1792 Ridgemont Reserve Bourbon - Lots of Character, Good Value

Non-circular bottle harkening back to the medicine and whiskey bottles of yore that you see in museums? Check.

Pretentious name? Check?

"Hand-crafted", "small batch", "barrel select", "rich/long heritage" used in on bottle marketing twaddle? Check.

Distiller "stamp of approval" detailing the warehouse or cask spirit was aged in? Check.

Good whiskey? Check, check, check.

1792 Ridgemont Reserve definitely hits all the major points in the super premium bourbon marketing handbook, and adds a braided neck piece, for an extra touch of "authenticity". Fortunately, the whiskey inside the marketing pitch delivers the goods, and for a reasonable price.

And unlike the Hirsch Small Batch Reserve Bourbon, where the marketing is pretty much pure BS, there is some substance to 1792's claims to heritage.

1792 (this refers to the year of Kentucky's admission as the US' 15th state, not the founding of the distillery) is actually the product of the Barton Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky: mashed, distilled, aged and bottled there. This is apparently still the case, even though Barton is now part of the Sazerac spirits conglomerate. The distillery was founded before Prohibition, and brought back to life after that sad, stupid experiment ended. The unsurprisingly convoluted history of the distiller is detailed at the American Spirits site.

When this bourbon hits the shelves in 2002, was named was Ridgemont Reserve 1792 and it carried an age statement of 8 years old. A competitor's lawsuit forced the name change to the current form, and just last year they dropped the age statement from the bottle. The 1792 website continues to state that all of the bourbon that goes into the bottles is aged for at least 8 years in oak.

1792 is bottled at 93.7 proof (46.85% abv) which means it's watered down from cask strength some, but not as much as your average scotch or irish whiskey. It has a lovely reddish amber color. The bottle may look old-fashioned, but it fits my hand quite well when pouring.

According to the 1792 website, the mash is a high rye recipe, and the nose and the flavor bear that out. Straight, the spirit has a feisty sharp nose, with plenty of alcohol, and lots of spicy rye bite...but smoother than you might expect, thanks to those 8 years in that hot Kentucky warehouse.

Add just a little water to 1792, though, and it blooms. The nose gentles and you can now smell the oak from the barrel. The spicy rye bite remains, but now it flows into second act of sweet honey followed by slowly growing oak in the medium to long finish. It's a lovely sipping whiskey.

It's also still a reasonably priced one. In my home state it comes at under $30 for a 750ml bottle. Looking online, prices range from $25 to $33 a bottle. At $25, it's a fantastic value. At $33, it's still well worth buying.

Hirsch Small Batch Reserve Bourbon - Tasty, and Gone

Hirsch Small Batch Reserve Bourbon 

(image courtesy of Anchor Distilling)[

The long and short of it is this: I bought my bottle of Hirsch Small Batch Reserve Bourbon about two weeks ago. I'll be replacing it next week.

Please note that I did have some help from my friends.

This is an amazingly balanced bourbon. The nose is soft and sweet. It has a medium heavy creamy mouthfeel. The flavor starts with vanilla and honey and touch of caramel, then some rye spice shows up to give it little pop, and it finishes with some pleasant oaky notes. It's bottled at 92 proof (46% abv), and while it's fine with a few drops of water, I actually prefer it neat. It sips easily...oh, so easily.

According to the label, it's blended in small batches from selected barrels of 4- to 6-year-old bourbon. Given that the flavor is less predominately sweet than Weller Antique Reserve, but not as rye spicy as Blanton's, I'm guessing that it is a low rye grain bill.

Whatever the actual grain percentage in the mash bill, the master distiller (whomever they are) blending this whiskey is doing a fantastic job. The result is well worth price - about $35 a bottle in the US as I write this.

And that's what you should focus on. Because everything about this bourbon is concealed by more than the normal amount of marketing twaddle and historical appropriation that is depressingly common in the US bourbon market.

For certain, this is distributed by Anchor Distilling, which is a subsidiary of Anchor Brewing out of San Francisco. But Anchor doesn't distill, age or blend this.

It's bottled by "Hirsch Distillers" in Bardstown, Kentucky. Who are they? Well, no relation to the A. H. Hirsch, the semi famous distillery owner and liquor executive, whom I assume is now dead (if alive, he'd be 106). And this whiskey has no relation to the famous, and now grossly expensive, A. H. Hirsch bourbon whiskey derived from 400 forgotten barrels starting in the 1980s. In fact, if you read the label carefully, it says in small print: "Inspired by the quality of A. H. Hirsch."

The best guess on the internet seems to be that Hirsch Distilling is another camouflage group for Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, aka KBD, aka Willette. And even then, there's no hint to who actually distilled it, although the Heaven Hill Distillery which has provided a lot of KBD distilling over the years, is as good a guess as any.

Which, of course, means that the master distiller, whose taste buds are the key to this blend, also remains anonymous.

But, does it matter? If the drink in your glass is excellent, do you care that you don't know exactly what company distilled, aged and blended it?

I'm torn. On the one hand, part of the fun of single malt scotch is tale of the distillery and the amount of peat used to dry the malted barley, and the aging and so on. On the other hand, the liquid in the glass has to stand on its own: no amount of history and whisky wonky details can make a bad dram good.

This is a good dram, and well worth the price, in my opinion. I'll buy it again, despite its lack of real history.

Angel's Envy Bourbon - The Curse of the Ever Empty Bottle

As far as I can tell, the natural state of a bottle of Angel's Envy Bourbon is as pictured above: drained empty by your friends.

And if you have no interest in reading the next 600+words, here's the review in a nutshell: it's wonderful stuff, you owe it to yourself to give it a try, and it's earned a permanent place on my bar, if I can figure out a way to keep a bottle around for more than a week after opening it. It'll set you back about $50, and it's worth every penny.

I recommended this as part of my last minute 2013 gift guide, but didn't do a full review. Several weeks later I discovered that the local ABC stores had started carrying it, and picked up another bottle to share with friends at the monthly First Friday art walk at City Market Studios and Gallery.

That bottle did not survive the night.

After almost two years of whisky on First Friday, it stands out as the only bottle I did not get to finish at home.

But that left me with 1 bottle, so all was good. And then I took that bottle, still unopened, to share at a whisky tasting at Mysticon in Virginia.

It survived the tasting, but with barely enough nectar left to provide for this review. And now that bottle is now empty as well, and I am sad.

Angel's Envy is truly special. It shows what a master craftsman can do when they set out to create something special. In this case, it was master distiller Lincoln Henderson (recently deceased), who helped birth Woodford Reserve, creating a special whiskey to help his son break into the whiskey business.

Everything about the base bourbon, from the grain bill (72% corn, 18% rye, 10% malt), to the yeast, to the distillation process to the use of charcoal filtering instead of chill filtering, to where in the warehouse (top rack) the whiskey is aged, and for how long, is designed to create a spirit that will blend well with the flavors that come from being partially aged in a used ruby red port barrel.

And that's how most of what's in an Angel's Envy bottle gets there: distillation, aging in a charred oak barrel for 4-6 years, and then a further 6 months or more in a port barrel shipped over from Portugal. However, reading the marketing materials on the Angel's Envy website, I discovered another interesting tidbit: some of the whiskey apparently goes straight into port barrels after distilling, and then is blended back in with the oak aged bourbon at some point in the process.

Of interest to whiskey geeks - these materials also claim that bourbon ages quicker than scotch due to warmer climate of the US and the use new charred barrels (the scots tend to age in used barrels, commonly, bourbon).

And now onto the whiskey itself.

Angel's Envy is a lovely golden liquid. Bottled at 86.6 proof (43.3% abv), it's is medium heavy when sipped neat, which is generally how I drink it.

The aroma is an enticing blend of honey, oak and sweet port. And then there's the flavor.

Smooth and sweet and subtle straight from the bottle, with a surprisingly mild alcohol bite. The flavor starts with the honey sweetness and touch of rye spice familiar to all bourbon drinkers, but then you realize the ruby port flavors slipped in at some point, and you're not sure when, and your tongue doesn't care, it just wants more.

This a far different experience than the distinct oak pop! at the end of the Woodford Reserve Double Oaked. These flavors blend seamlessly, much more in the style of a good single malt scotch, with everything singing in harmony across your taste receptors.

And this, of course, is why you never have any around. It tastes so damn good and sips so damn easy that your friends just can't help themselves.

This is an easy recommendation. If you find it, buy it. Give it as a gift. Get your friends hooked on it. That way you can help empty their bottles when you visit them.

Because your bottle will never last long.

(PS - This is another bottle that your artsy friends will hound you for, even after it's empty.)

 

Woodford Reserve Double Oaked - That's A Spicy Bourbon

 

One of the best trends in bourbon these days is the experimentation with finishing the whiskey in casks other than the traditional charred american oak. New woods and casks previously used to age other spirits expand the bourbon flavor universe, increase the diversity of flavors and and open up a new vistas for exploration.

Which is a good thing, because until now bourbon's flavor variety was painfully constrained compared to the immense flavor universe offered by single malt scotch. The difference in flavor between Woodford Reserve and Old Weller Antique Reserve, for example, is a tiny, inchworm-measured thing, compared to the flavor differential between Ardbeg Uigeadail and, say, Dalwhinnie.

In fact, you can almost see the bourbon makers looking across the pond at the scotch distillers and wondering how they get so much taste (and market!) differentiation out of whisky that essentially all has the same mash bill: 100% malted barley (by contrast, bourbon makers generally have three mash bills (recipes), to choose from).

Part of the secret is something the scots have been doing for decades now: aging their whisky in all sorts of different barrels: used bourbon barrels (!), used sherry cask, used port pipes, rum pipes, and even, occasionally, in french oak barrels. The interaction between barrel and whisky, usually over the course of many years, changes the flavor of the spirit, as compounds dissolve out of the wood and into the whisky, and other compounds in the whisky are absorbed by the wood.

Woodford Reserve is on the first bourbon distillers to step up to the plate and imitate the scots. The standard expression gets an additional 9 months in a second oak barrel, prepared differently than the standard maturation cask. This second oak barrel gets a longer toasting, but a lot less char. As a result, it imparts a lot more of its oak flavors to the whiskey.

So, how does the Double Oaked compare to the standard Distiler's Select, which one of my all time favorite bourbons?

Colorwise, the the Double Oaked is noticeably darker and more burgundy hued. The aroma is caramel and vanilla and honey, similar to the standard Distiller's Select, but softer, not as sharp.

Both are bottled at 90.4 Proof (45.3% abv), share a similar mouthfeel and are best, to my taste, with just a little water added.

And now we reach the heart of the matter - flavor. The Double Oaked starts off just like the standard Distller's Select: you get the caramel, vanilla and honey promised by the aroma, some pepper and spice from the rye and just as that's fading away..

BAM! Spicy oak jumps out and slaps you upside the taste buds.

It's a surprise all right. The nose promises a softer, richer Distller's Select, but gives no warning of that aggressive oaky pop waiting for you at the end. My Distller's Select review mentions oakiness 'reasserting' itself in the finish: in that expression, the oak notes in the finish say distinctly, "we are here." By contrast, the oak waiting for your taste buds at the end of a sip of Double Oaked kicks down the door and yells "Oak in da house!".

Is this bad? Is this good?

It depends on what you like. It took me completely by surprise when I first cracked the bottle, but I've decided I like it.  Those extra notes at the end add a new dimension to the flavor and the drinking experience and cause me to pay more attention to simple pleasure of tasting what I'm drinking.

Now, the next question is, is it worth the price? As of this writing, the Double Oaked will run you $15-$20 more a bottle than the Distiller's Select, which is a hefty price premium.

That one, I'm punting on. What will say is this: if you like bourbon, the Double Oaked is definitely worth trying. You may decide that extra oak pop at the end just doesn't do it for you. Alternately, you may decide that the extra layer of flavor elevates the Double Oaked to must have on my bar status.

 

 

Elijah Craig 18-Year-Old Single Barrel - Worth the Wait if You Can Find It

 

So what do you get when you leave good bourbon in charred oak barrel in the back of a Kentucky warehouse until it's old enough to vote?

You get a bourbon that is luscious, smooth, gorgeous and all around wonderful. And, if a warehouse fire interrupts the supply chain, you apparently get to wait until 2018 or so until they bottle it again (hat tip to Chuck Cowdery and commenters for that tidbit).

Which means, alas, the Elijah Craig 18-Year-Old Single Barrel (ECSB 18 for short) is in exceedingly short supply. I see it listed online for $60 a bottle, but no one has stock. Back in the day, it was a $40 a bottle..but if you're a bourbon fancier and you spot a bottle in liquor store somewhere, it'll be worth the $60.

(Side note - Heaven Hill, the folks who make the Elijah Craig bourbons, have been putting out extremely limited editions of 20- and 21-year-old Elijah Craig Single Barrel in similar looking bottles, for increasingly much  higher prices, to sort of fill the gap.)

So, what would you get for your $60, should you find one of these rare bottles on a store shelf?

The short answer is one of the top 3 bourbons I've ever had.

The long answer is a richly colored reddish brown bourbon, with a subtle aroma of oak and honey with a dash of maple syrup.

In the mouth it has a nice weight to it, heavy without being oily. The flavors come on smoothly, and blend together so seamlessly it can be hard to distinguish them. I taste some rich honey, followed by oak and rye spiciness that fades pleasantly to alternating sweet and spicy notes and then to a faint, lingering, happiness of the taste buds.

As a straight bourbon whiskey, ECSB 18's grain bill is at least 51% corn. The "flavoring" grain is definitely rye ( as opposed to wheat - see my review of Old Weller Antique Reserve) which provides a nice counterpoint to the corn's sweetness. It is, by all accounts I can find, a low rye recipe, which limits the amount of rye bite in the final flavor.

For the record, the third grain in bourbon is barley, which provides important enzymes and mouthfeel to the whiskey, but whose flavor contributions are apparently greatly outweighed by the corn and rye/wheat, even when the barley amount exceeds the rye/wheat amount.

As a single barrel whiskey, each bottle of ECSB 18 comes from one and only one barrel.  This is different from most whiskies, which are bottled from the contents of tens or hundreds of barrels being mixed together to create the distillery's signature flavor.

As a result, some bottle-to-bottle variation is to be expected if you manage to procure bottles from different barrels. That variation will be bounded by the tastes of the master distiller selecting the barrels, but there will likely be more variation than with whiskies bottle from mixed barrels.

ECSB 18 is bottled at 90 proof (45% abv) - which means it's been watered down some from cask strength (probably closer to 110 -120 proof). It drinks nicely neat, but I prefer it with just a little water added.

It's going to be hard making this bottle last until 2018...

Which brings me to a closing note: that bottle. That lovely unique, antique style bottle with the intricate designs, which is guaranteed to have all your crafty or artistic friends asking you just what you're planning to do with it when you finish the whiskey inside. It's gorgeous, and the whiskey inside is every bit as good.

The Whisky Advent Calendar - Plan to Give it

 

 

This was my most excellent early Christmas present from my wife. Why am I only reviewing it now?

I had to finish it first. With parties and travel, I didn't get through all 24 days until after Christmas.

I'll jump right to the heart of the matter: when you plunk down your $247 + shipping (and they do ship to the US) for the Whisky Advent Calendar, do you get gift value commensurate to your coin?

My answer, is yes. I got 24 days of whisky discovery, a chance to sample products from more than 20 distilleries in 5 countries. The selection was mostly single malt scotch (13 of the 24 days) with the balance filled in with, blended scotches (3), bourbons (3), American malt whisky (1, from Texas), Japanese malt whisky (1 single, 1 blend), a Swedish single malt, and an Irish single malt.

There were no bad drams. There were some that I didn't enjoy as much as the others, but that's going to be the case in any sampler package.

There were also some amazing whiskies in there. I'm now plotting to get ahold of a bottle of Glencadam - the 30ml sample of the 21-year-old in the calendar seduced my taste buds with amazingly complex flavors. And finishing the 2013 edition off with a dram of 40-year-old Glenfarclas was a master stroke - now I have another entry on my "List of things to buy when I win the lottery."

So, if you're looking for a gift for a whisky fancier that will put a smile on their face for most of the month of December, start saving your pennies now for the 2014 Edition of the Whisky Advent Calendar.

I'll also point out that Masters of Malt also offers several other boozy advent calendars: the Premium Whisky ( just north of $400) made of rarer drams, two variations of GInvent Calendars for the gin enthusiast, and a Rum Advent Calendar for the pirate in your life.

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.

 

 

 

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.

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.

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 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.

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.