Sazerac: just remove the damn numbers

In my real life, I work in marketing. I’ve spent every day for the last 12 years trying to get people to buy things. Sometimes it was hammers as I did ads for hardware stores. Sometimes it was expensive medical equipment when I worked for an ad agency that specialized in such things.

Marketing gets an often undeserved bad reputation. We are the ones who have studied how to convince people of things. And since those things almost always involve money, we get the blame when we do our job too well. 

As a designer, I’m hyper-aware of the difference between convincing people and tricking them. I skirt the line almost all the time and I get extremely upset when I’m asked to cross it. I never forget that the people I’m convincing are actually people. It’s easy to reduce customers to numbers. To see them as nothing more than a line on a spreadsheet. Especially since when the numbers get bigger, you know that your paycheck is safe for at least a little longer.

So it was with extreme agitation that I noticed a sneaky little trick that the Sazarac company was pulling. I first became aware of it when the Fleischman’s Rye label went from saying “Straight Rye Whiskey” to saying “Mash Rye Whiskey.” I believe it’s supposed to be read as Rye Mash Whiskey, but that’s because the designer was either asked to do it wrong or convinced themselves that the larger rye would draw attention first.

I got angry when I found that I liked the Old Charter: Aged 8 Years and realized it had sneakily been replaced by something labeled: Old Charter: 8. The marketing department had removed the words Aged and Old, but left the 8. They tricked me. I was angry. I decided to to prove that they were sneaking an inferior product into the supply chain and trying to trick the numbers…err…customers into believing that nothing had changed. 

By an odd coincidence, I bought one out of the last batches of Very Old Barton, 100 proof: 6 Year Old before the switch to “Very Old Barton, 100 proof: 6.” So the last time I was in Kentucky I picked up a bottle of the 6. I’ll be very honest I had an agenda. I wanted to prove that these guys were no good liars.

On Sunday, I set up a double blind tasting with the 6 Year Old and the 6. I threw in a pour out of the bottle of 90 proof 6 year I had on hand to confuse the issue even more. Below are the results. 

Disclaimer: I bought all of these bottles. The 90 proof was bought at Binny’s in Bloomington, IL. The 100 proof NAS was purchased at Liquor World in Bardstown. The 100 proof 6 year old..I’m guessing it was at a Liquor Barn, but it was long enough ago that I don’t remember which one. I’m leaving this info out of the notes so as not to tip my hand as to which is which.

Bourbon 1

Nose: Sweet. Bubblegum. Grassy. Dried corn.

Mouth: Hot and sweet. Like a sugar cookie mixed with grain.

Finish: Some warmth. More dried corn. 

Bourbon 2: 

Nose: Predominately a lumber pile. Oak. Under that is some bubblegum.

Mouth: Thin. Dried Corn. A bit of bubblegum. 

Finish: Gentle, but with a lingering bitterness.

Bourbon 3: 

Nose: Vegetal silage. Sweet bubblegum. Oak.

Mouth: Some heat. Bitter oak tannins. Vegetal. 

Finish: Silage. Gentle. A lingering unpleasant bitterness.

Thoughts: Upon finishing my notes, I’m positive I know which are which. I’m guessing the thin mouthfeel of 2 means it is the 90 proof. And because of my bias, I’m pretty sure the vegetal silage one is the NAS and the sweet tasty one was the older version. 

I was correct on the 90 proof. That was indeed number 2. But I had the others completely backward. It turns out, I really disliked the 100 proof age stated version (number 3). It was bitter and tannic. And this isn’t a new phenomenon. I liked the 86 proof much more than the 100 the last time I reviewed them. But the NAS version (number 1)? I liked that one a lot. It was sweeter but still had the burn that let me know the proof was there.

So what does this mean? Well it lends credence to Sazerac’s claim that they wanted to age these to taste not age. If the 6 year is overaged, I’m happy to have one that isn’t. But I’m torn. They are still deceiving people. I hate being tricked almost more than I hate bad whiskey. But I have a solution.

Sazerac: just remove the damn numbers.

Bargain hunting: Rich & Rare Reserve

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.

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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.

Abraham Bowman Limited Edition, Port Barrel Finished Bourbon

I have the best wife ever. 

There are a lot of guys that think this. I’m pretty sure that I’m the only one that is correct though. To show you why, I’ll need to take you back in time a couple months to Valentine’s Day. We were on vacation in Virginia, looking to see if it was a place that we might want to move someday. It had snowed the night before and the city’s 18 plow trucks had been out for most of the night trying to make the city streets passable. At least they were until two of them tipped over and they gave up. Being hearty Midwesterners, we were out and about early enough to see that there wasn’t really that much snow and that most of it was already turning to slush. 

With our trip around the city’s neighborhoods done by mid-morning we were left looking for something else to fill the time between lunch and our planned Valentine’s night activities. You know: ordering a local pizza and trying a couple amazing local beers while binge-watching Game of Thrones in the hotel room. (That's what you call romance when you've been married for over 16 years.)

I had made a comment on our drive across Virginia that I wished we had made time to stop into the A. Smith Bowman distillery. It’s owned by Sazerac and is the producer of both the Bowman line of bourbons and Virginia Gentleman. We were sitting down to a nice Valentine’s Day lunch of Popeye’s chicken when my wife proved to me, yet again, that she really is the best wife ever by announcing to me that she was taking me up to the distillery for a tour.

We had a good time talking with the tour guide. He kept describing the place as a “microdistillery,” but when questioned about it he admitted that it was part of Sazerac. We had a nice tasting and we bought some souvenirs to take home, a glass and some barrel char in a bag. No bourbon though. They had bourbon to buy, but it was only their standard release stuff. Back at the VABC in Richmond, I had noticed a bottle of a Bowman Special release and I really wanted that instead. 

Abraham Bowman Limited Edition Port Finished Bourbon

Purchase info: $69.99 at Richmond area VABC

Details: 50% ABV. Distilled March 30, 2001. Bottled August 17, 2013.

Nose: Cherries, a peppery tingle, tobacco and hints of sawn oak

Mouth: Sweet and spicy. Reminds me of my mother’s snickerdoodle cookies. Vanilla, cinnamon and cloves. Cherry preserves.

Finish: Warm and peppery with a smoke and fruitiness that just sort of hangs around.

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Thoughts: This is my first Abraham Bowman limited release and based on this, I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on more. It is a very good whiskey. It’s a bit peppery at bottle strength but a splash of water brings out more brown sugar sweetness. 

On our way back to the hotel after the distillery visit we ran back to the VABC to pick up this bottle even though, round-trip, it was a half-hour out of the way. I really do have the best wife ever.

The disappointment and redemption of Fleischmann's Straight Rye

It’s mid-March 2013 and I’m about to embark on one of the most disappointing, and yet ultimately most interesting, hunts of my life: the hunt for Fleischmann’s Straight Rye. 

I discovered that Fleischmann’s Straight Rye existed, coincidentally, by finding out that it had been replaced. As Sazerac is wont to do, a statement that hinted at an age had been removed and replaced with a bit of nonsense in the same typeface. Straight Rye Whiskey had turned to Mash Rye Whiskey. 

A label change would not normally be enough to send me searching for a whiskey. But in the article, Chuck mentioned that it was the only rye made at the Barton distillery and that it is distributed only in Northern Wisconsin. Well, that’s home. And for the next few months every time I went back home, I checked the liquor stores to see if I could find it. And in October 2013, I finally did. 

Now, Fleischmann’s, whatever the spirit, is a bottom-shelf product. There is a vodka, gin, rum, brandy and blended whiskey to go along with that rye. But it’s an old name and was born from the same company that birthed the yeast that most baker’s are familiar with. That company was born in 1868. And along with being the first to introduce yeast sold in it’s modern form, they also were distillers. Wikipedia claims that they were America’s first commercial producer of gin but it’s Wikipedia, so take that with a grain of salt.

All that is to say that I really shouldn’t have expected a lot of this product. But, yet, I kind of did. I’d read good reviews of it. The forums at StraightBourbon.com had entire threads dedicated to singing its praises. It couldn’t be terrible, could it?

It couldn’t. It was not terrible. It was close to terrible, but not terrible. It was bad enough that I didn’t want to infuse it or cook with it for fear the flavor would come through. It made the only manhattan that I’ve ever dumped out. But it was better than say, Rebel Yell. So it sat on my shelf. For months. I tried giving it away as a curiosity sample, but felt bad doing it and more often than not cautioned the recipient to not drink it. What could I do? There is no way I can throw away a whiskey, yet it was taking up valuable space on the shelf. 

And so it sat. My excitement in a successful hunt turned to disappointment. At least until I traveled to Virginia and visited the A. Smith Bowman distillery (another Sazerac location). As a souvenir, my wife bought a bag of barrel char that she could stick in a container and smell every once in a while. They said if you dumped a tablespoon of whiskey in there every so often, it would retain the smell it came with. Now there was a use for that Fleischmann’s, but 1.75 liters would take a long time to disappear a tablespoon at a time. But it inspired me to try something. Aging bourbon in a second barrel is big right now. It could be another bourbon, a cognac, sherry or even rum barrel. I didn’t have a barrel, but I did have barrel char. And I had a lot of whiskey that I didn’t know what to do with. Hmmm…

I devised an experiment. I set up four mason jars and put a quarter cup of barrel char into each one. I then took added a cup of Fleischmann’s Rye, tightened the lid and put it into a closet, shaking it every day. I strained the first through a series of coffee filters after a week. The next was strained at two weeks, the third at a month and the final at 2 months. I also poured a four ounce sample to use as a control. The results were as follows:

Fleischmann’s Straight Rye Whiskey

Purchasing info: ~$12 for a 1.75L, Northern Lakes Cabin Stop, Hayward, WI (October 2013)

Nose: Silage/grain with hints of mint and cherry

Mouth: Thin, lightly sweet, hints of mint that feel medicinal.

Finish: Gentle with a faint charcoal aftertaste

Thoughts: This was an inexpensive curiosity. I can’t imagine using this for everyday drinking/mixing/cooking. Now that it seems to have been replaced by Mash Rye Whiskey, I doubt anyone other than the Straight Bourbon forum inhabitants will miss it.

Barrel Char Finishing Experiment 

Nose

  • Even after a week’s infusion, this doesn’t nose like the same whiskey. It’s sweeter, showing much more caramel. 
  • Not much difference between week one and two.
  • By one month, the silage from the control sample is gone and the cherries are back, but now they are chocolate covered. 
  • At two months, the cherries are not only chocolate covered, but dark chocolate covered and joined by rich caramel and char.

Mouth

  • A week made a lot of difference in the mouthfeel. It’s thicker and much sweeter. The bourbon influence is clear.
  • At two weeks, the silage flavors are gone. There is more cherry presence with hints of chocolate. Think of the liquid that runs out of the Christmas candy. It’s kinda cherry and kinda chocolate, but not quite either.
  • One month: Dark, rich and thick in the mouth. Cherry notes very pronounced with black pepper spice.
  • At two months this is like drinking a candy bar: toffee, coconut, nougat, chocolate. And of course that ever present cherry.

Finish

  • Week one: getting better
  • Week two: no real change
  • One month: The finish still has hints of the original medicinal mintiness but there is much more warmth and it lasts a lot longer
  • Two months: lingering spice and sweetness in the finish. After a bit the mint returns.

Thoughts

After a week or so, you start to notice that there is something interesting going on. It’s not there yet, but you know there is something. At about one month, it’s actually gotten to something I would drink on it’s own. the dichotomy between the thick, rich, spicy sweet mouth and the minty finish is very interesting. At two months, the flavors are even more complex, but they are starting to become muddied. If I were forced to chose one of these to bring to market, I’d go with the one month. 

I thought that this purchase was a bust. If this experiment hadn’t yielded something drinkable, I would have dumped it out and not thought about it again. But it turned out to be one of the most interesting redemption stories I’d ever witnessed. In fact, it was good enough that I poured the control and the one and two week infusions together and am reinfusing it. I’m starting at three weeks, but may let it go for another if it isn’t ready yet. I’m now actually quite excited about my bourbon-char finished rye whiskey.

Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets: The Championship Rounds

It’s here, Championship Monday. We’ve made it through the opening rounds and tonight we find out who graduates to the Fancy Shelf. 

At the beginning of this tournament, if you had asked me if I would have found a gem in the field, I would have guessed yes. I mean, that was kind of the point of the exercise. But, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised that out of the entire field, there was only one bourbon that I wouldn’t want to drink again. Some were certainly mediocre, but only one was downright bad. Heck, many of them I’d be happy with neat, or with an icecube or two. 

In the interest of not being influenced by my memories of the product from the opening rounds, I did the next two rounds using my typical double-blind format where I poured into glasses 1 and 2 and my wife moved them to spots A and B. I knew what bourbon was which number and my wife knew which number coresponded to which letter, but neither of us knew which bourbon coresponded to which letter. These were not formal tasting notes, just impressions to let us decide which one we liked better.

Round 2: Down to Four

Division 1: Old Charter 8 year vs Ezra Brooks

Nose A: Trends more vegetal or medicinal/chemical

Nose B: Caramel covered fruit

Mouth A: spicier and warmer, but still more vegetal

Mouth B: gentle, sweet and floral

Finish A: Nice, but unremarkable

Finish B: Perfumy and slightly offputting

Thoughts: A’s vegetalness made it less enjoyable head to head. Whereas B’s gentleness made it feel more watery in comparison. That said, I enjoyed both of these on their own during the past two weeks. 

Winner: B, but only just. The main thing it was missing was kick so it’s no surprise that B was the lower proof Old Charter 8 year old.

Division 2: Old Crow Reserve vs JW Dant Bottled in Bond

Nose A: A slightly medicinal Juicyfruit gum

Nose B: Fruitier, but with hints of cinnamon. Also more caramel sweetness

Mouth A: lots of caramel here

Mouth B: sharp, medicinal

Finish A: hot, but in a good way

Finish B: warm bitterness

Thoughts: B has a much nicer nose. More complex and it makes me anticipate a tasty dram. The problem is that once it get’s in the mouth it falls apart. It goes sharp and medicinal when compared with A. Classic overpromise, underdeliver. 

Winner: A wins this hands down. Honestly, it wasn’t even close after the nose. I was surprised Old Crow Reserve didn’t put up more of a fight after all the people I talk to that are enjoying it, but the clear winner is JW Dant Bottled in Bond.

Fancy Shelf Championship

Old Charter 8 year vs JW Dant Bottled in Bond

Nose A: Typical bourbonness, caramel sweetness with some spice

Nose B: A bit more burn. Almost chocolate chip cookie.

Mouth A: very sweet with just a hint of sharpness

Mouth B: Warm and not very sweet, kinda sharp

Finish A: gentle and sweet

Finish B: wow! great finish. Nice warmth that lasts.

Thoughts: This was a very close one. My wife and I both enjoyed each of these a lot. In fact, it was so close that we each picked a different winner. I chose B on the strength of it’s finish. My wife chose A. 

Winner: That said, it’s my blog so the Fancy Shelf Champion is: B, JW Dant Bottled in Bond.

It’s crazy to me that three of the top four are bourbons that I would be perfectly happy pouring for myself neat or with a bit of ice. Two weeks ago, my wife drove to New Orleans to visit a friend, I liked the Old Charter 8 year enough to have her grab me a handle of it on her way back since they don’t sell it in Minnesota. I do wish it had a little more proof and so I hope to check out the NAS Charter 101 next time I travel to a state it’s sold in. Ezra Brooks is nice for those days I want a little spicy kick, but don’t feel like having anything special. Card-playing bourbon I like to call that. Dant Bonded isn’t quite as good as it’s higher priced brother Evan Williams Bonded, but it’s almost there and it’s well under $20 per liter here in MN where EW is a little over that at my normal shop. Old Crow got a lucky draw in the first round. I’d put off deciding how I felt about it, but can say now that it’s mediocre at best. I’ll use it for mixing or cooking and be pleased with the purchase.

JW Dant Bottled in Bond vs. Ancient Age, Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets, Round 1

Round 1c of the Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets features Division 2, Number 1 seed JW Dant Bottled in Bond versus Number 4 seed Ancient Age. 

JW Dant Bottled in Bond. A bourbon that I’d looked past quite a bit. It’s not available at my usual store and it’s kind of tucked off to the side at my…well…other usual store. I knew ahead of time that it was Heaven Hill since I had seen some Dant labels on one of the tours I took there. I knew it was 100 proof and at least four years old because it’s bonded. Other than that though, I didn’t know much about this one before trying it. It is the highest proof bourbon in the competition and, as such, is the number 1 seed in Division 2.

Ancient Age is the one bourbon in the competition that I’ve had previously. I used to keep a bottle in the house as an “I don’t want to think about it” bourbon. It was the first bourbon to show me that cheap does not equal bad. It’s also one that I’d give to people who were interested in bourbon, but who were not aficionados. Not because they wouldn’t notice, but because most often they liked it better. It’s gentle and sweet. Being the youngest bourbon in the competition with a stated age of 3 years, it was the last selected and is the number four seed of Division 2.

JW Dant Bottled in Bond

Purchase Info: Blue Max, Burnsville, MN $14.99 for a 1L

Stated Age: NAS

ABV: 50%

Produced by: Heaven Hill

Nose: Very complex. This started off very vegetal. After is settles a bit: dark, ripe plums and cinnamon. After a further 20-30 minutes it transitioned again to a perfumy sweetness.

Mouth: Spicy, right on the tongue tip followed by brown sugar sweetness and a very slight vegetal sharpness. 

Finish: Sweet with only a slight burn. Transitions to a mouth-drying bitterness that makes you want another sip. Occasionally you’ll be visited by a floral perfuminess.

Thoughts: In the ranks of Heaven Hill Bottled in Bond bourbons that I’ve reviewed, this ranks  between the Evan Williams and the Old Heaven Hill. Much better than the Old Heaven Hill and slightly worse than the Evan Williams. 

Ancient Age

Purchase Info: Haskell’s Wine & Spirits, Burnsville, MN $11.99 for a 1L

Stated Age: 36 months 

ABV: 40%

Produced by: Buffalo Trace

Nose: Heavy dose of silage at first. Buried under it are cherry, mint and honey. 

Mouth: Thin and sweet with silage/grain flavors dominating.

Finish: Gentle cinnamon candy transitioning to a citrus pith style bitterness.

Thoughts: This is not complicated. This is thin. This is certainly not one you want if you are going to have another within a timeframe where you can compare them. But in spite of all of that, I tend to like the cinnamon sweetness and the gentleness of the finish. Which is unusual since I normally prefer a strong finish. If you do not like a gentle bourbon, this won't be for you.

Winner: There is no surprise here. JW Dant, the higher seed, moves ahead. Ancient Age is an ok “only bourbon of the night,” but it can’t handle being compared to anything. JW Dant Bottled in Bond might be one I could see having on the shelf as a decent, everyday bourbon. I look forward to seeing how it does in the next round.

Old Charter 8 year vs Virginia Gentleman: Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets, Round 1

Round 1a of the Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets features Number 1 seed Old Charter 8 year old versus Number 4 seed Virginia Gentleman. 

Old Charter was brought to my attention in a twitter thread. The chatter was about good, cheap bourbons. This one kept coming up again and again. Not being available in Minnesota, I just sort of stuck that in the back of my head until I was driving through Kentucky on the way back from Virginia and saw a 750 mL on the shelf for $14.35. That price put it in the range for this contest and so I picked it up. This was the number 1 seed and number 1 choice overall as it is one of two bottles with an age statement (and the only one older than 4 years) meaning that, with the way marketing departments work, it is almost certainly the oldest bourbon of the bunch. 

Virginia Gentleman was initially brought to my attention when I was first getting interested in bourbon. I was online looking up something along the lines of “best bourbon under $25.” I was as cheap then, as I am now. I was especially so considering I wasn’t sure yet what I liked and wasn’t sure what I’d be willing to spend to find out. The expression listed was a 90 proof version that is no longer produced and which, sadly, I never got to try. But it put the name in my mind and when I visited Virginia in February I happened to pick up a couple of minis to include in this tasting. This is the number 4 seed.

Old Charter 8 year old

Purchase Info: Liquor World, Bardstown, KY. $14.35 for a 750 mL.

Stated Age: 8 years

ABV: 40%

Produced by: Buffalo Trace (Sazerac)

Nose: Brown sugar and hints of pickle juice mingled with intermittent cherry.

Mouth: Spice cake and cordial cherries.

Finish: Gentle, as might be expected at 40% ABV, yet complex enough to hold interest. Sweet at first and like a mouthful of cloves, this is both numbing and drying. Transitions to lingering bitterness.

Thoughts: I hesitate to say this, but I think this is better than it’s sub $15 price tag would suggest. I could see this becoming a regular on the shelf if it were distributed near me.

Virginia Gentleman

Purchase Info: VABC store, Richmond, VA. (I bought 2 minis for about a buck each, but the VABC price list lists a 750mL for $12.45 or 1L for $14.95)

Stated Age: NAS 

ABV: 40%

Produced by: A. Smith Bowman (Sazerac)

Nose: Light and sweet. Apple candy.

Mouth: Delicate. A light, but not watery, mouthfeel. Lightly fruity with some cinnamon.

Finish: Gentle with a lingering sour grain or silage flavor.

Thoughts: The finish kills this one. That silage/grain aftertaste makes me not want another sip. It might mix ok though.

Winner: Old Charter 8 Year advances to the next round. It’s a bourbon I’ll be keeping an eye out for next time I travel. It also makes me interested in it’s sibling, Charter 101 (NAS). Might have to keep an eye out for both, providing the price stays right. The Virginia Gentleman seems to have deserved it’s seeding. The finish is...not good. Upon giving it another shot as I type this, I’m getting less silage, but more apple mixed with an odd chemical note. Different, but not better.

Head-to-Head-to-Head Review of Bourbon from the Barton 1792 Distillery

I am a cheap bastard. I listen to my music on Spotify (the free account) instead of buying it. I take a sandwich for lunch everyday. I don't go to the movies every month, or even every six. I drove my last car until I was spending almost as much on repairs as I would on a car payment. I drink bourbon and I like bourbon that is under $20 per liter. 

That doesn't mean I won't spend more on a good bottle. I spent $100 on one just a couple weeks ago. I'll spend money if it is deserved. I go to movies that will benefit from the big screen and big sound. When I bought a car, I bought one with all the electronics you could ask for. I buy those few albums that I know I'll be listening to in a few years. I try to buy my dinner hot and pre-made once every couple of weeks, even if it is just delivery. 

If you wanted, you could probably call me "frugal," but I tend to be a bit more plain spoken than that. And besides, cheap doesn't offend me. Cheap means something is worth more than it costs. I love cheap. Cheap is your rough-around-the-edges uncle. Frugal is that quiet chap in your office who seems just a bit stuck up. Cheap is fun. Frugal you are afraid of offending. You don't worry about cheap. Cheap can take care of itself. 

And that is why I picked two of the bourbons I did for tonight's tasting. If you were being nice, you could call them inexpensive. Or a good value. But let's not start mincing words now. These are two cheap bourbons. Even the most expensive of the two is under $25 for a 1.75 L at the Party Source. But, that said, I made a special point of searching these out the last time I was in Kentucky. Everything I read, said that they are a well kept secret in the Bluegrass State and that they are much better than the price tag suggests.

So last time I was there, I picked up a liter of 86 proof Very Old Barton and a 200 mL of the 100 proof version for comparison. Tonight, because it is made at the same distillery and because I prefer a three way double blind, I threw in a pour of my Liquor Barn Selected1792 Ridgemont Reserve as well (second series #5 according to the label). 

Each of these pours was really hot on the nose initially. Just overpowering with alcohol. So in an unusual move, I let them sit for five minutes before coming back to them.

Whiskey A

Nose: First thing I'm hit with is dried corn sitting in a silo. After a while it shows some floral and sweet scents. After a couple sips I could swear someone is baking sweet cornbread in the glass.

Mouth: This disappoints. It's all harsh alcohol on the tongue tip and stays hot as you swallow. It does sweeten some as it moves back in the mouth though.

Finish: warm and peppery. This one definately leaves a tingle that lasts for a while.

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Thoughts: This one is so hot that I'd drink it with a couple ice cubes or some water, but even then it wouldn't be my first choice. It's not bad, but not great. It's just meh.

Whiskey B

Nose: Strange as it sounds, the first thing I'm struck with is chocolate milk. But then moving into the smell of silage. Finally landing on sweet brown sugar. 

Mouth: Sweet at the tip of the tongue, but becomes a bit peppery as it moves back in the mouth. Adding a bit of water mutes the pepper and allows some of the wood to show itself.

Finish: This leaves you with all the stereotypical bourbon flavors. Caramel vanilla and oak. It's nice.

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Thoughts: This is certainly more interesting to me than A was. Whiskey A was all about the heat. This is a bit more nuanced. That said, it's still just sort of...there. It'll do in a pinch, but also wouldn't be my first choice.

Whiskey C

Nose: This starts just a bit sour. But that fades. You are left with wood and brown sugar.

Mouth: This is very gentle on entry. Sweet with a mild pepper. It's almost cooling after the other two.

Finish: Very quick finish. There is a lot of vanilla along with a hint of dryness.

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Thoughts: This is easy drinking to the point of being boring. And that's why I like it. I'd reach for this while playing cards or having an animated conversation with a close friend. Something where I don't want to think about my whiskey, I just want to drink it and enjoy what's going on around me.

So which is which? Well, I was sort of surprised to find out that I had ranked them in inverse order to their price. I liked the 86 proof Very Old Barton the most (C),  the 1792 the least (A) and the 100 proof Very Old Barton landed in the middle (B).

Keep in mind that this is not the regular release of 1792 so your milage may vary. This one may very well have been chosen for it's heat. I have tasted it side by side with the regular release and I didn't notice much of a difference, but you never know.