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.

Bushmills 10-Year-Old Single Malt - A Convivial Dram

The Bushmills 10-year-old Single Malt is a rarity in the Irish Whiskey section of your local liquor store: an all barley malt whiskey that's the product of a single distillery.

Most of your Bushmills, Tullamore Dew, Jamesons and other Irish whiskies are blends of whiskies from different grains: barley, wheat and so on). Even the Tullamore Dew Special Reserve I reviewed earlier is a blended whiskey.

Of course, one of the reasons distillers mix in the whiskies made from other grains is to cut the cost. And you can see that reflected in the price: a regular old bottle of blended Bushmills will set you back $20 or so, but this 10-year-old single malt will cost around double that.

If it occurs to you that this sounds suspiciously like how scotch is priced and marketed...you're right. Bushmills is stealing, extremely belatedly, the whole scotch premium marketing plan, lock, stock, and barrel. Personally, I think that's a good thing.

Now, don't let that get you thinking this isn't still very much a traditional Irish whiskey. It most certainly is.

Like most Irish whiskies, the Bushmills Single is triple distilled. This makes a for a lighter, sweeter, and less complex spirit than the average scotch, which is double distilled. Whether you think this is a good or bad thing is purely a matter of personal taste. For me, it depends on the day, the weather and my mood. Sometimes I crave something really complex, and sometimes I desire a lighter, simpler spirit to warm my tastebuds and my evening.

The label says the Bushmills 10 YRO Single Malt spent its decade of aging in bourbon and oloroso sherry casks. It doesn’t say how long the spirit spends in each type of barrel. Based on the flavor, I’m guessing it spends most of its time in the bourbon barrel, with a short stay at the end in the sherry barrel, and the Bushmills website seems to back up that assessment.

In the glass, the Bushmills 10 YRO has nice golden color. Neat, I smell oak, with hints of sherry, and the bite of alcohol. Despite already being watered down to 80 proof (40% abc). prior to bottling, adding a splash of water gentles the aroma significantly, bringing up the sherry notes, exposing some honey ones, and dulling the astringent alcohol smell.

Sipped neat, it starts sweet, with some sherry notes and then some oak and alcohol bite. With a splash of water, and a little really does go a long way with this, the transitions smooth out quite nicely. As with the aroma, the sherry notes really pick up, more honey notes come through, and even a hint of chocolate, and the alcohol bite drops down to a pleasant warmth. For me, the mouthfeel also improves - somehow the little bit of extra water made it feel richer and thicker on my tongue. But it retains the classic Irish whiskey characteristics: lightish on the tongue, with a refined sweetness.

With that vital splash of water, this is probably my favorite Irish Whiskey right now. It has more character than, say, Tullamore Dew, but it still sips extremely smoothly. It makes an excellent reading or conversational companion, or balm for a series of brutal defeats at the Rummikub table, especially on warm summer nights.

In the realm of Irish Single Malts, I think this edges The Tyrconnell on flavor, though the Tyrconnell wins on price, though by how much varies from retailer to retailer. The Bushmills 10 YRO Single Malt definitely a solid buy, especially if your tastes run to the lighter side of the scotch world, or if you prefer the lighter flavors of other Irish whiskies to scotch.

Bowmore Darkest 15 - Ruby Red Blend of Peat and Sherry

 

The standard expression from Bowmore is 12-year-old whisky aged in ex bourbon barrels. To get Darkest, they dump that spirit into ex-Oloroso sherry casks and let it age for another 3 years. The result is a darker, redder spirit that represents a departure from the standard Bowmore palate.

Bowmore is an Islay scotch, which means peat. However, while Bowmore is definitely peatier than the mainline scotches, it's nowhere near as peaty as the monsters of the southeastern Islay coast: Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Laphroig.

And while some folks may blanch at the idea of combining peat and sherry, I've previously reviewed Ardbeg Uigeadail which blends those exact flavors brilliantly. So I was very interested to see how Bowmore take on the idea came out.

Bowmore bills its Bowmore Darkest 15 as "one of the most beautifully balanced Bowmores." I can't disagree with that assessment.

Darkest is bottled at 86 proof (43% abv), which means it's been watered down to sipping strength. Still, I drink mine with just a little bit of water, as I feel it improves the aroma and flavor palette.

As mentioned, Darkest is a lovely dark reddish amber in glass. With the addition of that bit of H2O, the aroma is rich, sweet sherry and caramel with some hints of strawberry.

In the mouth, I'd characterize it as heavy. The flavor is smooth, sweet, sherry and fruit notes blending seamlessly with the peat and honey of the standard Bowmore before fading to a gently peppery sparkle.

It's interesting what those extra 3 years in the ex-sherry casks do to the spirit. The oiliness that is one of the defining characteristics of the 12-year-old Bowmore for me is gone, a welcome change. The peat flavors, while still present, are much subdued, and on this spring night in North Carolina, undetected by my nose.

This a refined, rich dram, soft and easy to sip.

I personally prefer it to the 12-year-old Bowmore, although the $30 price premium for Darkest makes me wince a little. It makes an excellent gift for a whisky enthusiast.

Naturally, the question that presents itself is: how does Darkest stack up against Ardbeg Uigeadail? They share a similar idea: peaty whisky partially aged in ex-sherry casks, and, at least in the US, are generally priced within a couple of dollars of each other.

Honestly, they are different. Which one you prefer is going to be a matter of personal taste.

Darkest has a heavier mouthfeel, darker color, and it just sort of envelopes and caresses your tongue with rich flavors.

Uigeadail is a little lighter in mouth feel, lighter in color, has more peat and smoke, and dances across your tongue, thrilling it with a wonderful riot of flavors.

I prefer Uigeadail by a little bit, but I won't argue with folks who prefer Darkest. It's a lovely whisky, and well worth a try.

Talisker 10 - Fire and Spice

 

Talisker hails from the Isle of Skye, which lies just off the west coast of the scottish mainland. It is the only distillery still in operation on the island.

The 10-year-old expression is the distillery's standard, base expression. It's aged in ex-american whiskey hogsheads (barrels), apparently just outside of Glasgow these days, according to this 2011 article. Talisker still has warehouses on site, apparently, which it keeps full by migrating casks from the mainland facility as it taps the older ones on site.

Talisker 10 is a golden brown, and has a complex aroma and caramel and pepper. It's bottled at 91.6 proof (45.8% abv), a little higher than most other distillery edition single malts, which usually weigh in at between 80 and 86 proof.

So, a youngish scotch with no extra sexy finishes, just a decade in one type of barrel. How good can it be?

Quite good. Excellent in fact.

Talisker is the taste equivalent of sitting in front of a blazing fireplace in a house on the seacoast on a chill night in the late fall, with the windows cracked so you can smell salt in the air and hear the crash of the waves. It's fire and spice with an underlying sweetness that engages the tongue in a delightful dance.

Sipped with just a tad bit of water, there's peat there, both from the malt and the underground springs the distillery draws on, but this is no Islay peat monster. There's sweetness, then the smoke moves in slowly, and before it overwhelms, it gets nicely balanced with bit of saltiness, a some more sweetness, and then the signature Talisker spicy black pepper finish, which fades to a lingering finish that reminds me of a salty onshore breeze and makes my tongue warm and happy.

This unique and complex taste doesn't really have an equivalent in the universe of single malt scotches. If you haven't tried it, and don't hate peat, you owe it yourself to sample it.

Talisker is not a cheap dram - here in the US, it'll set you back $65-$70 a 750ml bottle. I was fortunate enough to score my liter bottle at a duty free shop in the Caribbean for the same price as the 750s were selling for in the liquor stores at home, making it a great bargain.

However, when that bottle is finally done in, I will be replacing it, even if I have to pay full US retail. Talisker has earned a permanent place on my personal bar.

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.

 

 

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.