New Riff's New Make from a Rye Mash

August 11, 2015 Eric Burke

Whiskey distilled from a Rye Mash, by New Make Distilling, Newport, KY

There was a time, not too long ago, that the Party Source in Bellevue, KY was a whiskey geek’s heaven. An online store that had practically everything and who would ship it right to your door. Unfortunately those days are over. A few years ago, Kentucky passed a law outlawing shipping by liquor stores and in the intervening years, the Party Source has started to come back down to earth.

Don’t get me wrong, they are still a good liquor store, but unless you are going through Cincinnati, they are pretty far from your standard-fare bourbon tourism.

This however might be changing if you are a fan of touring craft distilleries. A few years ago, the owner of the Party Source seems to have gotten the bug to move from retailer to producer and built the New Riff distillery. Right in the Party Source parking lot. (If you are wondering about the three-tier system ramifications, he sold the Party Source to the employees, making it an Employee-Owned company.) He hired Larry Ebersold, former Master Distiller at (the distillery now known as) MGPi as a consultant and got down to business. So now, you can go on a distillery tour and get some shopping done all in the same trip.

And given the intertwined history of these two companies, it’s not too surprising to find that New Riff New Make is available at the Party Source. The only surprise is the price. Craft distillers often need to charge aged whiskey prices for unaged whiskey just to keep the lights on. In this case the 375 mL bottle I bought was only $15. Not too bad at all. The only question remaining is if it is any good.

New Riff New Make distilled from a Rye Mash

Purchase Info: $14.99, 375 mL bottle. The Party Source, Bellevue, KY

Details: 45% ABV. Distilled from a Rye mash. Positioned as a vodka alternative on the neck hanger.

Nose: Buttery. Hard butterscotch candies. Faint mint underneath.

Mouth: White sugar sweetness. Buttery toffee, grapefruit pith and mint.

Finish: Not hot but it has some lingering ethanol flavors. Mint, dill and bitter grapefruit are there too.

Thoughts: I certainly wouldn’t sit down to a glass of this served neat, but then again I wouldn’t do that with a glass of vodka either. I’m going to guess that neat is not the way this was intended to be consumed. And as such, I’m looking forward to making cocktails with it. So much so, that I moved it out of the whiskey room and into my cocktail-making cabinet.

Overall not a bad product as is, and I am certainly going to want to grab a bottle when it has spent it’s four years in wood. For now though, unless you like new make (or are just curious like I was) I'd give this a pass. I am impressed enough with it though, that next time I’m through Cincinnati, I hope to grab a tour on my way to do a little shopping.

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A vacation souvenir: Wiser's Red Letter

August 6, 2015 Eric Burke

A bottle of Wiser's Red Letter Canadian Whisky and the box it comes in.

If I were to tell you that I spent the past weekend in Michigan, you probably wouldn’t say much to me. You might wonder why, but Michigan is a nice place so you might not even say that. If I were to tell you that I was in a part of Michigan that is farther west than Chicago, farther north than Toronto, Montreal, or even Quebec City and only 20 miles east of Minnesota you might start to think I’m crazy. (Unless you are either from Michigan or a geography nerd that is, then all bets are off.) But crazy or not that is where I spent last weekend and the first part of this week.

You see there is a giant island in the northern part of Lake Superior called Isle Royale. It’s part of Michigan though it is closer to both Ontario and Minnesota than it is to mainland Michigan. (Thank old treaties and compromises for that bit of geographical trickery.) The island is also a National Park called, naturally enough, Isle Royale National Park.

The Park, being an island, is only accessible by boat, either your own or one run by a National Park Service concessionaire. If, like me, you don’t own your own very large boat you are left with the concessionaire ferries or seaplanes as your only option. You can go from two ports in Michigan or from one in Minnesota.

The port I chose was the one in Minnesota. Which is just about as far north as you can go along the Minnesota coast of Lake Superior. You are so close to the Canadian border that Verizon just tells you “No Service” because the only towers you are touching are international ones. To me, this is not a big deal. Part of the appeal of this vacation was the lack of cell service and internet. I needed desperately to get away from it all for a few days. And since this park gets fewer visitors in a year than Yellowstone gets in a day, away is exactly where I would be.

The other big part of the appeal, going hand in hand with the first, was our proximity to our Northern Neighbor. Unlike many native Minnesotans, I have no particular enmity to Canada. In fact, the one time I visited, I sorta wished I could have stayed longer. Of course, that time I was in Toronto. This time I was closest to Thunder Bay.

Every person to whom I mentioned I might be stopping in Thunder Bay asked the same question: “Why?” The answer depending on if you were another whiskey fan or a border patrol agent was either “Canadian Whisky” or “sightseeing” respectively. You see Thunder Bay, being in Ontario is served by the LCBO. Now government controlled access to liquor has many drawbacks, but one of the benefits to this particular system is an online inventory lookup that is broken down by store. Meaning that before I left, I could look to see if there was any particularly tasty Canada only whisky that I might hop across the border and bring back with me.

And find one I did. A while back, I took a part in a few Twitter-based whiskey tastings in support of Davin de Kergommeaux’s book on Canadian Whisky. One of the treats that were sent out was one Wiser’s Red Letter. Even though I had already come around on my early views of Canadian whisky at this point, the Red Letter sample was the one that firmly cemented Canadian whisky as something I would proclaim myself a fan of. Putting it in a group that had until that point only contained Bourbon and American Rye.

So when I looked online and noticed that there was one store in Thunder Bay that had two bottles of it, I knew that I would be spending the later hours of Friday afternoon making the 50 minute trip between Grand Portage, Minnesota and Thunder Bay, Ontario to make sure that one of them would be coming home with me.

Wiser’s Red Letter - 2014 Release

Purchase Info: $99.95 Canadian (~$76 US as of 8/6/15), 750 mL. LCBO, Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Details: 45% ABV. 2014 Release. Non-chill filtered. “Virgin Oak Finished.”

Nose: Delicate and creamy. Honey and brown sugar. Orange oil. Cinnamon candies.

Mouth: Creamy with a nice velvety mouthfeel. Brown sugar sweetness. Cinnamon candy spice, with a tingle reminiscent of the same. Baseball card gum (because I’m old enough to have bought baseball card packs that came with gum back in the 80s). Hints of orange oil and wooden pencil.

Finish: The cinnamon candy tingle sticks around for a little while before being replaced by a nice lingering sweetness.

Thoughts: After sadly realizing that Red Letter was not sold in the US, I tried a few of the Wiser’s products that were. One of which, the Legacy, quickly became my go to Canadian whisky. If you have had Wiser’s Legacy, the best description of Red Letter I can give you is: "that, only more so." It hits all the same notes with me, it just hits them harder (hmmm…realizing I never actually did a review of Legacy, will have to remedy that soon).

I would say this was certainly worth the roughly 2 hour detour across a lightly used border crossing into Canada. Was it worth $76 US? Considering my favorite Canadian whiskey goes for about $40 US and is very similar, sure. Now for those same reasons, I probably wouldn’t buy a second bottle of Red Letter at $100 Canadian, even if I could, but I don’t regret buying this one. It made a nice vacation splurge.

Collingwood 21 Year Old Rye Canadian Whisky

July 30, 2015 Eric Burke

Collingwood 21 year old rye. I first heard of this while conversing with Davin de Kergommeaux during the Twitter tastings that were held to promote his book Canadian Whisky: The Portable Expert. Now, Davin loves Canadian whisky so you need to take his enthusiasm for the category into effect when interpreting his comments on a particular whisky. And he was really enthusiastic about this. After doing a little reading online, I took his advice. “If you see it, buy two” to heart. It was getting close to Christmas 2013 at this point and I was doing a little shopping.

Yes, for others…but for me too.

We were in the area so I stopped off at Surdyk’s, a liquor store in Minneapolis to see if they had this particular treat. The parking lot had zero spaces and the streets were full of snow so I sent my wife in. She nicely bought me one bottle…

I forgot to tell her to get two. I didn’t say anything until we were on our way home. Mostly because I was sick of circling the block waiting for either her to come out or for a parking space to open up. After listening to the fact that Davin suggested we get two, she agreed to stop off somewhere on the way home to see if someone else had one. Luckily, they did.

Bottle badge stating: "toasted maplewood mellowed.

But what is it? Collingwood whisky is a brand owned by Brown-Forman. This is a limited edition line extension of that brand. It is a 21 year old 100% malted rye whisky that was then vatted in a container containing maple wood staves and allowed to rest there for a year. It is produced at the Canadian Mist Distillery in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada. (See map below.) Having begun life as an experiment, what’s on the shelf is all there is. Even if Brown-Forman wanted to release more, we’d have to wait almost 20 years from now for there to be more to release.

As of today, it is still on Minnesota shelves. But, as this was a one time only production run, ever since then I’ve always had at least two bottles of this on hand. One open (or soon to be opened) and at least one in reserve. When I open one, I run to buy another so I always have a buffer for when it eventually runs out. To say I like this is a bit of an understatement.

Collingwood 21 Year Old Rye

Purchase Info: $54.99, 750 mL. Surdyk’s, Minneapolis, MN (Dec 14, 2013, I’ve bought this often, so we’ll go just with the first one as it is roughly the same price today at other stores.)

Details: 21 year old (age stated), 40% ABV.

Nose: Clothes that have been drying outside on the clothesline. Black tea. Faint hints of dill. After some time strong vanilla and caramel develop.

Mouth: Delicate. Sweet with hints of maple. Very strong floral presence. Vanilla bean ice cream. Some oak.

Finish: Delicate and gentle. Black tea (thinking unsweetened ice tea where your ice has melted), some mint, some caramel. A bit floral.

Thoughts: This is the third or fourth bottle I’ve bought of this and there is still one in my closet so that should tell you I love this one. I will admit that it isn’t for everyone—some people I know compare it to drinking perfume—so see if you can grab a taste of it before you drop almost $60 on it. To me, the disparate notes meld so well that this can be truly described as an exquisite whisky, but that's me. It isn’t for everyone.

The year 1870 and a review of Old Forester 1870 Original Batch

July 23, 2015 Eric Burke

A close up of the label of a bottle of Old Forester 1870 Original Batch.

1870. Old Forester claims that George Garvin Brown started selling his Old Forester brand of whiskey in that year. And since renowned bourbon historian Michael Veach backs that up in his book Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey, I have no reason to suspect they are fibbing. In the story, Old Forester was the first bourbon sold exclusively in bottles.

But 1870 is not a year that I, living in 2015, have thought too much about. And I’m going to guess that you, dear reader, haven’t either. So let’s learn a little bit about what was going on in the country in the year the bottled bourbon trend started.

Construction begins on the Brooklyn Bridge in January of that year. For many of us who have never been to New York City, it is one of the symbols that immediately comes to mind whenever the city is mentioned.
African Americans technically gain the right to vote with the passage and ratification of the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution. It will actually be universally enforced almost 100 years later.
Reconstruction is ending in the former Confederate States of America as Virginia, Texas, Mississippi and Georgia become the last states readmitted to the Union.
If, like me, you are a Big Ten Football fan, you’ll be interested to know that the institution that would become the Ohio State University was founded in March of this year under the name the Ohio Agriculture and Mechanical College.
If you are, instead, an ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) fan you may be interested to know that Syracuse University was founded this year as well.
The US Department of Justice was founded in June of this year. I’m not making any comments…
Christmas becomes a federal holiday meaning that Congress gets one more day to officially not do their jobs.
The first woman to legally cast a vote in the United States (since 1807…can you imagine the home life of the guys who voted to take away a woman’s right to vote???) does so in Wyoming in September.
The forerunner of the National Weather Service makes it’s first prediction. There is no mention of how accurate it was.

And of course the reason we are interested in 1870 today is that I recently bought a bottle of Old Forester 1870 “Original Batch.” The company says that George Garvin Brown—I wonder if we are allowed to say his name without the middle name, I never see him listed as George Brown—bought bourbon from three different distilleries to make Old Forester. So to honor that they chose bourbon from three different warehouses with three different entry proofs and ages. Sounds pretty cool, though it makes me wonder: just how many entry proofs does Brown Forman use?

Old Forester 1870 Original Batch

Purchase Info: $38.99, 750 mL. Total Wine, Burnsville, MN.

Details: 45% ABV

Nose: Floral apples, brown sugar and freshly painted walls

Mouth: The first sip is nice and spicy with cinnamon and cayenne. It’s sweet. Fruity pears and melon lurk underneath.

Finish: Decent length with lingering oak and more sweetness.

A smiling face showing that I like this bourbon.

Thoughts: This is a really tasty bourbon. Is it twice as good as Old Forester 86 proof at $19.99? No. But bourbon math rarely works in such a linear fashion. It is too expensive for a regular purchase. I mean, it’s even more expensive that Woodford Reserve where I bought it. But I could see splurging now and again on this spicier and oakier expression of your typical Old Forester/Woodford flavor profile.

I.W. Harper 15 Year Old Bourbon Whiskey

July 14, 2015 Eric Burke

IW Harper 15 year old bourbon in decanter shaped bottle. A glass of bourbon on the side.

On Friday I adopted another dog. Her name is Maddy and she is a five year old American Eskimo. She came to our attention on Facebook of all places. Our city has a local Facebook group where people can list items for sale. A couple of weeks ago one of the items listed was Maddy.

Maddy doesn’t have a particularly sad story. She had an owner who rescued her when Maddy was 14 weeks old. She loved her very much and spoiled her rotten. And the love was very much returned. But then her owner met a man. And as is sometimes the case, they had a baby. All of a sudden, Maddy’s owner didn’t have the time or energy to give Maddy the attention or exercise she needed.

Maddy tried to give her owner time to come back around, but between the baby and her job as a nanny, Maddy’s owner was leaving her alone for longer and longer per day. When it started reaching 12 hours per day, she knew something had to be done and was smart, loving and brave enough to try to find Maddy a new home. She had two separate potential new owners express interest. Both flaked before anything permanent could happen.

But as they say, the third time’s the charm. When we saw Maddy’s photo, we knew we had to at least meet her. As I often do with dogs, I immediately fell in love. We did a couple visits to make sure she would get along with our other dog, Whiskey and on Friday she came to our house for good.

The most interesting thing about getting an American Eskimo is people’s reaction. It is almost always something along the lines of: “Whoa. That’s going to be a big one.” In reality, they are thinking of a Samoyed or something along those lines. An American Eskimo is slightly larger than a Pomeranian. It’s funny how so many people can collectively make the exact same mistake regarding something.

Of course we all do this. We just know what something is and so never bother to look. Myself included. I have an idea of what something is and buy it or avoid it based on that idea even though I’ve never had it. Case in point the I.W. Harper 15 year old bourbon that was recently released. After living with the regular release for a while, I wasn’t sure I wanted to waste $60 on something named I.W. Harper, even if it did say 15 years old on it.

The I.W. Harper story and Maddy’s story have a few similarities. They both started out well loved by their original owners, but as time went on, circumstances changed. More and more, they needed love that they weren’t getting. Eventually things got bad enough that a change was needed. There were some down times. In I.W. Harper’s case, it was taken out of it’s home market. Maddy couldn’t find an owner that would want her. But then circumstances changed. Maddy found us. I.W. Harper…well it’s certainly getting some promotional love. The regular release wasn’t really worthy of it. Let’s see how the 15 year fares.

I.W. Harper. Bourbon Whiskey, Aged 15 Years

Purchase Info: $59.99, 750 mL. Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Details: Aged 15 years. 43% ABV. Really pretty bottle that looks like an old decanter.

Nose: Caramel cookie dough mixed with faint red berries. Sweet with some clove spice.

Mouth: Decent spice: ginger and cloves. Sweet brown sugar and a nice hit of oak.

Finish: On the longer side of medium. Lingering sweetness and oak.

Thoughts: I really like this one. There is enough oak to be interesting but not so much as to be overwhelming. It’s sweet, but has nice spice. It’s a limited release, but if it sticks around long enough, I could see myself picking up a second bottle. At the same time, it isn’t so good that I’ll be too sad if I don’t get another chance at it.

Oh and in case you were curious, here's a photo of my new sweet little Maddy. She loves to ride in the truck.

Review of the new release of I.W. Harper

July 9, 2015 Eric Burke

I just wish there were more. Sweet, spicy, rich and floral sum this up nicely. The color is even beautiful. It is a joy to look at, smell and taste. Just yum.

That's what I said about a small mini of I.W. Harper from the early 70s. It was delicious. It was also a one of a kind deal. So it was with great interest that I read that I.W. Harper was being brought back to the US. I didn't imagine that a new version would taste nearly as good as the one from 40 years ago, but I wondered if there might be some sort of family resemblance.

Yes. I got over that pretty quick when I remembered who owned the brand now. I'm not one of those folks who think that Diageo (the current brand owner) is specifically out to stomp on the notion of fair priced whiskey that tastes good. But they have gone on record as saying they think there is extra profit to be taken in American Whiskey. And have put out some bourbon with pretty steep prices. Plus they don't actually have a distillery making bourbon right now. So whatever they put out was probably bought from someone else.

All this is to say that even before I picked it up, I knew this wouldn't be anything like what I had had before. But that tiny voice saying "what if..." got the better of me. And so I bought it.

I.W. Harper

Purchase Info: $29.99, 750 mL. Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN

Details: 41% ABV.

Nose: Old wood, sweet banana, apple slices, floral perfume

Mouth: Thin and flat. Brown sugar and wood tannins.

Finish: A bit of the floral notes from the nose show up before being steamrolled by bitter oak tannins.

Thoughts: Very disappointing. The nose was light, fruity and delicate. The mouth was flat and full of wood. When I first nosed it I thought I was getting one whiskey. I ended up getting another that I didn't like as much. As far as quality, this is a solid meh. It's not terrible, but for almost $30 you expect something more than a mixer. I'd give this one a pass.

Dry Fly Straight Triticale Whiskey

July 7, 2015 Eric Burke

So. Craft whiskey.

I haven’t written about a craft whiskey in a while.

There’s a reason for that. I’ve been burned too often to want to pull the trigger on buying them when I see them in the store. I used to try every whiskey I could get my hands on. Big producers, small producers, bottlers, blenders, it didn’t matter. And I loved the idea of supporting small distilleries with my love and money. But there was a problem.

Out of all the ones I tried, I remember a handful that I really liked. There are very few would I want to spend my money on a second time. I know how the process works. I know that economies of scale play a big part in the “craft price,” but there weren’t many that I felt were…well…good. Much less good enough to justify an inflated price.

So I haven’t picked one up in a while. But I have tried a few at whiskey events, just to know where things are at. And in doing that I found a couple of producers that I felt warrented another look. One of those was Dry Fly Distilling out of Spokane, Washington. I’d heard their name, seen their product on the shelves, even read some reviews. But as I said, I’ve been burned before. I just didn’t want to drop the coin until I could be assured I’d at least be interested by the product. After trying it, I felt it was worth the risk. Especially for one where it was made out of an interesting grain.

Triticale is a hybrid grain. It was bred from wheat and rye in the late 1800s, but, according to wikipedia has only recently been commercially viable as a crop. If you want to know more you can read it yourself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triticale). But what interested me about it was what it would bring to a whiskey. Would it be anything like other rye or wheat whiskies I’d had? Would it be soft or spicy? Would it be any good?

Dry Fly Straight Triticale Whiskey

Purchase Info: $29.99, 375 mL. Casanova Liquors, Hudson, WI. (It sells for between $39 and $49 for a 750 mL around the Twin Cities.)

Details: 44% ABV. Straight with no age statement so if all the rules were followed we should assume this is at least four years old in new barrels.

Nose: Bubble gum. Banana fruitiness. A light touch of caramel and baking spices.

Mouth: Spicier than I’d expect at 88 proof. A touch solventy at first. Sweet banana bread at the front of the mouth transitions to a nice minty rye spiciness as it moves toward a swallow.

Finish: A tad solventy again on the finish. Sweet and spicy. It fades to a nice bitterness that makes you want another sip.

Thoughts: I’m very pleasantly surprised by this. The more I taste of it, the more I like it. The only knock I have is that solvent note, but it seems to fade fairly fast. I’m guessing that as I finish the bottle it may even disappear. It tastes young, but I really like it. I can’t wait to try more by these guys.

Woodford Reserve Rye

July 2, 2015 Eric Burke

Back in August 2012 I said the following:

"Overall I liked this whiskey. I didn't care for the price. $100 is a lot for this, but the experience and the satiated curiosity were worth it, even if the whiskey was not. Based on this, if Woodford released a permanent rye in the price range of their original bourbon, I'd give it the occasional look."

I was talking about the Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection New and Aged Cask Ryes that were released in 2011 . I enjoyed the experience of trying the same juice aged in two different types of barrels and I enjoyed the whiskeys. So it was with some interest that I read that Brown Foreman was releasing that rye expression I had asked for.

I read varying comments around the web at the time of the announcement. Most of them were...not positive. But I tried to remind people that Brown-Forman was the company that until recently was producing the very tasty Rittenhouse Rye for Heaven Hill. Even if nothing else about them making it was applicable, at least they knew how to handle rye in such a way it made a tasty whiskey. Didn't seem to help much.

I decided to just wait and see. I knew it would be some time before we got Woodford Rye here in Minnesota. Heck, we've just received the first release in the Old Forester Whiskey Row series (1870). Coincidentally, right around the time the second release hit the stores in Kentucky.

My wait and see approach lasted until business happened to take my wife to Cincinnati. Flying into Cincinnati lands you in Kentucky. In Kentucky fairly close to the Party Source. So I told her that I would be happy to stay at home all alone while she had fun at a conference if she would bring me a few things back. One of those was the Woodford Reserve Rye.

This weekend we decided to taste it.

Woodford Reserve Rye

Purchase Info: $38.99, 750 mL. The Party Source, Bellevue, KY

Details: 45.2% ABV. Batch 002

Nose: Mint, cedar, honey sweetness, black tea

Mouth: Cinnamon and clove, mint, black tea, buckwheat honey.

Finish: Decent length. Cedar, mint, black tea.

Thoughts: I’m very impressed with this rye. It has an interesting depth of flavor while still retaining the standard minty/spicy rye character. It’s tannic, but not overly so. Sweet, but not cloying. Spicy, but not overly hot. Black tea was a bit of a surprise note for me, but it seemed to work well. There are hints of the flavors of the bourbons produced by Old Forester/Woodford Reserve. I’m guessing that is coming from the yeast. Overall, I like this as much as I thought I would. It’s tasty.

Blog

New Riff New Make distilled from a Rye Mash

Wiser’s Red Letter - 2014 Release

Collingwood 21 Year Old Rye

Old Forester 1870 Original Batch

I.W. Harper. Bourbon Whiskey, Aged 15 Years

I.W. Harper

Dry Fly Straight Triticale Whiskey

Woodford Reserve Rye