Bottom-Shelf Bourbon Brackets 2016, Round 1: Fighting Cock vs. Buckhorn

March 17, 2016 Eric Burke

Round 1a of the 2016 Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets features Number 1 seed, and last year’s winner Fighting Cock versus Number 4 seed Buckhorn.

Fighting Cock is a product of Heaven Hill Brands. It was initially chosen as a part of last year’s competition where it eked out a narrow victory over Heaven Hill’s Evan Williams Bottled in Bond. Of course when it competed last year, it had an age statement of 6 years old. This year, when it comes back to defend it’s crown against new competition, it is sporting no age statement. Can it become a two time winner even with that handicap?

Buckhorn is a Total Wine exclusive.* It is sold to them by the Clear Spring Distilling company, an assumed name that Sazerac uses to make house brands. It is 80 proof and carries no age statement so it is at least 4 years of age. I was leery about including it in the competition since you’ll need to be near a Total Wine to get one, but I’m going assume that if you substitute another NAS house brand made by Sazerac under the Clear Spring name, you might get fairly similar results.

These were tasted blind in the following order. My thoughts on each are from before the reveal.

Fighting Cock

Purchase Info: $14.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Details: 51.5% ABV, No age statement

Produced by: Heaven Hill Brands

Nose: Bubble gum, mint, cooked cereal

Mouth: Hot and grainy. Hints of caramel and a touch of oak underneath.

Finish: Hot and grainy with a lingering dried corn bitterness

Pre-Reveal Thoughts: “If this is the fighting Cock, it took a huge dip when it went NAS last year.”

Buckhorn

Purchase Info: $12.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN*

Details: 40% ABV, No Age Statement

Produced by: Clear Spring Distilling Company (Sazerac)

Nose: Herbal. Brown sugar, mint and oak.

Mouth: it basically follows the nose. Herbal, brown sugar, mint and delicate oak notes.

Finish: Middling finish with a bit of heat but not much length. Lingering herbal notes.

Pre-Reveal Thoughts: “Nothing offensive on this one, I’d take a glass if offered.”

Who wins?

The finish on Fighting Cock is better heat wise but falls way short on flavor. I’m not a fan of really grain forward finishes. In the mouth it’s the same. Fighting Cock is hot but Buckhorn is more flavorful in the ways I like my whiskey. If Buckhorn had some of Fighting Cock’s heat, this contest would be a no brainer. As it is, I’m leaning Buckhorn but could understand why others with different tastes would go the other way. But I’m the judge so it looks like we’ve just had the first upset in the history of the Bottom-Shelf Bourbon Brackets because 4 seed Buckhorn just knocked off last year’s champ.

Well a non-age stated version of last year's champ. Apparently after removing the age from the product, Heaven Hill was hoping that the high proof would cover the degradation of the aged flavors. They were wrong. Last year I advised not to add water to it as it minimized the oak and the heat and left you with just grain flavors. Now you can get that without adding water. It's too bad. This used to be a hidden gem as little as a year ago.

*Not so exclusive. By a quirk of Minnesota law, liquor stores are prohibited from carrying exclusive products. This means many local stores buy the exclusives and then undercut Total Wine’s price. Which is nice since these products tend to have the highest markup at Total Wine. Everyone wins…well except the massive megaretailer. As an example, I bought this one at Ace Spirits.

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Bottom-Shelf Bourbon Brackets 2016: The Brackets

March 15, 2016 Eric Burke

Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets 2016 bracket

Its that time of year again. The time of year when in the spirit of the season, America pretends to enjoy college basketball. The time when intraoffice gambling on the backs of unpaid athletes is not only condoned, but practically expected. The time when paper or online brackets are filled, mostly with guesses because what normal person really knows what the hell a Gonzaga is anyway.

I’m not immune to the lure. But instead of trying to figure out whether a Holy Cross can beat a Southern University, I’d rather spend my time figuring out if I like Evan Williams 1783 or Wild Turkey 81 proof better. Because honestly I really don’t like basketball. Plus I work out of my home so I have no coworkers with whom to pretend that I care whether an FGCU wins or not.

Because I am a frugal person, this annual competition started out as a way to find new inexpensive bourbons with which to drown my sorrows as I waited for winter to end. But with both winters and inexpensive bourbons that I haven’t tried are becoming increasingly rare, I actually was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to find enough bourbons to qualify this year.

But there is good news frugal fans of bourbon! Minnesota is smack dab in the middle of the Total Wine effect. Items that didn’t qualify in years past are now priced within reach due to the increased price competition and items that were intended to be store exclusives are now being stocked on store shelves across the Metro. Prices are dropping and selection is rising. And this makes this year’s brackets a little more interesting than normal.

As it has been a year since we did this last, let’s go over the guidelines for selection:

I'm defining Bottom-Shelf as under $20 per liter or $15 per 750 mL bottle.
It must be Straight Bourbon
It must be available in Minnesota
I am hoping to try new things so when possible, I looked for things I hadn’t reviewed before.

After the bottles were purchased here are the guidelines I used to seed them.

Previous Winners. JW Dant Bottled in Bond won two years ago and Fighting Cock won last year year so they get an automatic #1 seed.
Stated (or assumed age). Straight bourbon has to be at least two years old. But unless it is under four years old you don’t have to put an age on it. So if someone does it’s either a good thing or a bad thing. I like to reward good things and punish bad things.
Proof. Higher proof often equals better flavor. Not always, but it can be a good rule of thumb.
Minimize corporate cousins. I figured I could introduce a little more difference into each initial pairing if they didn’t come off the same still, or at the very least wasn’t sold by the same company. Since four of these are from Heaven Hill and two are originally from Sazerac, it's a guideline, not a hard rule, and is overridden by the above guidelines.

So who are the contestants? Well, as mentioned above, Fighting Cock and JW Dant are our return winners so they get the number one seeds in each division. There were no age stated bottles this year so that one has been set aside, though I did knock Very Old Barton down a notch for their misleading “6.” So the next two highest proof bottles are Evan Williams 1783 and Very Old Barton 6 are both 86 proof and they become the number 2 seeds. After that the newly renamed Wild Turkey bourbon is 81 proof so it becomes our first 3 seed. The last three were dropped in what I thought might be an order to provide the most interesting match ups with Jim Beam White becoming the last 3 three seed going against Barton while Buckhorn (a Total Wine “exclusive” from Buffalo Trace) and Heaven Hill’s Blue State picking up the slack as 4 seeds.

Due to the Total Wine effect, this was an interesting year. Stay tuned.

Two Stars Bourbon

August 18, 2015 Eric Burke

Here we have a bourbon that I have made fun of every time I walked though the bourbon section of Total Wine. I mean it’s hard not to.

“Only two stars? Wow, don’t set your sights too high there.”

“Two stars? Wait, is this an actual honest bourbon label?”

“Two Stars. Because four stars costs too damn much and you wouldn’t appreciate them anyway.”

Stuff like that. But in my never ending quest to find bourbon diamonds in the rough, I finally decided to take the leap and buy it. Before I did though, I picked up the bottle and took a hard look at what I was buying.

First off, it looks like the same bottle that Weller and Very Old Barton come in. I’ve seen other store brands made by Sazerac that use that same bottle so that was something. Second it is an 86 proof, straight bourbon with no age statement. So that means it is at least four years old. Seems ok so far.

Made by Clear Spring Distilling Co. in Louisville. I admit this through me for a loop at first, but a quick search lead me to this: Clear Springs Distilling Company???. And then the COLA. Yep, it seems that Clear Springs is an assumed business name that Sazerac uses to make house brands.

The bourbon at least stood a shot of being ok, so I picked it up. Unlike normal, immediately upon returning home I opened it and took a sniff straight from the top of the bottle. I was really leery of this one for some reason, maybe it was the name. It smelled ok, so I splashed a little in a glass and took a sip…and was shocked at how not terrible it was.

Two Stars Handcrafted Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Purchase Info: $17.99, 750 mL. Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Details: 43% ABV. Produced by at the Barton distillery by Sazerac.

Nose: Caramel, vanilla, cinnamon gum, mint.

Mouth: Starts with a nice spicy tingle that dances across my tongue. Cinnamon and cloves. Dry, with more than a touch of oak.

Finish: Lingering tingle in the mouth, dry with mint and oak.

Thoughts: Well, this certainly lives up to it’s name. I don’t care if Total Wine claims it is named for the municipal flag of Louisville, this seems to have been named with it’s mark of quality built in. It is not a four-star bourbon. It is however a very solid two-star. It works well as a mixer and can even function neat in a pinch. It’s not a bad price either at less than $20 for a 750 mL.

Overall, keeping all that in mind, I’d recommend giving this one a shot. You might like it and if the worst that happens is that you are left with a bottle to use for making cocktails, that isn’t so bad either.

UPDATE: A previous version of this story incorrectly hypothesized that this bourbon might have been produced at Buffalo Trace. They have reached out to inform me that it is instead made at the company's Barton Distillery in Bardstown, KY. The story has been updated to reflect that change.

What the Hell? (An exploration of the Craigslist secondary market)

March 3, 2015 Eric Burke

Want a laugh? Go troll Craigslist looking for bourbon. You will find legitimate collectable items of both the liquid and memorabilia types. But mixed in among the legit collectables are those that people only wish were collectable. Folks looking to make a buck (or hundred) by preying on the unsuspecting and uninformed.

A while back, I solicited people on twitter to send me some of their favorites. What follows are the ones I liked best out those submissions. Thanks to all who participated.

St. Petersburg

Let's start with something that really is hard to find, But seriously? This is over a 300% markup. Glad to have paid gift shop prices for mine.

That's a little better. Only a 200% markup (roughly). It must be on sale though. I mean "Ther prise is Final !" after all.

"It may not have the same demand as (That which will not be named) but that won't stop me from charging the same price as it."

I was starting to worry that this guy wouldn't be able to feed his family after the last two which were listed at only a 200% markup. But here we are, back to 400% or so. whew!

Chicago/Illinois

I like the bourbon...but damn.

In case you were curious, you shouldn't drink this $100 bourbon. It's for display only.

Apparently if you leave the city, the price drops. Those poor suckers in Champaign/Urbana. (shakes head) But if you want tasting notes with your gouging, this is your guy.

Missouri

$125 for a liter of "Poor Man's Pappy." Apparently the definition of poor is different in Missouri. Having traveled through much of it, I wouldn't have guessed that.

Dallas

It's Booker's! with keywords of Buffalo Trace, Angel's Envy and (That which will not be named).

New York

It's impossible to find as shown by all the Weller 12 listings we've found. Though by this point in the list, this asking price feels almost...reasonable.

Damn! Man! At least leave the store parking lot before you sell that collectible bit of HAZMAT!

Minneapolis

Can't leave my home town out, can I?

Feel like trading your Booker's 25th, Four Roses Limiteds, or Buffalo Trace Antique Collections for a bit of Old Weller Antique 107 proof? Yeah, me neither.

"The value is in the collectable (sic) container, its label, not contents inside." Finally one I agree with. The stuff inside is terrible. Though if you want, the container that bad I'll give you mine. I'll even throw in the last quarter bottle or so for good measure

Alaska

Nothing seems shady here. $75-$100 for an ounce and a half of liquid in an unmarked bottle? Or I can get all 12 and save $100!?! Where do I sign up?

Louisville

And before you think it's just folks who don't know bourbon, here's one from the heart of Bourbon Country.

I just want to know how much he's charging for that collectible mason jar filled with a "representation of a 50/50 mixture that has mingled for two weeks" in a mason jar. I mean, I'd also imagine it'd be delicious (if it were intended for consumption).

Like the fire of 1,000 suns, it's a very hot Stagg Jr. Mmmmm...tasty, tasty suns.

January 29, 2015 Eric Burke

I walked into the liquor store to get a bottle of wine for the pizza sauce I was making that night.

“Hi Eric.” I heard from behind the counter. I looked over startled. I didn’t ever talk to anyone here, how did they know my name?

When I looked over, I noticed that it was the former manager of one of the liquor stores I used to frequent all the time, but that I hadn’t been to since their bourbon selection sort of fell off.

“Oh, hi!” I barely got out before heading down to the wine section. I knew I needed to get that before I got distracted by bourbon. This guy had a tendency to do that to me.

After getting up to the counter, we made small talk for a bit before he let me know “I have a bottle of Stagg Jr. in the office. It’s not going to hit the shelf, if you’re interested.”

…blink…

Well, this was unexpected. Did I want it? Good question. I was having some well documented personal difficulties with Sazerac’s labeling. But this wasn’t an offending product. And I’d heard good things.

“How much?” I asked expecting a fairly outrageous price.

“About $48”

“Yes.” I answered, barely letting him finish.

This, kids, is why it pays to build relationships that span the course of several years with your local liquor store.

And so a trip for a $9 bottle of wine turned into a $63 stop after taxes. Honestly, I don’t even know why my wife lets me go to stores by myself anymore. I do have a history of randomly walking out having spent 700-1000% of what my plan was. In any case, I plan to start frequenting this store a little more.

Stagg Jr.

Purchase info: $47.99 for a 750 mL at Marketplace Liquors, Savage, MN

Details: 64.35% ABV

Nose: Lots of ethanol on this. Floral, red berries, mint, bubblegum, sourdough and a faint odor of old barn.

Mouth: Very hot and sweet. Caramel, mint, leather, tobacco, cayenne pepper.

Finish: Warm, long and drying. Leather and black pepper.

Thoughts: This is way too hot for me to enjoy neat. I don’t like my bourbon to cause pain. Let’s add some water to bring this down to about 100° proof.

Nose: Really tames the ethanol. Brown sugar is abundant, caramel and vanilla too. Floral notes are still there along with the bubble gum. There is now a bready note as well.

Mouth: The fire has been muted, though not extinguished. There is a nice tingle now. It’s still sweet with caramel but the lack of fire allows a fruity note to appear. Mint and cayenne are still there. Tobacco and leather have been replaced by a nice oak flavor.

Finish: nice and warm with lingering oak.

Thoughts: Wow. Now that I can taste something other than fire, I really like this. It’s sweet and fruity but nicely balanced with spice and oak. If you can find it for less than 1.5 times the price of regular Buffalo Trace, pounce on it. It’s worth the slight premium to gain the ability to dilute it to your preferred strength.

W.L. Weller 12 year old

January 22, 2015 Eric Burke

Looking for a good, easy-to-find bourbon that won’t cost you an arm and a leg?

Oh, you are? Shit. Well this isn’t it.

Once upon a time you could get a bottle of W.L. Weller 12 year old bourbon easily and for a decent price. Not in Minnesota, I’ve never seen it here. But in areas where it was distributed, it was just…there. Sitting on the shelf. Historically, running somewhere between $20 and $30.

Anecdotally it seems this is no longer the case. Weller 12 has fallen victim to the frenzy over it’s higher-priced corporate cousin and is out of stock basically everywhere I look online. Looking on wine-searcher.com (which lists historical price averages going back to 2007), I see they are claiming the current average price to be $59. In fact, five of the seven listings they show are $89 or over.

I have some advice. Don’t pay this much for this bourbon. Settle down, take a breath and realize that while this is decent, it isn’t earth-shatteringly so. If you want a wheated bourbon, get a different Weller, a Larceny or even a Maker’s Mark. If you want a 12 year old bourbon go with Elijah Craig. If you are only looking at this because it is supposed to be like (that other bourbon that will not be named)?

Well, there’s no hope for you. You, I give permission to go pay $90+ because you’re going to do it anyway. Just remember if this is the only reason you want Weller 12, your reasoning is flawed. This is not that. It’s failed at that already. Didn’t make the cut. Tasted different enough to not be chosen.

So now that the rant is over, is the bourbon any good?

W.L. Weller 12 Year Old bourbon

Purchase info: $29.99 for a 750 mL at Dorignac’s Food Center, Metairie, LA

Details: 45% ABV, Aged 12 years

Nose: Cherry preserves, oak, clove, ginger, cotton candy

Mouth: Hot. Bubble gum, clove, black pepper, mint

Finish: Nice and warm with a decent length. Nutty, mint oak, baking spices.

Thoughts: This is a decent bourbon. I don’t prefer wheated bourbons so I normally choose something else when this is on my shelf. But if you are a fan of wheaters and run across it and the price is somewhere in the ballpark of MSRP, it’s a good one to pick up. I normally do. And provided the price is right I’ll probably continue to do so.

Sazerac, Just Remove the Damn Numbers—part 2: Old Charter 8 vs Old Charter 8 year old

December 23, 2014 Eric Burke

Just a little over a year ago, I noticed that of the many bourbons on my shelf, very few were in the sub-$30 range. It wasn’t that I was feeling super-snobbish or extra-sophisticated, but rather that Fall Bourbon Release Season was just wrapping up. Premium, Rare and Super Rare bourbons were all anyone wanted to talk about and I was caught up in the excitement along with everyone else.

It was at about this time that the idea for the Bottom-Shelf Bourbon Brackets popped into my head. I was sick of talking about whiskies that most of us can’t get and thought it was about time to look to the other end of the spectrum. There is a lot of good bourbon in the sub-$20 range, but there is also a lot of crap. I took it upon myself to find those things I’d want on my shelf.

One of the finalists in the competition was Old Charter 8 year. Due to it’s age it was seeded number one in it’s division and ended up coming in second overall. It was just after the competition concluded that I was informed by a reader that the age statement had been removed. It was now just “Old Charter 8.”

To say I was pissed was an understatement. I almost vowed to not buy anymore Sazerac products, but that would have been rash and hard to maintain. I did decide that I wasn’t going to be fooled anymore and that if at all possible I was going to make a more informed decision about which NAS products I was going to spend my money on.

To that end, I explored Very Old Barton 6 year and “6” a few weeks ago in Sazerac, Just Remove the Damn Numbers (part 1). I was pleasantly surprised when I preferred the NAS version. Though the naming still made me upset.

And since we had mistakenly purchased a handle of Old Charter “8” in Louisiana thinking it was the 8 year and had then found a bottle of the 8 year this fall in Kentucky, it was decided that we needed to do another comparison. See if I should still be upset at the change.

Old Charter 8 (NAS)

Purchase info: Less than $25 for a 1.75 Liter at the Wal-Mart in Hammond, LA (my wife picked it up and didn’t save the receipt).

Details: NAS, 40% ABV

Nose: Green pea pods and JuicyFruit gum. There’s a cotton candy sweetness if you can push past the overwhelming pea pods.

Mouth: Uncomplicated. Sweet with cinnamon and cayenne spices. Feels a bit thin in the mouth.

Finish: Bitter and vegetal, though with a warmth that lasts a surprisingly long length of time.

Thoughts: This is definitely definitely definitely of those you don’t want to drink out of a nosing glass. Concentrating those pea pod odors doesn’t make you want to take the sip. It’s better out of a rocks glass, but even then, I’m not a fan. Water doesn’t help, just accenting the undesirable parts and muting the admittedly nice spice and warmth.

Old Charter 8 year old

Purchase info: ~$18 for a 750 mL at Keystone Liquors, Bardstown, KY

Details: Aged 8 years, 40% ABV

Nose: dried corn, ripe fruit, caramel and hints of dried wood.

Mouth: Classic bourbon notes of caramel/vanilla along with some baking spices and a hint of cayenne.

Finish: Tannic bitterness and oak linger

Thoughts: I liked this one. It’s not an outstanding bourbon, but for the price it works well enough.

Unlike it’s corporate cousin Very Old Barton, for Old Charter 8 the NAS release was strikingly inferior to the age-stated product. That pea pod on the nose just made me not want to drink it. If it were a higher proof, I could see it working ok in a cocktail, but as it stands, it just sort of gets pushed around by the other ingredients.

Here’s the verdict. Don’t buy the NAS version. If you happen across the 8 year for a reasonable price? Sure, feel free. Just remember, neither of these are good enough to go hunting for. So don’t go crazy.

"Baby Saz" Sazerac Rye

December 11, 2014 Eric Burke

That is one pretty bottle, isn’t it? Reminds you of the cut glass and etched lettering of those old decanters you find in antique stores or on Those Pre-Pro Whiskey Men. It really is nice looking. It’d look nice on your shelf, looking old and sophisticated.

But what if I told you, you couldn’t have this? That there were going to be places and times when this wouldn’t be available. If you were smart, you’d probably grab a Rittenhouse Rye or maybe a Bulliet. If you were a human on the internet, you’d probably run all around the city you live in and a few of the surrounding ones to go hunting for one.

Well it’s true, it can be hard to find.

WAIT! Don’t go running out to the car or bus yet! Because here is the thing. It depends on where you live and when you are looking. In Minnesota, at this particular point in time, it’s on most store shelves. I recently heard from a guy in Florida that said it was hard to find there. So wait a bit, or look online. Do NOT pay exorbitant sums for this just because it is rare where you live right now. Because, and I’m going to level with you, it’s a good rye but it isn’t a great-ohmygod-I-need-to-get-it-right-now rye.

Here’s a little info. Sazerac Rye is a rye whiskey is produced by, you might have guessed it, the Sazerac Company. It is a non-age stated bottling. (Though if you look on the Sazerac website it’s still listed as six years. Which, while not legally binding, might be close. It is labeled as Straight and doesn’t have an age statement so it’s at least four.) The internet tells me that it is a barely legal rye with a mashbill including 51% rye or thereabouts.

Sazerac Rye

Purchase info: $32.99 at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN

Details: 45% ABV

Nose: Soapy. Mint. Dried Grass. Cedar underneath.

Mouth: Thin Mouthfeel. Black pepper. Cedar. Mint. Banana candy

Finish: More Cedar and banana that fade to a lingering bitterness

Thoughts: Weird. Banana. This is passable when neat in a Glencairn glass. OK, nothing more. In a rocks glass, I find it better. Still just good, not great. I’ve used it to make a very tasty Sazerac cocktail. Which though it was spicier than with Rittenhouse, wasn’t actually better. If this were around $25 like it was when I first started buying it, I’d recommend it. But after creeping up to about $35, I’m not sure that you wouldn’t be just as happy grabbing one of the more readily available ryes out there. Maybe try one of those Canadian 100% Rye ones. I like it, but not enough to miss it if I can't get it.

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