Old Ezra Barrel Strength, 7-year-old bourbon

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 Common Ground PR for providing this sample to me with no strings attached. As always, all thoughts are just my opinion.

I fear I might have made a grievous error. Last week I wrote a post that ended up with my wife getting a little miffed at me. My mistake was not in writing or in even posting said article. She is my proofreader, after all, and she agreed it was an apt description of the whiskey in question. No, my mistake was in telling...basically anyone that would listen...the story of how I got her to let me put that story on the internet. Which naturally included a repeat of the story itself.

In what I am assured is an entirely unrelated set of circumstances, my HoneyDo list for the weekend grew immensely. For example: the leaves needed to be raked and bagged, the lawn needed to be mowed, the floors needed to be scrubbed, the bathroom tub needed to be recaulked, the shower needed to have the grout cleaned and the tiles resealed, a bit of broken trim needed to be fixed, the carpet needed to be shampooed, the gutters cleaned, the siding washed, the walls, pictures and surfaces dusted...

You get the idea.

But now after a long weekend where the chores lasted from the time I got up in the morning to the time I went to bed at night, my penance has been paid...I mean, all those things that "just happened to need finishing" are done. I can finally sit down, relax and think about a whiskey.

And a decent whiskey at that. Recently, I received a sample of Old Ezra Barrel Strength, 7-year-old bourbon. You might be familiar with Old Ezra 101 proof, 7-year-old bourbon. Well as you might expect, this is a barrel proof version of that.

Old Ezra 101 proof has long been a favorite in my house. Even as the price was gradually increasing in my area, I still found it to be an excellent value. That was until I could no longer find it at all. I'd noticed it slowly disappearing from local store shelves. And at some point, it clicked that no one had it anymore.

Once I received this sample, I asked them if the Barrel Strength was a replacement for the 101 proof. Their answer: "We stopped producing Old Ezra 101 last summer and have been selling through the remaining bottles before releasing the new package this fall with the new bottle and barrel proof."

So I wasn't crazy. 101 was gone. I got sad momentarily, but then I remembered that the barrel proof version exists and that 117 proof is higher than 101 proof. After that all was right with the world.

Old Ezra Barrel Strength, 7-year-old bourbon

Purchase Info: This sample was generously provided for review purposes. Suggested retail is $39.99 per 750 mL bottle.

Details: 58.5% ABV. Age stated at 7 years old.

Nose: Oak, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla, and brown sugar

Mouth: Nice and warm with vanilla, brown sugar, nutmeg, cloves, and an oak sharpness.

Finish: Long and very warm. Lingering notes of oak and baking spice.

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Thoughts: This is delicious. The proof bump does really well for this whiskey, allowing more concentrated flavors to come through. It’s a very nice step up from the previous 101 proof version. Unfortunately, the price has also taken a nice step up. But when I compare this to other barrel proof bourbons, I think price is more than fair.

In an era where other companies are removing age statements from products or discontinuing those age stated products altogether, it’s nice to see a company relaunch a product with both a proof bump while also keeping the age statement. And keeping it prominently displayed across the bottle at that.

Overall, there should be no reason to not have this be the barrel proof bourbon you keep on your home bar. Inexpensive enough to use in cocktails. Rich and complex enough to drink on its own.

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts Etsy store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, please visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. Thanks!

A collaboration with Jim Beam: Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager

Hey, I redesigned the site! After having the same design through two different content management systems (the second of which I wrote CSS to look like a template on the first), I’ve decided that it was time to give the site a little facelift. Allow more room for images, get rid of a few dated design elements, things like that.

And now, if you are a reader of this blog who primarily reads it on your mobile device, you are now being treated to something that desktop readers have been (probably) ignoring for years. That would be the site’s tagline. I kept the same one for the first 5 years or so, until I notice that Josh over at the Whiskey Jug was using essentially the same one (we both started our sites about the same time and came up with it independently).

Since that discovery, I have decided to make things a little more topical. I couldn’t come up with just one that I wanted to use to sum up the site, so I change them up whenever the mood strikes me. For example, the current one is “October is a spooky time. Fortify yourself with a little bourbon.” Which means I will need to remember to change it at the end of October…

But it is also a great lead in to tonight’s review. I’m straying a little from the whiskey I typically cover tonight to talk about something that is “whiskey adjacent.” I’m taking about beer. And not just any beer, a beer that has been co-branded between Budweiser and Jim Beam. It’s not “barrel-aged” per se. The language that they use in the press release is “aged on Jim Beam bourbon barrel staves.” But some of the flavors of a barrel-aged beer do come through. Overall, it’s a respectable beer. I read somewhere that if it had been released under one of AB-InBev’s “craft” labels that people would be raving about it. I have to agree. This is a good beer and well worth picking up a six-pack to try. But, let’s get onto the more formal review, shall we?

Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager

Purchase Info: $13.99 for a 12-pack of bottles at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Details: 6.2% ABV. Aged on Jim Beam Bourbon Barrel Staves

Visual: Lovely copper color

Nose: Caramel, a light booziness, and classic Budweiser biscuity notes.

Mouth: Sweet with caramel and malt, nutty, a mild booziness. Notes of nuts, cooked rice and oak linger.

Thoughts: I’m going to admit something here. I do not hate Budweiser products. Even as a fan of craft beer, Bud Light is my “yard work beer” of choice. At the same time, I tend to dislike barrel-aged beers. They are typically too sweet, too strong, and too heavy for me to want to finish more than a couple sips. This splits the difference between the two. It is lighter than a typical barrel-aged beer but is much more flavorful than a Budweiser, even while retaining some of the Budweiser flavors. This beer just works. I like it. On Untapped I gave it a 3 out of 5, which is what I use when I like something, but am not is a real hurry to buy more when the amount I have is gone. As I said above, it’s worth picking up to give it a try.

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts Etsy store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, please visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. Thanks!

Jack Daniel's Single Barrel "Heritage Barrel"

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 Jack Daniel’s PR for providing this sample to me with no strings attached. As always, all thoughts are just my opinion.

When my wife is away for work, I have absolutely no willpower. I will eat the most lopsided, unnutritious meals just because they are easy. For example, last night I ate an entire container of microwave garlic mashed potatoes. That’s it. Nothing else. Just potatoes. Over the course of today, I opened and finished a box of four frozen, breaded chicken patties. I ate them for every meal. I made sandwiches out of them. At least they were organic, I guess. Though the cheese and bacon weren’t.

This lack of willpower also extends to my nightcap as well. But in this case, that lack of willpower manifests itself a little differently. See, instead of doing the easiest thing possible, I do the tastiest thing possible. Or, at least the tastiest thing that is close to hand. I’m not digging through the whiskey closet to open something new.

I mean, let’s not get crazy.

That little voice that would normally be telling me that an entire container of potatoes is not a meal is also the same one that would tell me that I should probably save that limited edition whiskey for when my wife is around to share it with me. That voice would, of course, be my wife’s and lucky for me she is in another state right now so there is no one around to tell me these things and I am free to act like an animal that has slipped its leash.

Tonight’s whiskey is one that was sent to me from Jack Daniel’s. It is their upcoming single barrel release that they call: Heritage Barrel. The company says that this release was aged in barrels that had “a deeper, richer toasted layer before being charred.” It was barreled at a lower proof than their regular releases and aged at the top of one of their aging warehouses before being bottled at 100 proof.

Jack Daniel's Single Barrel "Heritage Barrel"

Purchase Info: This sample was generously provided by Jack Daniel’s for review purposes. Suggested retail is $64.99 per 750 mL bottle.

Details: 50% ABV. Uses a more highly toasted barrel and a lower barrel entry proof than is standard for Jack Daniel’s.

Nose: Butterscotch pudding, french vanilla ice cream, cinnamon, allspice. Very dessert-like.

Mouth: Mellow and sweet, but with a nice spice to add complexity and balance the sweetness. Butterscotch pudding, vanilla, clove, and cinnamon.

Finish: Long and with a warmth that fades quick but then reappears in a bloom of warmth. Baking spices and butterscotch linger.

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Thoughts: The nose reminds me of bread pudding cooking in the oven. The mouth is mellow and sweet but brings a nice spice as well. I really like this, I am already planning on buying a full bottle when it hits shelves.

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts Etsy store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, please visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. Thanks!

Buffalo Trace Antique Collection 2018

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 Buffalo Trace for providing this sample to me with no strings attached. As always, all thoughts are just my opinion.

I recently got samples of this year’s Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. This post will be long enough, so tonight I’m going to forgo all the extremely witty banter I normally provide before the review and instead jump straight into the reviews.

But first, a moment of silence for my sample of Sazerac Rye 18 year old. I knew something was wrong when the box UPS handed me was wet. Not being one to cry over spilled whiskey, I posted the photo on Instagram and got a few likes. I thought briefly about tasting the foam padding but decided that a tongue full of glass probably wouldn’t taste all that good, even though it smelled delicious. I guess sometimes the Whiskey Fairy just wants a dram for herself.

Eagle Rare 17 Year Old

Purchase Info: This sample was generously provided by Buffalo Trace for review purposes. Suggested retail is $99.99 per 750 mL bottle.

Details: 17 years old. 101° proof (up from previous years’ 90° proof). Distilled in the Spring of 2000. Aged on floors 1, 2, and 5 of Warehouse C.

Nose: Caramel candy, allspice, cinnamon candies, and almond.

Mouth: Nice mouthfeel with floral, caramel, leather and oak notes.

Finish: Nice and long. Ripe berries and floral notes transition to oaky notes of tobacco and dark chocolate.

Thoughts: I like this, but I don’t love it. I’m not a huge fan of bourbons once they reach their lower- to mid-teens. I am loving the floral notes on it, but there is a bit too much oak on this for my palate (my wife loved it though, she’s a fan of old oaky bourbons).

William Larue Weller

Purchase Info: This sample was generously provided by Buffalo Trace for review purposes. Suggested retail is $99.99 per 750 mL bottle.

Details: 125.7° proof. Distilled in Winter 2006. Aged in Warehouses C, I, K, L, M and Q.

Nose: Very sweet. Chocolate covered cherries, the nougat from a Milky Way bar, vanilla, cinnamon.

Mouth: Cinnamon, vanilla, caramel, oak and campfire smoke.

Finish: Long and warm. Cinnamon and chocolate covered cherries linger.

Thoughts: Nice and warm. Very sweet. I like this one even though I’m not typically a fan of wheated bourbons.

George T. Stagg

Purchase Info: This sample was generously provided by Buffalo Trace for review purposes. Suggested retail is $99.99 per 750 mL bottle.

Details: 124.9° proof. Distilled in Spring 2003. Aged in Warehouses C, H, I, K, P and Q.

Nose: Caramel, rich leather, ripe berries and pipe tobacco.

Mouth: Sweet with caramel, brown sugar, leather and pipe tobacco.

Finish: Long and warm. Very sweet. Lingering smoke and tobacco.

Thoughts: Rich is the first word that comes to mind on this one. Delicious is the second. I really like this one. It’s my favorite of the three bourbons.

Thomas H. Handy Sazerac Rye

Purchase Info: This sample was generously provided by Buffalo Trace for review purposes. Suggested retail is $99.99 per 750 mL bottle.

Details: 128.8° proof. Distilled in Spring 2012. Aged in Warehouses I and L.

Nose: Spearmint, cinnamon, hints of anise and banana bread.

Mouth: Caramel, spearmint, very hot, great mouthfeel.

Finish: Long and warm. Spearmint, baking spices and just a touch of dill linger.

Thoughts: This is my favorite of the four. The bourbons were mostly sweet and this is a nice change of pace from that. It’s very warm, but not overpoweringly so even at full strength. I like this one a lot.

Thoughts:

This was my first time sitting down and tasting across the BTAC lineup (or, more accurately, 4/5th of the lineup). I’d had most of them in the past, but only one at a time. It was interesting to see how similar the bourbons were, even though there was a difference in proof and mash bill. There is some “Buffalo Trace Flavor” that comes through on each of them. It’s a testament to their quality control that the “house” flavor is present in both the bourbons distilled in our current decade and in the bourbons that were distilled in the decade previous. It means they aren’t messing around with things.

Thomas H. Handy is simultaneously the only one of the line I’d never tasted and the only one of the line I’ve ever seen on a retail shelf (years ago, before this year’s release was even distilled). It is a big, bold rye that has all the minty and herbal notes that I look for in a good rye. I was really impressed with it.

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I was impressed with them all in fact. I think they are worth every penny that Buffalo Trace is recommending they sell for. But based on the relative availability and quality of other bourbons in that price range, I don’t know that I would feel comfortable paying inflated retail or secondary prices for them.

UPDATE:

Buffalo Trace was kind enough to ship me a replacement bottle of the 18-year-old Sazerac Rye. My notes for it are below:

Sazerac Rye 18 Year Old

Purchase Info: This sample was generously provided by Buffalo Trace for review purposes. Suggested retail is $99.99 per 750 mL bottle.

Details: 90° proof. Barrels filled in 1998.

Nose: Mint, bubble gum and almond.

Mouth: Follows the nose with mint, bubblegum and almond, then adds cardamom and nutmeg.

Finish: Long and warm with lingering mint, cardamom and almond.

Thoughts: I preferred the Handy Rye over this, as I preferred the relative “brightness” that it’s youth provided. That said, I also like this one a lot. When compared to the others in the range it is in the lower half.

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts Etsy store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, please visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. Thanks!

Booker's Bourbon: Batch 2018-03 "Kentucky Chew"

It’s the last post of Bourbon Heritage Month. Tonight we finish up the month by revisiting a bourbon that was provided to me specifically to coincide with Bourbon Heritage Month.

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 Jim Beam for providing this sample to me with no strings attached. As always, all thoughts are just my opinion and should be taken as just that.

Do you ever get the feeling that life is flying by? That maybe life is too short to hold grudges? I do, and I have for a while. For some reason, that doesn’t seem to stop me from holding a few grudges anyway. Which seemed odd to me, until I come to the realization that I’d been hiding the grudge, even from myself. Let me set the stage for you.

It was 2016. I, like many bourbon lovers, had been getting frustrated by the rising prices and disappearing age statements for a while. It felt like one punch in the gut after another as one previously affordable bourbon after another either disappeared, lost their identity (age), or just plain became priced out of reach. Affordable luxury was how I, and many others, had always thought of bourbon. And then the announcement of the 2017 Booker’s Price Increase (from $59.99 to $99.99) came. There was understandable anger. It had been communicated in such a way that almost made it sound as if the near doubling of the price was being done just because they could.

But the company either changed their mind or their messaging (maybe both) and though a price increase was still there, it wasn’t as big. It was actually reasonable. From an MSRP of $59.99 to somewhere between $69.99 and $74.99 wasn’t terrible considering the newly supplied explanation of constrained supplies and reduced numbers of batches. Unlike many others, I wasn’t angry. That’s capitalism, I thought. They are free to charge what they want and I am free to either buy it or not based on if I think the price is fair.

But unfortunately, even though I thought that the latter price increase wasn’t too bad, a funny thing had occurred: the first announcement stuck in my head. And as such, in my mind, Booker’s moved from an affordable luxury at $50-60 (depending on the retailer) to a bottle that was priced in the range of limited edition bourbons that I only bought once per year or less.

It wasn’t true, but that’s what I mean about hiding the grudge from myself. Obviously just by looking at the shelf I knew that I wasn’t going to need to drop a hundred bucks on a bottle. But for some reason, I never thought of it because that $99.99 price was stuck in my brain along with the hard feelings that came with how it had been originally communicated.

But time passes. Grudges, even hidden ones, lose their sharp edges. And when the PR folks for Beam Suntory reached out to me to see what I was planning to do for Bourbon Heritage Month and offered a review sample of Booker’s, I took it. It had been a few years since I had purchased one and I thought it might be nice to see how it was coming along.

This particular batch was named for the now famous “Kentucky Chew” method of evaluating a bourbon originally made famous by the brand’s namesake Booker Noe. It is essentially the practice of moving the bourbon all around your mouth so it gets into all the little nooks and crannies, with the effect of making it looking like you’re chewing your bourbon. The batch was released in August 2018.

Booker’s Bourbon: Batch 2018-03 “Kentucky Chew”

Purchase Info: This sample was graciously provided by Beam Suntory. The suggested retail price is between $69.99 and $74.99 for a 750 mL bottle. 

Details: 63.35% ABV. Aged for 6 years, 4 months, 12 days.

Nose: Oaky notes of leather and vanilla. Spicy notes of allspice and cinnamon. Sweet notes of brown sugar and caramel.

Mouth: Brown sugar and baking spices.

Finish: Nice and long with a good “bloom” of heat and flavor after swallowing. Lingering notes of of green apple and baking spices.

IMAGE: A hand-drawn smiley face

Thoughts: This is a great whiskey. Compared to other bourbons in it’s price range, this is still one of the best “regularly available” bourbons on the market. I think this bottle finally laid the last remnants of that hidden grudge to rest. I’ll be adding Booker’s back into the rotation of barrel-proof bourbons I buy.

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts Etsy store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, please visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. Thanks!

Lux Row Distillers: Distillery Tour

It’s Bourbon Heritage Month and as such, I am celebrating all things bourbon. Not just the liquid, but travel, tours, and book, as well. Tonight, I’m taking a look at the newly opened Lux Row Distillery in Bardstown, KY.

While in Bardstown, I made sure to stop in and grab a tour at the newly completed Lux Row Distillers. I was at the name announcement ceremony two years ago when the grounds consisted of a historic home and a large pile of dirt. I was really looking forward to seeing the finished result. I wasn’t disappointed. This is a beauty of a distillery. The fact that it is also very obviously a working distillery first and a tourist attraction second just adds to the charm.

Upon walking up to the distillery, I was struck by how welcoming it looked. I knew this was a manufacturing facility, but it looked like someone’s house. (A house well out of my price range, but a house none-the-less.)

The tour started with a movie. They all seem to. It’s a nice efficient way to bring everyone up to speed. After the movie we stepped out into the manufacturing floor. They had two 4,000-gallon cookers that feed twelve 8,000-gallon fermenters. Four of the fermenters were open for tourists to experience, the other eight were closed like the ones shown above.

After making our way around the cookers and fermenters, we were at the stills. The stills live in a lovely, though very warm, room with large windows to show off all the lovely copper.

Out the windows is a nice view of the 200 year-old house that was the main structure standing on the grounds the fist time I visited the property. They have plans for it that they didn’t disclose, but said that for now it is only used for storage.

I thought this was a nice bit of transparency. As you may know, until recently, Luxco was not in the business of distilling bourbon. They were in the business of buying, blending, and bottling bourbon. (In a fun tidbit, they admitted that the current stocks are coming from Jim Beam and Heaven Hill.) As such, with a distillery that has been producing spirit for less than a year, they are filling barrels, but not yet dumping any. And they told us as such when they pointed out the dumping station in the foreground. They roughly said: it’s here for when we need to start using it in four or more years. I liked that. It’s nice to see companies that are not trying to sell a fantasy.

After we saw where barrels are filled (if it wasn’t a Saturday during the Kentucky Bourbon Festival), we move over to where they are stored after they are filled. With this one, they took steps to make sure that the view was worth the walk over.

Unlike most of the Lux Row aging warehouses (or those from most other companies for that matter) this aging warehouse was built with visitors in mind and has a large viewing area inside the front of the warehouse. These very large beams keep all those barrels in place even though there would normally be more supports (and barrels) in their place.

I know every warehouse has a view something like this, but I just liked the photo.

We finished the tour in the tasting room. It was a lovely tasting room. Lots of copper. We tasted Rebel Yell, Ezra Brooks, and David Nicholson 1843. In the process we got to meet members of the Lux family who were in town for the festival. And in another fun tidbit, I learned that if you are looking at the labels of a Luxco bourbon, you can tell if it is wheated or not but the color of the label. All the wheated bourbons have a white label (aside from the Rebel Yell Single Barrel whose label is painted on).

I thoroughly enjoyed my tour at Lux Row Distillers. The grounds were as beautiful as I remembered. The distillery and gift shop were welcoming, and the information was accurate and transparent. Honestly, what more can you ask for?

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts Etsy store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, please visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. Thanks!

Barrel Strength Bourbon: The Explosive Growth of America's Whiskey by Carla Carlton (and other stuff I'm giving away)

It’s Bourbon Heritage Month and as such, I am celebrating all things bourbon. Not just the liquid, but travel, books, and merch as well. Tonight we talk about a book that I’ve had on my reading list for over a year now.

I have had Barrel Strength Bourbon: The Explosive Growth of America's Whiskey by Carla Carlton on my Reading List for over a year. I bought the book right after it came out. Possibly even pre-ordered it since I tend to do that. The book arrived and I set it in a pile of other books to read the next time I went on vacation.

Eventually I went on vacation. And I promptly lost the book. But the funny thing was that I didn’t realize I lost the book until I was packing for the next vacation and tried to find it. I knew that I had been too busy to read on the previous trip, but it wasn’t in my travel bag. And it wasn’t in my office…or my living room…didn’t get brought down to the library I keep in the lower level…it wasn’t even in my bedroom with the stack of books I keep in there.

So I bought the book again on my Kindle to read on my way to Kentucky last week. Upon my return home…I found the book on the bookshelf in my office where I keep my bourbon books. I couldn’t find it because I had put it away.

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But guess what? I do not regret buying the book twice. It’s a damn fine book. It is informative, yet written in an approachable and entertaining manner. The author draws on both other recognized sources as well as interviews with people inside the bourbon industry. In other words, you can trust that she knows what she is talking about. I’d say this is a fantastic book for those just getting into bourbon history. And even if you already know all there is to know about the subject, it is still a fun read. I highly recommend you go buy it. Maybe even twice like I did.

However, even though I purchased the book twice, I find that I don’t need both a physical and a digital copy. And since the digital copy takes up less room, I’d like to pass the physical one along to one of my loyal readers. Not only that, but I’d like to give you a lot of other bourbon stuff that I’ve gathered over the years. These are either items that I thought were cool enough to buy (but never ended up using) or items that I was given along with samples/while attending events. (None of these were provided by the brands or authors for the purpose of giving away and they are not affiliated with the give away. I just wanted to be nice.)

For a view of what is being given away, see below the entry form. Contest ends on Friday, September 28th and winners will be chosen randomly after the contest conclude. Winners will be notified via email. Good Luck!

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts Etsy store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, please visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. Thanks!

Old Forester Distillery Tour at the Old Forester Distilling Co., Louisville, KY

It's Bourbon Heritage Month and I just got back from Kentucky so I thought it might be a good time to highlight some Bourbon Fun. Tonight, I’m taking a look at the Old Forester Distilling Co. A new visitor experience on Whiskey Row in Louisville, KY.

Hey! I’m back from my annual trip to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival…only this year, I really didn’t go to the Festival all that much. I only went to two events that were officially part of the Festival, and only one was a paid, ticketed event. It’s odd, but I might be falling out of love with the KBF. All of the prices have increased to the point where I just don’t want to pay them anymore. Which, on one hand, really sucks. I don’t like to be priced out of things I enjoy (welcome to bourbon in 2018…amirite?) But on the other, it did allow me to have a lot of other experiences that I normally wouldn’t have had time for.

Experiences like tours of some of the new distilleries (or distillery-like experiences) that have popped up since I last took the time to wander away from Bardstown. One of the tours I took was of the new Old Forester Distilling Co. experience on Whiskey Row in Louisville.

When you walk in the door, you are immediately greeted by a large brick and wood room that contains a desk for checking into your tour (or buying tickets) and a waiting area. This is where your tour will start. Depending on how early you arrive, you may decide to visit the gift shop. they will certainly let you, but in true Disneyland fashion, you will also exit the tour into the gift shop as well. So when you give them your money is up to you.

If you choose to visit the Gift Shop before you take your tour, you will be greeted with the best view of the tall copper column still (as well as branded merchandise and multiple bottles that are available for purchase).

By a strange coincidence, one of my fellow tour-takers was a distiller from England who was there as a guest of Brown-Forman and Campbell Brown, the President of Old Forester (who also tagged along for a good portion of the tour as well). This meant that not only were there a few more geeky questions than you normally find on a typical bourbon distillery tour, but we also got a few more candid and honest answers than you would usual too.

Above is the entry to the official “tour area” this area talks about their mash bill and the benefit of Kentucky water.

One of the especially candid answers we received on the tour related to the fermenters (shown above). When the English Distiller (whose name or company I have forgotten) asked why they had open fermenters instead of closed ones, Mr. Brown answered that it was because it provided a better visitor experience and that they have closed fermenters in the big distillery. I enjoyed the candor. It’s refreshing to go on a distillery tour and not be overloaded with marketing speak.

When we stopped to take a look at the still, which I had already seen in the gift shop, I turned around and looked at the other wall which featured these windows showing where spirit at various parts of the distilling run would be visible. One thing I liked about the tour, was that it was really set up to be an education in to how bourbon is made for the average consumer. They wouldn’t have had to have made all the extra graphics to explain what was going on, but they took the time to do it. Nice touch.

Of course the highlight of the tour was the barrel making area. And not just because we happened to have one of the cooper’s grandfather and other older relatives on the tour with us (though watching the young kid sneak up to surprise an elderly great-aunt with a hug was heartwarming as well). Once again, they showed all the steps and let us know which pieces of equipment were state-of-the-art and which were from a previous era of barrel making. More refreshing candor. Some things were just there because it made a better show on a small scale, not because they were efficient on a large scale.

This was our tour guide (I forget her name because her hair covered her name tag and I’m bad with remembering names at the best of times). In any case, she was excellent. Normally, I have a conversation with myself regarding the things they are over simplifying or just plain getting wrong. I didn’t have that conversation here. She was very knowledgeable and I don’t remember a single of noticeable error.

This was a pretty cool machine. It was a hydraulic press that put the hoops on the barrel. I don’t remember seeing anything like this when I toured Independent Stave a few years ago, but my memory is notoriously bad (and it may have been behind the scenes as well). Still, having been a metal-stamping press operator for a few years after high school, this looked like much more fun (and much less noisy) than those were. It even had a JoyStick!

Of course after you build a barrel, you need to test it. And this was where my fellow tour taker’s nephew/grandson came in. He basically adds some water, fills it with air and looks for bubbles.

This is a fairly small distillery by big bourbon standards, but it is a working distillery none-the-less. And they say that some of the liquid that is being made on sight is also being aged on site. Not sure how I’d feel about all that flammable liquid being there, if I was Duluth Trading Company next door.

And this is a bottling line. Once again, it seemed like it was there so you could see a bottling line and learn what they do. It was running pretty slowly compared to others I’ve seen in other distilleries.

And no tour would be complete without a tasting at the end. This tour offered tastes of Old Forester 86 proof, Old Forester Statesman, and Old Forester 1897 bottled in Bond.

IMAGE: a hand-drawn smiley face

Overall, I really enjoyed the tour. There was little, to no, “Marketing BS” and the entire place was set up not only to show you how bourbon was made, but also to help you learn about how bourbon is made. Plus it was fun! And honestly, that’s just as important at the end of the day.

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