Three Whiskeys from Filibuster Distillery

January 22, 2019 Eric Burke

I state in my Statement of Ethics that if I accept a review sample, I will disclose it at the beginning of the article. Please consider it disclosed. I’d like to thank the folks at Filibuster Distillery for providing this sample to me with no strings attached. As always, all thoughts are just my opinion.

IMAGE: Three bottles of whiskey, a bourbon, a rye and a blend of the two. All from Filibuster Distillery in Virginia

I’ve gotten used to whiskey showing up at my house. It took a while, but now that it happens about once a month or so, it is getting to be old hat. Usually it starts like this:

Hi Eric,
I stumbled across your blog and was very excited about it!
I was wondering if you’d be willing to review our (fill in the blank).

They almost always just stumbled across my site and are always excited by it or are enjoying it so far. In return, I almost always say yes when someone comes out and offers me free whiskey. I mean it’s free whiskey. Even if it isn’t any good, I’m sure I can find something to do with it after the post goes live.

Most often, I’ll get a notification from UPS or FedEx, within a few days of replying in the affirmative, that there is a package on its way to me. Sometimes I tell them yes, and nothing happens. But one thing that never happens is that a sample shows that I didn’t have an email about first. Mostly because that is really the only way to get my physical address, which is obviously needed in order to ship something to me.

So, when a box of whiskey bottles showed up in mid-December from Virginia and I didn’t have a record of an email correspondence? Yeah. I was confused. I am an email hoarder. I almost never delete an email. And even if I do, I never empty my trash. I said above that “Filibuster Distillery” sent these to me because I honestly have no other idea as to who did.

Looking through their website, I come away impressed by the company. It is a woman, and minority, owned business. One of the ad agencies I worked for was the same, it’s something to be proud of. Unlike many of the folks that enter the craft spirits business, they aren’t strangers to the spirits business, having “experience in specialty spirits retail.” Plus they seem to be doing a lot of things on the distillery side to run an environmentally friendly operation. They do source some of their whiskey, but based on their labeling they also distill some as well. Based on their website, they seem to cask-finish a lot of their products in wine barrels. Seems like a good operation.

So then I ran into some questions. The bottle lists the bourbon as “aged for less than four years in new charred oak casks,” but the website states that it “is a blend of older and younger barrels – 4-6 year being typical.” Their bourbon is described on the bottle as a straight bourbon. It also says that it was “Bottled by Filibuster” as well as being “Distilled in Virginia and Indiana” thus disqualifying it from the straight designation (as per §5.22(b)(1)(iii)). The Boondoggler whiskey doesn’t use the straight designation. It seems to be a blend of different styles of whiskey. Once again this one states it was aged “for less that years” [sic]. The rye says that it is “Bottled by Filibuster Distillery” and doesn’t mention a state of distillation.

So now I am throughly confused. I’m not sure who sent this to me or how it got here and I have no idea which of the information they are using is correct as the website contradicts the label and sections of the label contradict other sections. I reached out to the distillery in mid-December via the contact form on their website to try to get these questions answered, but didn’t receive a response prior to publication time.

However, one thing I am not confused by is whether I like them or not.

Filibuster Dual Cask Bourbon

Purchase info: This review sample was provided by the distillery for the purposes of this review. It sells at Total Wine locally for $42.99.

Details: Batch 27. 45% ABV. The label lists a mash of 70% corn, 20% rye and 10% barley.

Nose: Cinnamon, honey, light mint and some dried grain notes.

Mouth: Warm with cinnamon red hots, cherry and some oaky notes.

Finish: On the short end of medium and warm. Lingering notes of black pepper and coconut.

Thoughts: This has notes of both mature whiskey and very young whiskey. Which would make sense if they are blending some of their juice with MGP as the label seems to describe. The problem is that unlike some people who have done this very successfully, this one is a bit all over the place in terms of flavor profile. Not a fan of this one. Pretty meh. It’s ok but doesn’t align with my palate. It might do ok in a cocktail though where other ingredients can smooth over some of the rough spots of this one.

Filibuster Dual Cask Rye

Purchase info: This review sample was provided by the distillery for the purposes of this review. It sells at Total Wine locally for $43.49.

Details: Batch 8. 45% ABV. The label lists a mash of 90% corn and 10% barley.

Nose: Mint, pipe tobacco, dried grasses.

Mouth: Spicy, mint, cherry.

Finish: Spicy and of medium length. Lingering sweetness, mint, spice and a hint of coconut.

Thoughts: This tastes a lot like MGP rye and with the mashbill they list, that makes sense. 90/10 It isn’t far off from 95/5. In fact, based on the fact that their other styles list Indiana as a state of distillation, I had assumed it was until I read the back label.

I like this one. But then I am a fan of the MGP style of rye. This one does say “Bottled by” on the back and there is no listing for a state of distillation. The price is in line with other ryes on the market so I’d say that this one is worth a shot if you can get past the confusion on the label.

Filibuster “The Boondoggler” Whiskey

Purchase info: This review sample was provided by the distillery for the purposes of this review. It sells at Total Wine locally for $33.99.

Details: Batch 20. 45% ABV.

Nose: There is a good hit of rye spices right off the bat with mint and honey coming along with it.

Mouth: Honey, mint, black pepper.

Finish: Decent length. It follows the mouth with lingering notes of black pepper, mint and honey.

Thoughts: This one is also pretty good. It tastes like a lot of my house-made rye/bourbon blends. I like it. And at less than $35 it is decently priced as well.

Overall, I’d say that two out of three are worth the asking price (locally) and I guess that ain’t bad when you are talking randomly appearing whiskey that you are not sure exactly who it came from.

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Basil Hayden's 10 Year Old: A perfectly acceptable $30 bourbon.

January 8, 2019 Eric Burke

IMAGE: The wood and metal band on a bottle of Basil Hayden’s bourbon. Below that the words “Aged 10 Years.”

In the amazing and still missed TV show Justified, Raylan Givens gives one of the best lines of all time:

“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.”

So when I noticed that the neighbor dog, who I love dearly, was one of the many things that was irritating me, I realized that today I was “the asshole." I had the brief thought that I should just take a break from work and write tonight’s post on the spot. Asshole seemed like the right frame of mind to be in for tonight’s whiskey. But then I remembered a line from His Holiness the Dalai Lama’ March 7th, 2014 address to the US Senate (you’ve probably seen this as inspirational #content on Instagram or Facebook numerous times):

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”

This is a very poetic and less crude version of the mantra I live by: “Don’t be a dick.” Yes, I just compared myself to both the Dalai Lama and to Raylan Givens. No, I do not feel bad about it.

So I decided to put off writing tonight’s post until my frame of mind was more amenable to being kind. I’m sorry. I’m sure that one would have been much funnier.

Basil Hayden’s 10 Year Old

Purchase Info: $59.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN

Details: 40% ABV. 10 year age statement

Nose: Green apple Jolly Rancher candy, cinnamon, spearmint.

Mouth: Gentle. This is an easy one to hold in your mouth to try to tease out all the flavor notes. I got Custard, mint, cinnamon, and maybe some oak if I’m feeling generous.

Finish: Gentle and on the shorter side of medium. I get mint, spice and some oak.

Thoughts: This bourbon is fine. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this except the price. This is a perfectly acceptable $25-30 bourbon. The travesty is that it sells for twice that.

In the past, I have excused the price of the original Basil Hayden. I had the thought that it was less of a cash grab for underproofed bourbon and more a brilliant way to get new bourbon drinkers into the fold. Knowing, from my own experiences that people new to any liquor category, at least those that don’t live on the bottom shelf, want “something good” to try out and also knowing that for most uniformed people “something good” actually means “something with a pretty bottle that has a bit of a higher price tag,” it stands to reason that this new-to-bourbon person might grab a bottle of super gentle Basil Hayden with it’s higher price and pretty bottle. Then after trying it—and not being scared off by the “burn”—maybe find they enjoy it. And then eventually move on to real bourbon.

And that probably worked when there weren’t so many crap bourbons in pretty bottles on your local shelf with a price tag over $50. These days, original Basil Hayden can be one of the less expensive of the “pretty bottle crowd.” I saw it on sale for less than $30 as I was researching its local price tonight and have seen it that low (and bought it) in the past. So I thought Beam was reacting to the changing market by correcting the price downward. With the recent brand expansions, we have seen that is not the case. Original Basil Hayden may be cheaper these days, but all the new ones that share its name are not. And the worst offender is this 10 year old version. Like I said earlier, this is a perfectly acceptable bourbon. In fact, I wish more of the Old Grand Dad line had this kind of barrel influence on it. But the flavor is comparable to Buffalo Trace or maybe Henry McKenna Bottled in Bond. Notice I said flavor, not heat or complexity. This suffers from the same issue that Original Basil Hayden’s has: it’s too gentle and low proof for the price, but this doesn’t have the excuse of being a “gateway” bourbon.

Jim Beam Repeal Batch

November 8, 2018 Eric Burke

Last year, on a particularly cold negative twenty degree (Fahrenheit) night, I put a glass of 80° proof whiskey out on the deck to see how it would react to the extreme cold of a Minnesota winter and if it would start to freeze. Mostly, it did nothing. It got a little syrupy but it’s not like it started to crystalize or anything. I was a little disappointed but only a little. I started my college education, way back in the pre-commercial internet days, studying science so I am well versed in the idea that a hypothesis (especially one that is backed by scant actual info) often doesn’t stand up to experimental trials.

Why would I leave a glass of whiskey outside overnight? Well, mostly because I was curious. I wanted to know what happens as alcohol reaches it’s freezing point (roughly -17°F at 80 proof). Especially if that alcohol is bourbon. And since negative twenty doesn’t happen too often I thought that was my chance to find out. Maybe it didn’t get that cold, or maybe alcohol starts to gel before freezing. No idea. But it was interesting to observe. If this winter gets that cold, I’ll probably try again. It would be interesting to try frozen whiskey.

It is that same curiosity that led me to a certain thought when I first saw that Jim Beam was coming out with a non-chill filtered. We’ve all learned that bourbons are chill-filtered because at a lower proof there is the possibility of a cloudiness occurring if it gets too cold. This is deemed to be a turn-off to customers (I’d guess rightly so). And so the producers pre-chill the bourbon to filter that cloudiness out. But, the follow-up thought also says that chill-filtered bourbon also removes some of the flavor. And so it is fitting that, with a limited edition bourbon, a company would skip that step and give geeks what they are clamoring for, even if it is at a lower proof.

Of course, the first thing I thought of was if I could make that cloudiness happen. I’ve never seen it and I would like to. Why? Curiosity, I guess. But then I went and finished the bottle before thinking about it. Maybe I’ll have to get get another one.

Jim Beam Repeal Batch

Purchase Info: $17.99 for a 750 ml bottle, Liquor Barn Jefferson Commons, Louisville, KY. Available locally starting at $18.99 for a one liter bottle.

Details: 43% ABV. Non-Chill filtered.

Nose: Peanut Brittle, dried leaves

Mouth: Peanut, baking spice and a hint of mint.

Finish: Gentle with a long lasting unsalted peanut note.

Thoughts: This is a limited edition whiskey. Is it worth grabbing instead of other Beam products? To find out, I picked up a little Beam White label and Beam Black label. It found that this has a nose that is more similar to Beam Black than it is to Beam White, though not as woody as Black Label. The mouth is a sweeter and smoother version of Beam White. It doesn’t show the sharp wood flavors that Beam White often does. I’d say that if you were to view the difference between Beam White and Beam Black on a spectrum, that this would fall somewhere on the one quarter mark (on the Beam White side).

Should you buy it? If you are a Beam fan, yes. Even if it is just for curiosity’s sake. In a vacuum, it is pretty meh. But it is a better version of Beam White and due to the price, I might pick up a liter for use in cocktails. Or for experimentation’s sake.

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Benchmark Old No. 8 Brand Bourbon: Revisited

September 4, 2018 Eric Burke

It's the first week of Bourbon Heritage Month so I thought I'd take a look back and revisit a couple of older brands. First up is Benchmark Bourbon from Sazerac.

IMAGE: A bottle of Benchmark Bourbon, from the front with a glass beside it. Flanked by leaves.

It has been 1,266 days since I last posted tasting notes for Benchmark Bourbon. It wasn't a formal review as it was part of 2015's Bottom Shelf Brackets, but for the longest time, it was all I offered. Since I was out this weekend looking around at "affordable" options for bourbon, I thought it might be time to take another look at it. See if the intervening time has been kind to it. Back in 2015, I said the following:

It may only be three years old, but there is nothing to keep this from being a nice card playing bourbon.

Since I didn't talk about it last time around, let's go over a little history of the brand. The brand was originally launched by Seagram's in the late 1960s. During the 1970s, the ads for the brand told consumers to "Measure Your Bourbon Against It." By the late 1980s, the brand was up for sale and was purchased by Sazerac who used it and Eagle Rare (also purchased from Seagram's) to get into the bourbon business.

These days, though it is still owned by Sazerac, it lives on the bottom shelf. It has an age statement of 36 months. It even has a few flavored spinoffs in the forms of Apple, Brown Sugar, and Peach whiskey flavored liqueurs.

Benchmark Old No. 8 Brand Bourbon

Purchase Info: $13.49 for a 1-liter bottle at MGM Wine and Spirits, Burnsville, MN.

Details: Aged at least 36 months. 40% ABV

Nose: Green Apple Jolly Rancher candy, caramel.

Mouth: Caramel, mint, and after a little while a little spice builds up.

Finish: Short with a little lingering spice.

Thoughts: My thoughts on this one have been solidly downgraded as time has gone on. With my first pour out of the current bottle, I thought it was a bit of a caramel bomb with undertones of Buffalo Trace. Pretty solid, though more of a "good enough" bourbon than a "good" one. When I did the tasting a few days later, I found it to be a little delicate in the mouth, but it was fine. Subsequent pours have just been really meh. While it might make an ok card playing or tv watching bourbon, for the price, I'd stick with Evan Williams Black or Bonded unless you really prefer those Buffalo Trace undertones.

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Red Wheat Bourbon

August 17, 2018 Eric Burke

While trying to figure out the DNS issue this site was having last night, I ended up doing a little research for an upcoming post. One of the unsung benefits of being a spirits writer is that if you plan to write about what you are drinking, then you can just say you are doing "research." And the greatest part of that is, it isn't even lying.

So since I was busy doing IT work (and doing research on future posts) last night, I thought that it might be a good time to finally get around to the third of three bottles of Limestone Branch Experimental Bourbon that I bought back in May.

This one has a very similar name from the second bottle I reviewed. So much so that the reason that the reviews were written in the order they were was because I grabbed the wrong bottle when I did the second review. There is a single word of difference in the names. This one does not have the word Malted in it. Which of course means that this is a much more typical wheated bourbon mash then the malted wheat bourbon was.

Limestone Branch Red Wheat Bourbon is a 98 proof bourbon distilled from a mash of 60% White Corn, 28% Wheat, and 12% Malted Barley. It is 22 months old.

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Red Wheat Bourbon

Purchase Info: $22.99 for a 375 mL bottle at Total Wine, Louisville, KY

Details: 49% ABV. Single Barrel. Barrel 59. Mash bill: 60% white corn, 28% wheat, 12% malted barley. Barrel Entry ABV: 50.58%. Barrel Char level 3. Aged 22 months.

Nose: Caramel, wintergreen, cardamom, and peach.

Mouth: Caramel, brown sugar, mint, hints of baking spice.

Finish: Warm and of medium length. There is an immediate "young" note upon swallowing which is followed by peach and baking spice.

Thoughts: I have never had a peach note show up in a bourbon before, so for that, I find this really interesting. This shows a lot of promise, but sadly just isn't there yet. As they release older versions though, this will be one to keep an eye on.

O.Z. Tyler, Bourbon and Rye

August 14, 2018 Eric Burke

IMAGE: Two miniature bottles. One OZ Tyler Bourbon, one OZ Tyler Rye

When I was a kid, Walt Disney's Bambi taught me two things.

1) The mom will always die in a Disney cartoon.
2) "If you can't say anything nice, don't say nothin' at all"

...

OZ Tyler Bourbon and Rye

Purchase Info: $0.99 each for 50mL bottles from Liquor Barn Middletown, Louisville, KY

Details: 45% ABV. Processed using the TerrePURE fast filtering process.
Bourbon: "Aged a minimum of a year and a day in new charred oak."
Rye: "Aged a minimum of six months in new charred oak."

Nose:
Bourbon: Caramel Corn. Smells very young.
Rye: Buttered corn initially. A hint of rye spice appears after a bit.

Mouth:
Bourbon: Gentle spice (mostly alcohol tingle), Sweet corn.
Rye: Thin and cool in the mouth. After holding it in the mouth for a while, rye spices appear. Slightly sweet with a hint of citrus.

Finish:
Bourbon: The finish really reminds me of the sips of Seagrams 7 and 7-up that I'd steal from my dad as a kid. Thin, grainy and just a bit longer than you'd hope for given the flavors.
Rye: Gentle and short with hints of rye spice that fade quickly.

IMAGE: A hand drawn face with a frown, tongue sticking out and x's for eyes.

Thoughts: It is my understanding that most of the TerrePURE whiskey is being either sold as bulk whiskey or bottled as store brands. Given that, you can be sure that it will end up in plenty of private labels near you. I know that Total Wine has multiple of their own brands that are made from TerrePURE whiskey. I've tried a couple. I haven't found one yet I could recommend. I bought this thinking that since this was a brand being released by the producers, that it might be a good representation of the best that they could do.

I still decided to only risk $4.

If this is representative of TerrePURE whiskey, then "Distilled in Indiana" will become the mark to look for on unknown bourbon instead of "Distilled in Kentucky." This bourbon gives Kentucky bourbon a bad name. Luckily most of the TerrePURE whiskeys I've had have been labeled as such. But maybe we should avoid all store brand Kentucky bourbons, just in case. And in case it wasn't obvious, I really do not like this. At all.

The rye is pretty meh. It's light on rye flavor. Doesn't have the punch you'd expect from even young rye. But, hey, it is much better than the bourbon. So there is that.

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Malted Red Wheat Bourbon

July 26, 2018 Eric Burke

Have you ever been so busy that you just forget to eat? You wouldn't know it from looking at me, but it happens to me all the time. I'll get so into working on a project that all of a sudden I'll look up and it's four in the afternoon...and it's right about then that I realize that I am really hungry and end up eating a little too much to compensate.

This is the probably the reason you wouldn't be able to tell that I frequently forget meals.

Anyway, that's the sort of passion that I expect most craft distillers have. Not the gorging after unintentional fasting part, but the getting so into a project that you forget about everything else part. The distillers that I've met have all really loved what they are doing and loved the experimentation that they could do.

Which brings us to the second of three bottles of Limestone Branch's Experimental Collection that I picked up in May. This one is named Malted Red Wheat and is made up of a mash bill of 60% white corn, 28% malted wheat and 12% malted barley.

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Malted Red Wheat Bourbon

Purchase Info: $22.99 for a 375 mL bottle at Total Wine, Louisville, KY

Details: 47.5% ABV. Single Barrel. Barrel 114. Mash bill: 60% white corn, 28% malted wheat, 12% malted barley. Barrel Entry ABV: 50.63%. Barrel Char level 3. Aged 20 months.

Nose: Toffee, floral, gentle baking spices.

Mouth: Generic Sweetness, malted milk, cinnamon spice.

Finish: Youth shows up on the finish bringing cinnamon spice and dried grain notes along with it.

IMAGE: a hand-drawn face with a neutral expression

Thoughts: I have a feeling that when it grows up, I will like this much better than the first bottle in the series that I reviewed. For right now though, this one is quite a bit too young for my palate.

Hey folks, no plug for the store tonight. I'm taking off next week for a family vacation to North Carolina and would be unable to fulfill the orders anyway. That also means no posts next week. Wish me luck, it's a road trip with a 13 year old, a 7 year old, and a 4 year old...they may just drive me to have an extra bourbon when we stop for the night. 😉

Lonehand Tennessee Whiskey

July 17, 2018 Eric Burke

What happens when you try to make a bottle of your whiskey look like a bottle of Jack Daniel's? You get sued. That's what happens.

So guess what happened to the makers of Lonehand Tennessee Whiskey when they put out a Tennessee Whiskey in a bottle that had a fairly close resemblance to Jack? Jack Daniel's sued them for Trademark and Trade Dress infringement. (Though not for the bottle I bought and show above, the mini bottle doesn't have the same features as the big ones.)

In fact, that lawsuit is the only reason I knew of the brand as I was wandering through my nearest Total Wine location. I first read about the lawsuit/heard of the brand in late April 2018. The Spirits Business, in the course of their reporting on the suit, stated that it was Brown-Foreman's position that the whiskey had received “highly critical customer reviews, indicating that said product is of inferior quality.”

In other words, Jack Daniel's sued Lonehand and their owners for infringement and then called them lousy whiskey on top of it. I find that funny as hell.

So of course, I had to buy a bottle. I mean, not a full bottle, that would be silly. No, I bought a 50mL bottle. Trying bad whiskey is my idea of an extreme sport, it's something I do just for the experience. But it's not like I'm about to jump off this particular cliff more than once, so I did not need more than 50 milliliters.

But all this talk of lawsuits makes one wonder why anyone would think that taking on Jack Daniel's is a good idea. Maybe they read the history of Ezra Brooks, a brand that did the same thing back in the late 1950s and is still around today.

In any case, I don't know if it means anything but the website for the brand owner is not working as of this writing, so maybe the odds aren't great that Lonehand will be the next Ezra. But what do I know? Maybe in 20 years, Sipp'n Corn will be writing a post about how Lonehand took on Jack and survived.

Lonehand Tennessee Whiskey

Purchase Info: $1.49 for a 50mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Details: 40% ABV

Nose: Grain, light butterscotch, buttered popcorn

Mouth: Spice at the beginning that fades quickly. Dried grains, slight sweetness as it moves back.

Finish: Short. Sweet with lingering notes of buttered popcorn

Thoughts: Hard pass on this one from me. It's not terrible, but there are better Tennessee whiskeys out there. And if the price is the issue, there are also better and cheaper bourbons out there. I woulnd't bother with this one.

Blog

Filibuster Dual Cask Bourbon

Filibuster Dual Cask Rye

Filibuster “The Boondoggler” Whiskey

Basil Hayden’s 10 Year Old

Jim Beam Repeal Batch

Benchmark Old No. 8 Brand Bourbon

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Red Wheat Bourbon

OZ Tyler Bourbon and Rye

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Malted Red Wheat Bourbon

Lonehand Tennessee Whiskey