if you find a bottle of single barrel whiskey that you dearly love, you might want to keep an eye out for other bottles from that same barrel.

Willett Pot Still Reserve carries no age statement. However, information online seems to indicate that it's aged between 8-10 years in oak barrels.

However neat the concept and striking the container, though, booze earns its place on my bar by its taste, and taste alone. So, do the contents live up to the promise of the bottle?

Yes, yes they do.

WIllett Pot Still Reserve is a lovely deep amber. Neat, the nose is sweet, with some oak spiciness. On the tongue, it is medium bodied, smooth. The flavor starts with a rich sweetness of honey and vanilla that fades into a pleasantly long spicy finish.

Add a little water, not much at all, and the caramel and vanilla become discernible in the nose. The initial sweetness subsides some what, but more caramel comes through. The finish loses some length, but the spicy notes multiply, making for a pleasantly more complex dance of flavors on your tongue.

A quick check online shows prices running between $35-$40 a bottle, which makes this a solid value. The fact that the bottle is a conversation piece is just icing on the cake, as it were.

This now has a home on my bar - when the bottle is finished, I will find a way to replace it. That said, I'm still figuring out where this fits vis-a-vis my big 4: Blantons, Woodford Reserve, Elijah Craig 18, and Black Maple Hill. I think it's just below them - which still makes it an excellent dram. More testing, I think, is required.

Learn more about the Kentucky Bourbon Distillers (Willett Distillery).

Old Pulteney 12 - A Lovely Dram

This week's dram is Old Pulteney 12. This is a single malt scotch aged  for 12 years in ex-bourbon barrels.

This is the youngest expression from the Pulteney Distillery in Wick, Scotland. They also offer 17-, 21-, 30-, and 40-year-old whiskies.

The Pulteney Distillery is the Scottish main's northernmost distillery. Wick is a coastal town, and the whisky features flavors and aromas that evoke the sea.

This has long been one of my favorite single malts, because of its lovely, complex flavor and reasonable price (between $30-$40, depending on locale) for a 12-year-old scotch. Old Pulteney 12 is bottled at 86 proof, which is in the standard range for most scotches.

Taken neat, the color is a golden amber. My nose detects a hint of sea air, and some honey. On the tongue, I taste honey, more hints of the sea, a small bit of fire and peat and maybe a few bourbon notes. It's mouthfeel is medium  - not too heavy, not too light. It seems to finish quick and clean, but there's pleasant subtle lingering aftertaste. The alcohol burn is quite muted.

Old Pulteney 12 drinks quite nicely neat, in part because it's already been watered down some from cask strength, as are the vast majority of whiskies on the market. However, just because a whisky is bottled at less than cask strength doesn't mean that a little water in the glass won't potentially have a great effect on the aroma and flavor.

Add a splash of water, and things change quite a bit. The nose intensifies, and if I close my eyes and sniff, I can picture myself on a rock jetty with salt spray in the air.

The honey flavors recede just a little, and out comes more of the briny sea flavors,  as well as some of spiciness of the oaken bourbon casks. The finish lengthens as well.

One of the things that I happen to love about the coast is the smell of salt and seaweed in the air. The flavors and aromas of Old Pulteney can transport me to a bracing day on the edge of the sea, waves rhythmically breaking on the sea wall, salt in the air carried by a stiff breeze...as opposed to the southern Islay malts, which evoke stormy seas with raging waves and howling winds.

This is a single malt that I try to keep on my bar. I don't always succeed, due to Old Pulteney no longer being sold in home state of North Carolina.

Old Weller Antique - Taste Above its Price

Old Weller Antique  (Original 107 Brand) Bourbon proves that sometimes, you get more than what you pay for.

Don't let the plastic cap (no pretentious cork here) fool you. The 107-proof whiskey inside compares well with brands that cost significantly more at your local liquor store.

Weller is a brand that has moved around a lot over the years. Currently, Weller is owned by the Sazerac Company, the largest distiller in the US. The Weller whiskies are among the dizzying array of bourbons pouring out of the  Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky.

The bottle comes with no age statement, but the Buffalo Trace Website claims that Old Weller Antique is aged 7 years. At 107 proof, it's effectively cask strength.

Old Weller Antique's claim to distinctiveness is the amount of wheat used in the grain bill of the mash.

Since it's a bourbon, by law the grain bill has to be at least 51% corn - it can be more. In most bourbons, the non-corn portion is filled out with rye and barley.

Old Weller is one of a class of bourbons that replace the rye with wheat. These bourbons lose the spicy, peppery counterpoint of rye and replace it with the softer, sweeter flavors that come from wheat.

In the glass, Old Weller Antique is  lovely medium amber. The nose is sweetish with hints of vanilla and subdued alcohol, but otherwise simply says: "I'm bourbon."

Sipped straight, it has a medium heavy mouthfeel. It's sweet, with caramel and vanilla notes. The sweet fades to a pleasant alcohol burn that is far less pronounced that the 53.5% alcohol content would lead you to expect. In turn, the burn fades to a long, lingering glow featuring sweet flavors balanced with oaky spiciness.

Add a good splash of water, and the alcohol disappears from the nose, replaced by caramel.  The flavor palate changes some: the corn sweetness and wheat sweetness become discernible as separate flavors amidst the caramel and vanilla, the oak notes become more pronounced,  and the alcohol burn diminishes. The finish loses some potency, fading quickly to a subdued sweet glow on the taste buds that lingers a little and then disappears.

Is this my absolute favorite bourbon? No - but it's damn good, and to my taste buds, better than the most famous American mass market whiskeys and some of the ultrapremium bourbons (such as Knob Creek) and as good as some others (such as Basil Hayden's).

The kicker is the price. As I write this, Old Weller Antique is running between $20 and $28 a bottle, depending on locale. Regardless of locale, it's $5-$15 less per bottle than bourbons I consider to be in the same taste class.

If you like bourbon, you definitely need to give Old Weller Antique a try. Priced where it is, it makes for a great, no guilt, every day sipping whiskey. It's got a permanent home on my bar.

Ardbeg Uigeadail - Pure Awesome

 

I'll cut to the chase. If you find a bottle of Ardbeg Uigeadail at a liquor store, buy it, and put it in your liquor cabinet. Or buy it, and send it to me. But buy it.

If you need to know more than that, read on ...

If I had to choose to only drink one whisky for the rest of my life, I'd go with Ardbeg Uigeadail (pronounced Oog-A-Dal). It's got an astonishingly rich, complex set of flavors that one can sip and savor for hours.

Despite being technically a single malt scotch- in other words, the product of a single scottish distillery where the grain bill consists of 100% barely malt, aged for at least 3 years in Scotland - Uigeadail is a testament to the art of vatting (marrying) different expressions to achieve something new and wonderful. It's also named after the lock (lake) that provides water to the Ardbeg distillery.

A brief aside, for context, is in order at this point. Ardbeg is an Islay scotch  - it hails from the Isle of Islay, off the southwestern coast of Scotland. Islay scotches are known for their peatiness, and Ardbeg is part of the monster peat triumvirate along the southeastern coast of Islay: Laphroig and Lagavulin are the other two. Other Islay scotches are peaty, but these three define the outer edge of peatiness.

Of further interest, is the modern history of Ardbeg. Once upon a time, the signature distillery bottling (at least in the US) was Ardbeg 17-year-old. However, the distillery was closed from 1981-1989, and open only 2 months a year for distilling from 1989-1996, and then closed again in 1996. It was bought by Glenmorangie in 1997 and slowly put back into full production.

The upshot of the production interruptions is that the standard Ardbeg expression available, at least in the US, became Ardbeg 10-year-old, and 17-year-old disappeared from the shelves. On a more speculative note, that production interruption and the resulting lack of stock may be part of the reason why the reborn Ardbeg has been so experimental, and why many of it's special expressions don't carry age statements.

Which wraps us back to Uigeadail. Ardbeg is traditionally aged in used bourbon barrels. Uigeadail is a mix of Ardbeg whisky aged in used sherry casks and Ardbeg whisky aged in used bourbon barrels. It's bottled pretty much at cask strength - 54.2% alcohol, 108.4 proof- and comes with no age statement.

And this is where the magic happens, The standard Ardbeg 10-year is a big, raw, brawling whisky that takes your tongue out to the woodshed and beats it into submission. And that's after being watered down to 92 proof for bottling, and likely more in you glass. It's a love it or hate it dram.

Uigeadail is a different beast. People who hate the standard Ardbeg find Uigeadail to be enchanting (based on actual experience serving the same set of folks both Ardbegs on consecutive nights).

The peat, the iodine, and the sea are still there, but the addition of the sherry-cask-aged spirit rounds them off with sweet notes and rich counterpoints. This is still an imposing dram, but instead of delivering a back-yard beat down to your taste buds, it simply sweeps them away into a another world of savory flavors dancing with sweet, smoke intertwining with sherry, and leaves them satiated, a little breathless, and yet still wanting another sip and another dance.

In the glass, Uigeadail is a dark red, amber. It promises depth, which it will deliver in spades.

Straight up - well I don't drink this straight up. I always add water, and a bit more than a splash, but never more than 25% of the whisky in the initial pour. Because when you add water, Uigeadail truly reveals its wonders.

For me. the nose (bouquet, aroma) is wonderful mix of peat and ocean water, blended with sherry notes.

In my mouth, Uigeadail feels rich and full and a touch oily (but not unpleasantly so). It has weight and presence - a hefty spirit, as opposed to a light one. To me, the flavors are tantalizing and stunningly balanced mix of peat, iodine, seawater, smoke, sweet sherry, and a hint of thick honey.

Uigeadail has a long, smokey, finish that lingers and lingers and lingers. You can easily savor it 15 minutes or more after finishing your dram.

Uigeadail runs $70 - $80 in the US, and is worth every penny. This has a permanent place of honor in my liquor cabinet.

 

 

 

 

 

Knob Creek Rye

Rye is a new type of whiskey for me. Before Prohibition, rye was the go-to American whisky - many of the cocktails we associate with bourbon today where invented with rye.

Long eclipsed by bourbon, rye is making a comeback in the American distilling scene. Lots of distillers, big and small, are producing rye whiskies, and the number you can find on the shelf of your local liquor store is steadily increasing.

What differentiates rye from bourbon? The main (51% or better) grain in the mash recipe. Bourbon is at least 51% corn, rye is at least 51% rye.

In general, what you get from the switch to majority rye is a spicier whiskey, drier, with punchier flavors, even a little peppery.

Which bring me to this week's dram, Knob Creek Rye. The label claims small batch and patiently aged, but includes no age statement. It's offered at 100 proof, which means it's not been watered down much from cask strength.

In the glass it is a lovely dark amber. To my nose, the bouquet is sweet, with a spicy and definitely alcoholic punch. WIth a splash of water, the alcoholic aroma recedes.

Sipped straight, there's spice and some sweet and then the burn of alcohol. This is not a whiskey that will sneak up on you.

I prefer this with a splash of water. The alcohol burns recedes, and more of the peppery spiciness balanced by corn sweetness (it's definitely not a 100% rye mash) comes out. It still has bite, but it sips so much more pleasantly.

I don't generally drink cocktails, but other reviewers have rate it as good for mixing.

My personal rating is that this is a solid rye whiskey. If you like rye, it's worth trying. Definitely drinkable, and it makes a solid addition to one's bar.

That said, it's unlikely that this will continue to have a place on my bar, once this bottle has been finished. I have found other ryes I like more, or that are as good, but cheaper.

Here in NC, this is  $40 for 750ml bottle. Not bad, but I'd like it more if it were a $30 bottle.

Whisky, Whiskey and Beer

Join me as I search for the perfect scotch, bourbon, rye and other whiskies, as well as excellent beer. There'll be occasional side trips to other distilled spirits and drinks, as well, but expect me to stick with what I know, like and have overstocked my liquor cabinet with.