Bargain hunting: Rich & Rare Reserve

View fullsize

September: it’s National Bourbon Heritage Month here in the US, it’s also the month that BourbonFest is held in Bardstown, KY and when a lot of the Fall bourbon releases come out. Add in the facts that it’s also the month of my birthday, my wife’s birthday and our wedding anniversary and you get a month that’s great for a vacation.

I may have mentioned before that I have a bit of a shopping problem. Last time I spent more than an overnight in Kentucky I came home with 35 bottles of bourbon. I had to find a new place to store the overflow. In fact, some of those bottles are still waiting to be opened. And it’s not like they are special releases or anything.

So based on past history, since September is National Bourbon Shopping…err…Heritage Month, August had better be Bottle Emptying Month. I’ve spent the summer trying to make room for the shopping I know I’m going to be doing, but August has been where I’ve really resisted opening anything new. And it’s paying off. I’ve been emptying heels at a fairly rapid clip.

The most recent of which was Rich & Rare Reserve. It’s a Canadian whisky that is aged and blended in Canada, but Sazerac bottles it at Buffalo Trace in Frankfort, KY. I initially purchased it after reading about it in the afterward of Davin de Kergommeaux’s Canadian Whisky: The Portable Expert. I love bargin hunting and am willing to drop $10-15 dollars on a whisky to see if it’s one of those “hidden gems.” Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but often I find something that I’m willing to pick up again.

Rich & Rare Reserve

Purchase info: $10.99 Gordy’s County Market, Rice Lake, WI

Details: 40% ABV

Nose: Delicate. Initial faint hints of nail polish remover. After sitting, it’s sweet with delicate hints of maple, caramel, citrus and corriander.

Mouth: Salty. Light with faint hints of soap. Sweet with buttery caramel.

Finish: Decent length with lingering maple that slowly fades to a tannic bitterness.

Thoughts: This is merely ok. I have nothing bad to say about it, but personally prefer something a bit less delicate. It’s cheap enough though, that if you are a Canadian whisky fan, you might want to risk picking it up to see if it sits better with you than it did with me.

Bison Ridge Special Reserve 8 year old Canadian Whisky plus a similar looking bourbon

View fullsize

Buffalo Trace Bourbon. Produced by Crosby Lake Spirits out of Princeton, Minnesota. This fine imported Canadian Whisky has been aged for 8 years…

Wait a minute! Bison? Minnesota? 8 Years? This isn’t Buffalo Trace! This label says 8 years on it and we all know Sazerac is working very hard to remove age statements from their products!

But I kid. (Mostly.) I make the joke because earlier this year, Buffalo Trace sued the importers of Bison Ridge for creating a product that looked and sounded too much like their flagship bourbon. There are similarities to the name and the label, but I’m not a lawyer so I won’t really get any further into it than that.

One of the things that I actually like best about living in Minnesota is that we have a lot of Canadian Whisky that crosses the border and doesn’t go much further. So when I hear a recommendation on canadianwhisky.org for a new one, I tend to wander into my local liquor emporium to see if it’s made it here.

I originally noticed this brand as a mini in the “99 cent” bin on the store counter. I picked it up and thought it was ok. So I looked it up to see what Davin had to say about it. He didn’t mention the one I purchased, but did have a review of an 8 year version. Since both were imported by a company in Minnesota, I made a note to pick it up the next time I stopped in.

Bison Ridge Special Reserve, 8 year old

Purchase Info: $15.99 for a 750mL at Haskell’s Burnsville

Details: 8 years old, 40% ABV  

Nose: Grassy, soapy, delicate hints of cinnamon red hot candies

Mouth: Fairly thick and chewy. Very sweet. Demerara sugar, hints of anise, cinnamon candy and Dawn dish soap

Finish: gentle heat, slight white wine aftertaste to go along with the ever-present soap

Thoughts: I love good Canadian Whisky. This, however, is not that. It’s not terrible, but I’m not partial to the dish soap flavor I got throughout. For me, this is just meh.

View fullsize

Partway through my tasting I found the actual bottle of Buffalo Trace up in the overflow closet and thought it might be fun to taste these together. See how disappointed someone would be if they bought Bison Ridge thinking it was Buffalo Trace as their lawsuit contends is possible.

Buffalo Trace Bourbon

Purchase Info: $15.99 for a 750 mL at Haskell’s Burnsville (on sale)

Details: 45% ABV

Nose: Citrus peel transitioning to an earthy garden soil. Damp earth and green plants. Under that is a sweetness tinged with faint baking spices.

Mouth: Maple candy and cinnamon red hots pair nicely with an acidic liveliness.

Finish: Nice and warm. Lingering caramel and baking spices that fade to reveal a stoney mineral flavor underneath.

Thoughts: Even at full price I like this one. I may not agree with the decisions of Sazerac’s marketing department, but I have to say they make a damn fine bourbon.

If someone told me to buy Buffalo Trace and told me there was a drawing of a Buffalo on it and I bought Bison Ridge by mistake, I would wonder what the fuss was all about. Bison Ridge isn’t terrible, but Buffalo Trace is a really good whiskey for the price. Whether it was an intentional ploy to trick people or not is for the lawyers and/or the courts to decide, but I can see why Buffalo Trace sued. I gotta give Bison Ridge a little credit though. They at least got the name of the animal correct.

A Competition of Canadian Clubs, Regular Release vs Sherry Cask

View fullsize

December 1, 2013 was an interesting day for me. I was driving from Indiananpolis to Minnesota. 

This is not the interesting part.

I had been scheduled to take part in an online Twitter tasting going by the name #DavinTT2 but obviously couldn’t take part due to that aforementioned driving. The group had two whiskies to sample and I had tasted mine the previous evening in order to have notes ready to tweet out during the event. I had really liked both of them and was excited to find out what they were, what other thought of them and most importantly if I could get them in the US.

Due to extremely intermittent internet connectivity (thank you AT&T for seemingly not building a tower along a large stretch of Interstate 94 between Madison and Eau Claire, Wisconsin) I found out what the second whisky was first. And that it was a Canada only release. Drat.

The first one, I didn’t like as much as the second, but I still liked it enough to search out if available in the US for a decent price. Imagine my delighted surprise when I found out that it was Canadian Club Sherry Cask. I’d seen that practically everywhere. 

I’d seen it everywhere but had dismissed it in large part due to the fact that it was Canadian Club. I had a vague recollection of not caring for Canadian Club back when I was young and very much not into whiskey.

It’s amazing how old prejudices stick with you even when you’ve forgotten why you have them. Isn’t it? But that’s the value of blind tasting. I knew these whiskies were from Canada but that was it. It got me to taste something I had literally passed over dozens of times. And I liked it. Now I just needed to find it so I could taste more than an ounce and see if I really liked it.

I ran to the store once I got home and…they were out. Odd. I looked at the other stores I frequent. They were out or didn’t carry it. What the hell? I looked every time I stopped at a liquor store. Nothing. It got so bad that I finally ended up grabbing a bottle at Binny’s on my next vacation. Of course, when I got home, it was everywhere. And cheaper. 

Knowing that this was a tasty drink got me to wondering what the regular release tasted like. Was it something that I might want to keep on hand? I mean, it’s cheap enough. I bought a bottle to sip on during the Mad Men season premier this year. It was tasty enough. So now I had two Canadian Club whiskies. One that went for almost $30 and one that went for about $15. Was one twice as good as the other?

Canadian Club

Purchase info: $14.99 for 750mL at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN

Details: 40% ABV

Nose: Delicate nose with notes of ripe cherries, wet stone and dusty old wood

Mouth: silky texture with a malt-like sweetness. It has strong floral notes. There is a bit of mineral flavor along the sides of the tongue.

Finish: Sweet and gentle, but with just enough heat to subtly remind you you are drinking whisky.

Thoughts: There is absolutely nothing wrong with this whisky. And, if you love delicate flavors, I can see this being a nice inexpensive bottle to keep on hand. I prefer my whisky to be a bit more in-your-face and not so eager to please so, although I wouldn’t turn down a glass if offered, I doubt I’ll be buying this one again.

Canadian Club Small Batch: Sherry Cask

Purchase info: $29.99 for a 750mL at Binny’s, Bloomington, IL

Details: 41.3% ABV. Batch: C12-232

Nose: Floral soapiness, wet stone, dusty wood, sweet caramel and raisins.

Mouth: Thick and sweet. Fruity caramel paired with dark chocolate. 

Finish: Sweet and of a decent length. Lingering fruitiness that fades to bitter. Dries the mouth nicely.

Thoughts: This is a good conversation whisky. Buy it to have with your friends for those times you’d rather think about your friends than your whisky. It’s not a complicated whisky, but I like it. Just not for every pour.

In the end, the Sherry Cask is better than the regular release. Is it twice as good? No. But then whisky math is seldom that straightforward. If I pick this up again it will be as a change of pace whisky. It doesn’t perfectly line up with my palate, but it’s not far enough off that I wouldn’t want a glass now and then.

Two Old Foresters Head to Head, Signature and Single Barrel

View fullsize

I’ve described my last trip through Kentucky as a bit of a let down. Apparently a Sunday in February is as little fun there as it is here in Minnesota. There are good points though. The temperature is nicer for one. Another is that the liquor stores are open so there is a good chance of walking away with something that will make you happy you stopped. My stop at the liquor store involved me picking up the first bottle of Old Forester Single Barrel I ever saw. Old Forester has only offered a private barrel program for a little over a year now and at that point none had made their way up to the frozen north.

I’ve claimed to like Old Forester for a while now. I liked the Signature enough that I’ve recommended it to people instead of Woodford Reserve, though admittedly I only buy it when it’s below $20 and it hasn’t been that for a while. I enjoyed the 86 proof, but remember it as being a little weak. The Birthday Bourbon is good basically every year. So the chance to pick up a Single Barrel version and taste it was a no brainer for me.

Now you may wonder why I used the word “claimed” above. Well I thought that it would be a good idea to taste this along side the one I’ve recommended for so long. You know, see how it stacked up to one that I remembered liking so much. Could it possibly be worth twice the price I used to pay?

Old Forester Signature

Purchase info: $17.99, 750 mL (on sale) MGM Wine & Spirits, Prior Lake, MN

Details: 50% ABV

Nose: brown sugar, dusty oak, cocoa powder and cherry

Mouth: Thin and hot. More bitter than I would have expected from the nose. Flowery. A splash of water helps this, diminishing the heat and bringing out more honey, bitter orange and earthiness.

Finish: Hot, long and flowery. Fades to bitter. Water doesn’t help here. It’s now warm, but short with just a hint of floweriness.

Thoughts: Hotter and more bitter than my memory led me to believe. Water is a mixed blessing allowing you to taste it through the burning, but killing the finish. I wonder now if I would prefer the 86 proof version as this one is just hot. Meh.

Old Forester Single Barrel

Purchase info: ~$40 with tax for a 750 mL at Westport Whiskey and Wine, Louisville, KY

Details: 45% ABV. Barrel# 2012. Lot ID: 08E30. Barreled: 5/30/08. Dumped: 10/21/13. Bottled 10/23/13. Barrel Proof: 134.2. Warehouse L

Nose: brown sugar, wet stone and a fruity waxiness along with hints of fresh sawn lumber

Mouth: Warm with classic bourbon vanilla/caramel at the front of the mouth. Fruity honeydew melon and spicy ginger appear as it moves back.

Finish: Warm and long with lingering spice and brown sugar sweetness

Thoughts: Classic bourbon flavors dominate but a nice fruitiness enters partway through as well. My total bill was roughly $40 with tax so not only is it good, but it’s a nice value as well. I like this one.

Now you know where “claimed” came from. I was shocked by the bitterness I encountered on my first sip of Signature. I won’t be recommending it to people anymore. If they want Woodford, let them spend the money on it. The Single Barrel is good though. And I think it really was worth just less than twice the price of the Signature. It tastes more than twice as good to me.

UPDATE (11/13/14): I'm sipping on a different retailer's selection and I'm a bit shocked at how different it is. Less fruity floral flavors and more spice. Same heat. Still good, but different.

Review: Jim Beam Single Barrel

View fullsize

I’ve been living at my current residence for almost eight years now. I’ve been ready to move for almost seven and a half. It not that there is anything particularly wrong with where I live. I mean, it snows way too much and gets way too cold for way too long, but it wasn’t that. I’d lived with those things my entire life.

I love being in a new place. I love not knowing where I’m going and finding the best way to go anywhere. After I move to a new city, a trip to the grocery store is as exotic and full of adventure as a holiday on another continent is for most people. “What happens when I turn here?” “Where does this go?” “That’s a pretty road/tree/park.” “What a cool little hardware store.”

But then, after about six months or so, you’ve found all the ways you can travel to the grocery store. You know what the hardware store stocks on it’s shelves and that the Home Depot is probably still cheaper, even if you do need to buy an entire box of screws instead of just the three you need. You know what to expect around every turn. And that what’s there isn’t really all that interesting. 

In other words, it’s time to move again. But you can’t. You just bought a house. You are stuck there. 

For twenty years. Maybe ten with good behavior.

I think I developed a nomadic streak somewhere along the line. I like nothing more than to be somewhere new. To see what there is to see, smell what there is to smell, and taste what there is to taste. It’s possible that it is this same drive to experience new things that makes me love trying new bourbons. Especially single barrel bourbons. Even if you think you know what you are getting, sometimes there manages to be a surprise or two around the metaphorical corner. 

Jim Beam Single Barrel

Purchase Info: $39.99 at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN

Details: 47.5% ABV, Barrel #: 4-164, Bottled on: 2-19-14

Nose: Dried grass, cedar and apricot

Mouth: Syrupy mouthfeel. Caramel corn. Gentle, with just a hint of spice.

Finish: Warm and sweet with a hint of spice

Thoughts: While I like this much more than the regular release, I’m not as wowed as I thought I’d be. If you are a lover of Jim Beam products, this higher proof version is certainly a step up from many that bear that name. It lands right inside the Jim Beam stylistic wheelhouse. Tasty enough, but I don’t think I’d buy a second bottle. Meh.

Evan Williams Single Barrel bourbon, 2004 vintage (The Cellars Wine & Spirits pick)

View fullsize

Evan Williams Single Barrel has a special place in my heart. It was one of the first souvenir bottles I picked up on my first trip to Kentucky. And by souvenir, I mean I payed too much for it in a gift shop because it had the distiller’s signature on it.

It’s not like it was anything special, but it seemed it at the time. I was actually quite excited by it. In a way I feel a little silly about that now. Some dude scrawls his name on a bottle and I was one of the people dumb enough to pay extra for it. And while I wouldn’t probably do that now, it does still sit on display in my office so maybe the extra price was worth it. I’ve paid a lot more for dumber things to sit on a shelf and collect dust. 

I enjoyed that first bottle and and have been going back every year since. As my palate has become more experienced, I’ve noticed that I like these bourbons less and less. I really liked 2001. 2002 was ok, a bit meh. 2003 I didn’t particularly care for. A solid meh (and I tried two bottles of that one). I’m not sure if I’ve changed or if they’ve gotten worse. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that any of these are bad bourbon. They are good, not great. Average and uninteresting. I still buy them every year. It’s not like $25 is a bad price, even for average bourbon. 

So my interest was peaked when I walked into a new liquor store here in the south Metro and noticed that they had their own pick of the 2004 vintage. I hadn’t had the regular release of the 2004 so I picked it up. My hope is that being a store pick, it might be a little more interesting than the regular release once I get around to buying that. 

Evan Williams Single Barrel 2004 (Cellars Wine and Spirits)

Purchase info: $23.99 at Cellars Wine and Spirits, Eagan, MN

Details: Barrel # 229, barreled on 4/6/04, bottled on 2/4/14. 43.3% ABV

Nose: Honeydew melon and wet rock.

Mouth: Baking spices, grasses and a hint of the melon from the nose

Finish: short with just a hint of a burn

Thoughts: This was certainly interesting. I’ve never gotten melon from a bourbon before. But in the end this is another good, not great Evan Williams Single Barrel. I’m not wowed, but then I didn’t really expect to be.

I don’t know how representative this is of the 2004 release but, considering the price, I could be convinced to recommend picking up a bottle.

A visit to Smooth Ambler and a review of their Yearling Bourbon

View fullsize

In November of 2013 I was traveling through West Virginia. It was Black Friday and I was in the mood to follow that great American tradition of spending money. As it was my first time through West Virginia, I only knew of one place to stop. Smooth Ambler, in Maxwelton, WV is a fairly short detour off of Interstate 64 at the Lewisburg exit.

I stopped in fairly late in the afternoon, not really expecting to get on a tour, but hoping to at least give them a little of my hard earned cash. To my happy surprise, I was able to do both. 

View fullsize

We joined up with a tour already in progress in the still room. 

View fullsize

Shiny fermenters all in a row. A far cry from the giant tanks that the big boys use, but if you aren't making as much as them one giant tank would be much less flexible than a few smaller ones. 

View fullsize

An empty barrel waiting to be filled. As you can see, they get their barrels from Independent Stave (like almost everyone else) and they like char #4. Which according to our tour guide on the ISC tour is pretty much what almost everyone gets. 

View fullsize

Bourbon barrels filled just a day or so before we visited. This is either the start of a new set of racks or they are waiting to be put somewhere. Most of the stacks were twice this high.

View fullsize

Apparently they are aging a wheat whiskey and something called 50/50 as well. 

View fullsize

After aging was tasting. I really like this tasting room. I'm a big fan of red and wood together. 

View fullsize

Though they make a gin and a vodka, my wife and I decided to concentrate on those things that spent some time in a barrel. I tried the Barrel Aged Gin and found it to be a tasty gin. I also tried the Old Scout Rye. I knew before I tasted it that they did not make this. One of the things that I liked about these guys is that they made no secret of that fact. There was no claiming it was from a secret family recipe that a gangster used to prefer. It was just "we bought this because we liked it and now you get the chance to like it too." And I did. I thought it was tasty. My wife tried the Old Scout and Old Scout Ten. She liked it enough that that's the bottle we brought home with us. Unfortunately I was not able to try the Yearling which is the only bourbon that they've put out that they made. So that meant I needed to keep my eyes open for it on the way home. I was really interested in trying something that was admittedly only put out to satisfy the curiosity that whiskey geeks had over what the products they made themselves might taste like. Luckily the Party Source was able to satisfy my desire.

Smooth Ambler Yearling Bourbon

Purchase Info: $24 per 375mL bottle, The Party Source, Bellevue, KY

Details: Batch 6, Bottle Date: 11/14/12, Aged: 1 year 8 months, wheated bourbon, 46% ABV

Nose: grain and butterscotch

Mouth: young, hot and sweet. This is the sweetness of grain though, not of barrels.

Finish: longish with a lingering sweetness that transitions to vegetal

Thoughts: To say that this is good would be a gross overstatement. That does not mean however that is it bad. It is what it is. It's a young bourbon that needed much more time to mature. It shows a lot of promise though and I can consider my curiosity duly satisfied. I'm excited to see what this will turn into with 5-8 more years under it's belt. For now though satisfy your curiosity, but don't expect much more out of it.

Bourbon Review: Jefferson's Presidential Select, 18 year old

View fullsize

Roughly a year ago, I was walking through one of my usual liquor stores. I was on a beer run. And, as I always do, instead of walking straight back toward the beer coolers I turned left and went to look at the bourbon. 

There is a tiny little shelf near the ceiling that holds four or five of the more expensive North American whiskies they have on hand. And I look up there every time I visit. I have to, it’s where I found (and passed on) various van Winkles back in 2011. It’s where I found out about the yumminess that was the 2009 Four Roses Mariage (still my favorite of the ones I’ve had). 

On this particular visit, I hadn’t planned to buy a hundred dollar bourbon. I hadn’t really even planned to look. I was stopping in for a six-pack of beer. My wife was with me. More at issue, my mother-in-law was with me. Randomly dropping a hundred bucks on something to put in my closet would get a raised eyebrow and a shrug from my wife, but it would get shock, confusion, questions about my sanity and wonder that her daughter ever let me out of the house unsupervised from my mother-in-law.

So, of course I looked. And up there, was one bottle of a bourbon that I knew was no longer being distributed. The writers were cautioning that if you saw it, and wanted it, to grab it because that was it. There would be no more. 

Well, crap. It was one I hadn’t tried yet and one I’d been meaning to. There was nothing for it. I had better grab it. And so I came into possession of a bottle of Jefferson’s Presidential Select 18 year old (Batch 14, bottle 1811). My wife, predictably raised her eyebrow and shrugged. As a lifelong drinker of Old Style beer, my mother-in-law was shocked that anyone would pay that much for any booze. And kept on being shocked for a while. 

So was it worth it? Sure, my mother-in-law is a funny lady and I’d pay a decent amount to set her off sometimes. But what about the bourbon?

Jefferson’s Presidential Select, 18 year old

Purchase Info: $99, Blue Max, Burnsville, MN (May 2013)

Nose: Sweet baked apples with brown sugar. Earthy, like freshly dug soil. 

Mouth: Nice syrupy mouthfeel. Warm on the first sip. Baking spices and sweetness at first, but transitions to a dry tannic woodiness.

Finish: Swallows gentle but develops a heat in your chest that lasts for minutes. Drys the mouth.

Thoughts: I find this to be too woody. To me, it was aged too long. It’s too dry. I described it in a tweet shortly after opening it that it was like drinking woody honey. My opinion hasn’t changed. That said, my wife really likes it. Which doesn’t surprise me in the least. I’m not normally a fan of extra-aged whiskey. The bourbons I like best tend to be in the 10 year range. Whereas her favorite bourbon was 18 years old before it was discontinued in favor of 20, 21 and 22 year old varieties. So if you also like bourbon with a bit of wood on it, give this a shot if you happen across one of the few remaining bottles. I’m glad I did even if, for me, it was just meh.