Woodford Reserve Distillery Series: Double Double Oaked

Double Double Oaked. What does that mean? Well, with Woodford Reserve Double Oaked the mature Woodford is put into a second new barrel for six months to a year. This second barrel has been heavily toasted and very lightly charred. In the case of the Distillery Series Double Double Oaked that year in the second barrel has been lengthened to two years. So it was double oaked for double the time.

And since Woodford experiments tend to be hit or miss, I guess the only real question is: is it any good?

Woodford Reserve Distillery Series: Double Double Oaked

Purchase info: $50 for a 375mL bottle at the Woodford Reserve Distillery Gift Shop, Versailles, KY

Details: Summer 2015 release, 45.2% ABV

Nose: Brown sugar, caramel, cloves and a hit of latex paint.

Mouth: Sweet and spicy. Butterscotch and baking spices with a hint of fruit and bubble gum.

Finish: Warm and tingly. It starts sweet and transitions to a dry spiciness with a lingering not of “Brown Forman latex paint.”

A smile because I really like this

Thoughts: This is quite tasty. It has good spice and is sweeter than I would have initially expected. This tastes like a Brown Forman bourbon though so if you are not a fan of Old Forester or Woodford Reserve, this is one you might want to pass on. If however you are like me and really tend to like their stuff, then this is a tasty treat and you should grab it if you have the opportunity. Especially if you are a fan of the Double Oaked.

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Woodford Reserve Distillery Series: Sweet Mash Redux

Sour mash fermenting is the process of adding a little bit of the leftovers from a previous batch of fermented and distilled mash (called variously: backset, stillage, slop, all that mash that wasn't alcohol, etc) to your current fermentation run. It’s done to adjust the pH so that the little yeasties have a slightly more ideal environment for eating, growing, procreating and excreting precious, precious alcohol. 

But what happens at the beginning of the cycle when there isn’t any leftover sour mash left? Well then you’d do a non-soured, or sweet, mash batch (or you'd just adjust the pH in some other manner). By not adjusting the pH you adjust how both enzymes work during cooking and how yeast does its gobbling, procreating and alcohol production during fermentation. Either of which could very possibly lead to different flavors being produced in the end product.

A few years ago, Woodford Reserve released a Sweet Mash bourbon under their Master’s Collection label. They must have thought enough of the effort that they decided to try it out again and released Sweet Mash Redux as one of their first releases in the gift shop only Distillery Series.

Woodford Reserve Distillery Series: Sweet Mash Redux

Purchase Info: $50 for a 375 mL bottle at Woodford Reserve Gift Shop, Versailles KY.

Details: 45.2% ABV. Uses a non-soured mash. Summer 2015 release.

Nose: Corn flakes, warehouse dust and the usual Woodford/Old Forester latex paint note.

Mouth: Strong perfumed grain presence with spearmint, citrus, raisins and a hint of baking spices.

Finish: Baking spices, raisins, citrus and a nice tingle that hangs around a while.

A frowny face becasue I don't like this one

Thoughts: I’m not a huge fan of this one. It is fairly similar to regular Woodford, but with a much stronger perfumed grain and raisin presence that I am finding more than a bit off-putting. The difference is interesting and if you are more interested in being interested by a bourbon than in keeping your $50 for something tasty, feel free to grab it. But otherwise I have a hard time recommending this one on taste alone.

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Wild Turkey Diamond Anniversary

Ever pay money for an expensive bourbon only to find out that it’s…not bad? I mean one that is fine, but for the price you were kind of expecting…better? The it’s a decent bourbon, but not for it’s price range sort of thing?

I honestly hope you haven’t. Unfortunately, I have. Numerous times. And I’ve shared them with you. Numerous times. And it saddens me to say that tonight I’m going to be doing it again.

Wild Turkey Diamond Anniversary is a bourbon that I think people were excited about trying before it came out. It was an Wild Turkey expression made up of 13 and 16 year old bourbons. It was put out honor a legend’s 60th anniversary in the business. Everything was set up for this to be a special release. 

Then it came out. The reviews were nice, but less than stellar with most of them being something along the lines of what I described above. I decided early on that I wasn’t going to be purchasing it. The MSRP was out of my price range and though I love almost everything Wild Turkey has put out, I had to pass.

Then my wife got auction fever. We were at the Oscar Getz Museum Master Distillers Auction during BourbonFest 2015 when this bottle came up for bid. It came with a set of four nice tumblers. No one was bidding on it and she felt bad. She ended up getting the bottle and the tumblers for $140. A little below MSRP once you toss in the price of four glasses. We figured that it was for charity and any bottle that wasn’t sold wouldn’t help the museum. So she waited until it fell below MSRP and pounced. She was the only bidder.

Wild Turkey Diamond Anniversary

Purchase Info: $140 at BourbonFest Master Distillers Auction (with 4 glasses included), Bardstown, KY

Details: 45.5% ABV. A blend of 13 and 16 year old whiskeys. 

Nose: Kind of flat on the nose with sweet fruit and oak.

Mouth: Sweet. Brown sugar, oak and baking spice.

Finish: Lingering oak and caramel flavors. Slight heat and spiciness.

For the price I find this to be just...meh.

Thoughts: This is a whiskey that either fits your palate or doesn’t. I find it flat and uninspiring while my wife really likes it. Neither of us are looking to buy a second bottle though, not even when Total Wine put it on sale for $89. 

To be honest, if I’m going to spend a lot on Wild Turkey, I’d go with Master’s Keep. I actually picked up a second bottle of that when I saw it for $130 (I also saw it all over the place for around $150). If I’m not trying to spend a lot, I like the Rare Breed better than the Diamond and it is less than one third the price. Both of them tend to be more energetic in the mouth than Diamond, which is something I like about Wild Turkey normally. 

Diamond is not a bad bourbon. It’s actually quite good. It’s just not $90 to $130 good. For the price and the pedigree, I expected a lot more. 

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Wiser's Legacy

Early in my fanatical, must-try-everything phase of whisky exploration, I was offered the chance to blind taste a bunch of Canadian whiskies on Twitter along with author Davin De Kergommeaux and an international group of whisky fans and bloggers. As I was eager to try all the things, I jumped at the chance. Among other things, this experience taught me that there is some really good whisky coming out of Canada. 

Today's whisky was not in that group. But one of it's sibling was. Though Wiser's Red Letter was only available in Canada, it showed me that I really needed to be paying more attention to the stuff that was crossing our northern border. I knew Red Letter was a special whisky, so I went in search of another whisky that was a little more readily available. 

I found it in Wiser's Legacy. One sip and I was in love. Due to the nature of the try-all-the-whiskies phase I was in, I fooled around with a lot of different whiskies. I'd buy a bottle, we'd have some fun, but eventually something else would catch my eye and I'd move on. Not so with the Legacy. With Legacy, I knew I'd found a whisky to settle down with. 

Until rumors started popping up that Legacy was being pulled back to a Canada-only release. The rumor went that what was in the States was all that was going to be there. I nearly cried. Instead I did the one thing that I normally never do. I bought up enough bottles that I would be assured a supply should the rumors be true. Now, a few years later, it seems that that rumor was just that. But, from that point on, I've always had at least one "buffer bottle" in the closet to go with my one open bottle. And once a bottle is emptied, I buy another so I have a supply as long as possible. 

It's a comforting thing knowing that no matter what happens, you will always have at least one more bottle of that one you wanted to settle down with.

Wiser's Legacy

Purchase info: I've bought so many, but one bottle I still have a receipt for says: $42.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Surdyk's, Minneapolis, MN.

Details: 45% ABV.

Nose: Bubble gum, spearmint, hints of baking spice.

Mouth: Nice spicy rye tingle, mint, delicate oak and baking spices with more bubble gum underneath.

Finish: rye spice, mint, bubble gum and a gentle heat that lingers.

A heart because I love this.

Thoughts: This has been my favorite Canadian whisky for quite some time and no matter how many I buy, it continues to maintain that top spot. It is delicate with just the right amount of heat. Sweet, but also spicy. Amazingly well-balanced with well integrated flavors. I always have at least one bottle of this in reserve (though normally two).

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Woodford Reserve Master's Collection 1838 Style White Corn

Once a year, Woodford Reserve releases a new whiskey in its Master’s Collection Line. Each release is a an expression of curiosity and experimentation. Woodford likes to tout its “five sources of flavor: (water, grain, fermentation, distillation and maturation).” In each release of the Master’s Collection they change one of those five things. Previous years have mostly included changing either the grain or the maturation, though there was one year where they did a sweet mash fermentation instead of the typical sour mash. 

I’d love to see them come out with a version where they change out the water. Not because I’d want to buy it, necessarily. But I’d love to see every pundit on the internet explode when they release the Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection: Bardstown Water edition for $100. 

After changing the maturation last year with a Pinot Noir finish, this year they are continuing the Tick-Tock of changing grain and maturation by changing the grain from yellow corn to white corn. This is exactly the type of experimentation I like. It is a seemingly minor change that may or may not make a huge difference.

Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection: 1838 Style White Corn

Purchase Info: $89.99 for 750mL bottle at McDonald’s Liquors, Minneapolis, MN.

Details: 45.2% ABV

Nose: Juicy tropical fruits which transition to dusty, earthy corn and oak.

Mouth: Dusty corn and oak, cayenne, tropical fruits and baking spices.

Finish: More tropical fruits and then a slightly bitter dusty corn along with a lingering gentle heat. 

Not good, not bad...just kinda meh.

Thoughts: This isn’t terribly different than the normal release of Woodford Reserve. It’s a little rougher around the edges. It has a bit more earthiness and funk to it. It is certainly more interesting, though in this case that isn’t exactly a good thing since I find the regular release tastier in its understated way. 

This is a whiskey where I find my opinion changing as the conditions I’m drinking it in change. I liked it the first time I had it in a normal rocks glass. When I did the tasting notes, I hated it. I wrote things in my notes like: “it’s hard to pay $100 for interesting when you realize you need to choke down the rest of the bottle.” As I normally do, I’m having a little more as I write about it (drinking not tasting) and my opinion has swung back toward my initial reaction. 

It’s ok. It’s interesting. It’s also overpriced since it tastes like a rougher and less refined version of the regular release. But for all of that, it is mildly recommended if you like seeing the results of experimentation. Because I think this will tend to be a like it or hate it sort of whiskey, I’d try it in a bar first. It’s too pricey to just flat out recommend.

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J.T.S. Brown Bottled in Bond

So there I am. I’m in Bardstown for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival and I get a the idea to go bourbon shopping. 

I know, shocker! Right?

Anyway I tend to like Heaven Hill Bonded products. Evan Williams Bonded might be one of my top 3 favorite inexpensive (sub $20) bourbons. JW Dant won the Bottom-Shelf Brackets a few years back and I remembered liking both Old Fitzgerald and Heaven Hill Gold Label (when it was still a thing). So I thought it might be fun to see what else they were putting out that I hadn’t seen up in the great white north. 

I was at Keystone Liquors in Bardstown when I got my eye on a 750 of JTS Brown. Knowing it met the above criteria, I grabbed it and made my way to the checkout counter. 

“Oooh really going for the good stuff there, huh?” the young man behind the counter asked me as I paid the bill. All of a sudden I had a bad feeling about this. But compared to most of the things I brought back from Kentucky, the price was right for experimentation.

Today JTS Brown is a bourbon put out by Heaven Hill. But like so many items that live on the bottom shelf these days, JTS Brown is an old name. It is named after John Thompson Street Brown (the older half-brother of George Garvin Brown of Brown-Forman fame) who created the brand sometime in the latter half of the 19th century.

JTS Brown Bottled in Bond

Purchase Info: I lost the receipt but seem to recall it being in the lower teens for a 750 mL bottle at Keystone Liquors, Bardstown, KY.

Details: 50% ABV. Distilled at D.S.P-KY-1, Louisville, KY. Bottle at D.S.P-KY-31, Bardstown, KY.

Nose: Delicate fruitiness, dried corn and hints of mint.

Mouth: Caramel, dried corn and mint.

Finish: Quickly transforms to a bitter mess upon swallowing with dried corn, mint and cloves.

frowny face because I dislike this one

Thoughts: This bourbon starts out quite nice. I like the nose. The mouth is pleasant, though uninspiring. But I’m having a hard time getting over the dusty bitter grain finish. This is where it falls apart for me. Let’s just say that, unlike most of the Heaven Hill bonded bourbons I’ve had, this bourbon lives solidly in the “you get what you pay for” camp. And it isn’t one that will be returning home with me again.

UPDATE!!!!!!!
By popular demand, I have relented and now—almost two years later—I have revisited my review of this. Guess what? Ya'll were right. I liked it.  😉

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Four Roses Single Barrel, Gift Shop - September 2015 Brent Elliott selection

Change is hard sometimes. That’s an understatement, right? For examples see the uproar after any change on any social network. Change is so hard for people to take that even rumors of change can cause news articles to be written. (Real headline from Fortune on New Years Eve 2015: Facebook Might Change It’s Newsfeed.)

Change is especially hard when it involves something you really like. Years ago, I ran the art department of a magazine. When I took over, I wanted to clean up the look of the book a little. In my research, I remember reading a lot of angry letters in other magazines that took them to task for the smallest of changes. I’m thankful that this was basically pre-internet being useful for much or I’d have probably been too scared to make my changes. Because, believe it or not, people don’t like it when you mess with their stuff. 

And I really do mean their stuff. People get invested in their favorite brands and products. And the bourbon-world is no exception. The popular outcry that forced Maker’s Mark to reverse an unpopular business decision a few years ago is proof of how much people love their chosen bourbon. 

Last summer well-loved bourbon brand Four Roses announced a change of a different sort. Beloved Master Distiller Jim Rutledge was retiring. And while there was honest congratulations for him on a well-deserved retirement, there was also an underlying nervousness. Would the bourbon change? Would the quality decrease? Would they put out a flavored bourbon now?

And while it will take some time to find the answers to the first couple of nervous questions, newly minted Master Distiller Brent Elliott got a round of applause when he announced to a September crowd that the answer to that last question was a resounding no. 

But wait, I guess there actually is a way to get a hint of the hands, or at least the palate, that now puts its stamp on Four Roses. And that is to grab a gift shop single barrel selection chosen by him. Which is what I did last September when I visited. Along with the a bottle of one of Mr. Rutledge’s last selections (which I will be sitting on for a bit), I grabbed one of the first two selections by Mr. Elliott for the gift shop. I figure it should be a fair assessment of what he thought was good. 

Four Roses Gift Shop Selection

Purchase Info: Roughly $76 after tax for a 750mL at the Four Roses Gift Shop

Details: OBSF, 11 years 4 months old, Chosen by Master Distiller Brent Elliott, Bottled September 2015, 51.2% ABV, Warehouse GW, Barrel 81-1F

Nose: Sweet fruitiness, cinnamon, mint, brown sugar. After some time in the glass rich oaky notes of tobacco and leather are revealed.

Mouth: The mouth leads with a spicy cool tingle before resolving into oak, cloves, eucalyptus, honey and pears.

Finish: The finish is long with a warmth that settles in the chest and a minty coolness in the mouth. Pears and eucalyptus linger.

A heart because I love this

Thoughts: If I had any fears that the quality of the barrel selections would drop off at the gift shop once Mr Rutledge wasn’t doing the choosing, those fears are laid to rest. While this is certainly different than any of the other picks I’ve gotten there in the past, it is just as tasty. Love this one.

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