Parker's Heritage Collection: Promise of Hope

A couple of years ago, my wife was diagnosed with cancer. It was a scary time in our life. After she beat the disease, our outlook changed. We realized that we were not, in fact, invincible. Personally, I realized that I needed to focus more on what was truly important in life. That instead of just existing, I wanted to make sure that the world would be a better place for my having been here. Even though I wasn’t the one that was sick, it made me realize that I wanted to be a better person. For her.

Last year it was announced that Parker Beam, Master Distiller at Heaven Hill, had been diagnosed with ALS. ALS is a disease that attacks the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary movement. In the fall of 2013, Heaven Hill released the most recent edition of the Parker’s Heritage Collection, a single barrel bourbon named Promise of Hope. They are donating $20 for each bottle sold to ALS research. I don’t know what impulse caused Heaven Hill to decide to make the donation, but I hope that it mirrors my own experience. I do know that my wife wanted it just a little bit more after finding out that they were doing that and I bought a bottle the day it hit our liquor store. 

This spring, I finally cracked it open.

Parker’s Heritage Collection: Promise of Hope

Purchase info: ~$90 at Haskell’s Wine & Spirits, Burnsville, MN

Details: Single barrel, rye-based bourbon. 48% ABV

Nose: This has the most perfect bourbon nose. Sweet maple syrup, oak, baking spices and a hint of mint.

Mouth: Brown sugar, maple syrup and baking spices

Finish: warm and pleasant with lingering spice and bitterness.

Thoughts: Oh! The nose on this one! I’ve spent a long time just nosing this bourbon. Just laying on the couch with the glass perched under my nose, reading a book and smelling this bourbon. The taste doesn’t disappoint either. It’s not fancy but, in my mind, it is the perfect example of an archetypal bourbon. It embodies what I imagine when I imagine bourbon. Just perfect. So much so that right after I cracked it open, I went back to the store and bought a second bottle. To me, if it wasn’t the best release of 2013, it is at least in the conversation.

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If you look, you might be able to still find one of these. Great bourbon for a great cause. If you missed out on it, you can still make a donation to Parker’s Promise of Hope and help fight ALS. 

Evan Williams Barrel Proof: a tasty, but expensive souvenir jug

It was a Sunday in February. I was driving through Kentucky on my way to an overnight stop in Louisville. I was looking to stop at a few distilleries. Looking to bring home some thing a bit special. I stopped at Four Roses but already had one of each of their Single Barrel selections. I tried stopping at Jim Beam, but they were closed. Looked up Willett, closed. Finally I gave up. I went to the hotel, checked in and decided to go for a walk downtown. 

As we were walking, I remembered the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience. I didn’t need another tour, but they did have a gift shop. And I seemed to remember that they had things there I couldn’t buy in the store. So I ducked in.

There were a few people who had just finished tour in there. I mingled around with them until a jug caught my eye. It was a short, squat stoneware jug. Picking it up, I noticed a photo of the actor who played Evan Williams in the movies you see as part of the tour. I also noticed the words: Evan Williams Barrel Proof on the front. That got my attention. I looked around for the price list. 

One hundred dollars. I did the math quickly. Eighty proof version for $15. One hundred proof version for $20. One hundred twenty five proof version for $100. Seemed like a high markup. I waffled a bit. Finally, I decided to buy it. It was the one shot I had left, on this trip, to buy something special that I couldn’t get at home. I felt a bit like a tool as I walked up to the counter to pay. 

As I was paying, a worker came up and asked if I’d tried it. I told him I hadn’t, but was looking forward to it. So he grabbed a bottle, opened it up and poured my wife and I each a small sample. He also poured the lady ringing me up a sample and a couple gentlemen who were still wandering around from before I wandered in. 

The two gentleman winced and thought it was a bit much for them. They stared in wonder as my wife’s eyes lit up and she uttered: “oooh, that’s gooood!” The lady behind the counter also seemed to appreciate it. I felt much less like a tool after that. The bottle they were pouring from was delicious. If the one I was buying was as well, it’d be worth the price.

So we paid, walked back to the hotel and I forgot about it for a while. When I got home, it went into the closet with the rest of the overflow stash. Until now.

Evan Williams Barrel Proof

Purchase info: $100, Evan Willams Bourbon Experience, Louisville, KY

Details: 62.5% ABV

Nose: oak, dry earth, ginger, allspice and after a while loads of brown sugar

Mouth: sweet and spicy with caramel, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon and hints of ripe cherries

Finish: Long with a warmth that settles in for the duration. Ginger, mint and the bitterness of grapefruit pith

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Thoughts: This is delicious. I love it! If you go just by the math, this is a terrible buy. But let’s just say that the next time I’m in Louisville, I’ll be stopping in to see if they have another. I might even buy two.

UPDATE: As of my September 2014 visit, this product had been discontinued due to manufacturing issues with the jugs. It was devastating news because this was a fantastic product.

Smooth Ambler: Old Scout 10

We’ve all been there. You walk into your local bourbon emporium looking to buy something new. Something you haven’t had before. But where to start? If you are like me, you started by grabbing one of the nicest bottles you could find. These cost a bit more, so they must be better… right?

After a while you exhaust the top couple shelves and since you are still looking to try that next one you move down a shelf. Maybe you move down a couple shelves. In any case after a while, as you scan across the multitude of bottles on the shelves, you start to realize that a lot of the “distilleries” named on the back of the bottles seem to all be located in the same few towns in Kentucky. 

“Wow, Kentucky has a lot of distilleries you think to yourself.” After you do your research, you realize that, no, it really doesn’t. Most of those are all made by the same 8 distilleries. They’ve been lying to you all along. “Well, I’ll just stick with craft whiskey,” you think to yourself. “At least then I know who’s selling me the bourbon I’m buying” 

Yeah… One of the saddest days in an educated drinker’s life is the day that he or she realizes that they can’t trust marketing. That it seems that every liquor company under the sun is actively trying to trick you out of your money. It doesn’t take much curiosity to know that only a relative few craft distillers really are distillers. Those that are should be supported and celebrated. They are not only competing against the big guys, but they are competing against independent bottlers who claim to be craft distillers. People who denigrate the good name of your local craft distiller with lies about old family recipes and gangsters. 

Smooth Ambler, in Maxwelton, WV, is not one of these people. They are a craft distiller. They are also an independent bottler. And they admit as much every where they can. I’ve seen it on their website, on twitter, they even tell you in person when you visit. They’ve gone so far as to make sure that the whiskey they make and the whiskey they only bottle have two different brand names. Smooth Ambler is the stuff they make, Old Scout is the stuff they only sell.

I respect the hell out of that. And it is especially easy since they make a product with a lot of promise and sell a product that is really damn tasty. On my last visit, after my wife fell in love with it at the after-tour tasting, I bought a bottle of Old Scout Ten from the gift shop. A bourbon that’s been in oak just over twice as long as Smooth Ambler has been in business. (Once again, information that is freely available on the label.)

Old Scout Ten

Purchase info: Somewhere around $50 for 750 ml, Smooth Ambler distillery gift shop (lost the receipt).

Bottle Details: Batch 10, Bottled on 10/29/2013, 50% ABV, “at least 10 years old”

Nose: An initial second of buttered popcorn before moving into what can only be described as apple pie filling. Cooked apples and baking spices. And of course, a nice hit of caramel to go with it.

Mouth: Vanilla, caramel, dark chocolate, mint, ginger and clove. 

Finish: long, warm and sweet with lingering ginger, clove and mint. 

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Thoughts: I love this one. It is the basic essence of what I look for in a bourbon. Share this with your friends. Even though it’s a tad aggressive...yum. I’m buying more next time I see it.

A visit to Smooth Ambler and a review of their Yearling Bourbon

In November of 2013 I was traveling through West Virginia. It was Black Friday and I was in the mood to follow that great American tradition of spending money. As it was my first time through West Virginia, I only knew of one place to stop. Smooth Ambler, in Maxwelton, WV is a fairly short detour off of Interstate 64 at the Lewisburg exit.

I stopped in fairly late in the afternoon, not really expecting to get on a tour, but hoping to at least give them a little of my hard earned cash. To my happy surprise, I was able to do both. 

We joined up with a tour already in progress in the still room. 

Shiny fermenters all in a row. A far cry from the giant tanks that the big boys use, but if you aren't making as much as them one giant tank would be much less flexible than a few smaller ones. 

An empty barrel waiting to be filled. As you can see, they get their barrels from Independent Stave (like almost everyone else) and they like char #4. Which according to our tour guide on the ISC tour is pretty much what almost everyone gets. 

Bourbon barrels filled just a day or so before we visited. This is either the start of a new set of racks or they are waiting to be put somewhere. Most of the stacks were twice this high.

Apparently they are aging a wheat whiskey and something called 50/50 as well. 

After aging was tasting. I really like this tasting room. I'm a big fan of red and wood together. 

Though they make a gin and a vodka, my wife and I decided to concentrate on those things that spent some time in a barrel. I tried the Barrel Aged Gin and found it to be a tasty gin. I also tried the Old Scout Rye. I knew before I tasted it that they did not make this. One of the things that I liked about these guys is that they made no secret of that fact. There was no claiming it was from a secret family recipe that a gangster used to prefer. It was just "we bought this because we liked it and now you get the chance to like it too." And I did. I thought it was tasty. My wife tried the Old Scout and Old Scout Ten. She liked it enough that that's the bottle we brought home with us. Unfortunately I was not able to try the Yearling which is the only bourbon that they've put out that they made. So that meant I needed to keep my eyes open for it on the way home. I was really interested in trying something that was admittedly only put out to satisfy the curiosity that whiskey geeks had over what the products they made themselves might taste like. Luckily the Party Source was able to satisfy my desire.

Smooth Ambler Yearling Bourbon

Purchase Info: $24 per 375mL bottle, The Party Source, Bellevue, KY

Details: Batch 6, Bottle Date: 11/14/12, Aged: 1 year 8 months, wheated bourbon, 46% ABV

Nose: grain and butterscotch

Mouth: young, hot and sweet. This is the sweetness of grain though, not of barrels.

Finish: longish with a lingering sweetness that transitions to vegetal

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Thoughts: To say that this is good would be a gross overstatement. That does not mean however that is it bad. It is what it is. It's a young bourbon that needed much more time to mature. It shows a lot of promise though and I can consider my curiosity duly satisfied. I'm excited to see what this will turn into with 5-8 more years under it's belt. For now though satisfy your curiosity, but don't expect much more out of it.

Head-to-Head Booker's: 25th Anniversary vs Batch 2013-6

I was passing through Kentucky when Jim Beam released the Booker’s 25th Anniversary bourbon. Unfortunately it was a Sunday in February and nothing was open. Not even the distillery. I knew that if I wanted to taste this, I would have very few chances. 

That night at the hotel bar in Louisville (Louisville being one of the few places I travel to that the hotel bar is worth stopping at) I saw a bottle of the 25th on the shelf. I ordered it, paid my $35 and decided that, while it was tasty, it wasn’t that much better than the Booker’s I had on my shelf. I counted myself lucky and mentally moved on for the night.

I had plenty of time to think about that bourbon on the drive home the next day. It started snowing in Champaign, Illinois and ended about Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. White-out, white-knuckle conditions. We didn’t go over 25 miles per hour the entire time and even that may have been too fast at times. By the time we got back to Minneapolis, it was late. The normal 13 hour drive had ballooned into a 17 hour one. And all I wanted was a bourbon. I grabbed the Booker’s I had at home and tried to unwind from the trip.

It was good. Was it better than the 25th Anniversary? I tried to tell myself it was. I tried really hard to convince myself. And it was easy since it had seemed I’d missed my shot at getting the 25th.

After a couple days though, I decided that I couldn’t let this pass without at least trying to get it. I sent an email to a guy I know who works at a local liquor store chain. In the past, he’d gotten me a lot of bottles that I had requested, including a bottle of the Four Roses Limited Small Batch 2012 (though he wasn’t able to get the 2013 for me). I figured the worst that could happen was he wouldn’t be able to.

He placed the order with the distributor. The distributor didn’t have any, but placed the order and got his hands on a case. But then, the order was intercepted by management. It seems that the chain has a standing rule that anything that might be even a little special go to their main store to be included in a “lottery” event. My guy called, stated his case (and my case), and got one bottle reluctantly released to me. 

I felt pretty happy to get my hands on a bottle of the Booker’s 25th Anniversary bourbon. It was a bit expensive at $100 but I remembered it being worth it. And finally I’d get a chance to see if I was fooling myself when I thought I liked the regular release better.

Booker’s Bourbon

Purchase Info: $47, Burnsville, MN 

Details: Batch# 2013-6, 62.95% ABV, aged 7 years, 6 months

Nose: Starts sweet with a strong alcohol burn. After it settles down a bit, it transitions into something very much akin to green spinach leaves. Then oak. Lots of it. And under it all was a maple sweetness that made my mouth water in anticipation.

Mouth: Thick, almost syrupy mouthfeel. Rich vanilla, sweet brown sugar, ginger spice, fresh-cut oak and maple syrup.

Finish: Mouth drying. Sweet fading to bitterness with much less warmth than I would have expected at almost 126 proof. Very drinkable. Dangerously so.

Booker’s 25th Anniversary Bourbon

Purchase Info: $104, Richfield, MN 

Details: Batch# 2014-1, 65.4% ABV, aged 10 years, 3 months

Nose: Maple and brown sugar. There is an underlying waxiness. Just a hint of citrus.

Mouth: Not as thick as the previous, but warm and still sweet. Cinnamon and cloves. Vanilla. This is a nicely balanced bourbon.

Finish: Warm finish. Sweet fading to bitterness. Warmth lasts a long time.

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Thoughts: These are both excellent bourbons. The 2013-6 is wonderfully sweet. The 25th Anniversary has a lovely warmth and amazing balance. Both of these bourbons hit all the notes I look for in a bourbon. Sweet, spicy with a nice hit of oak, but not too much of any of them. If you can get your hands on a taste of the 25th Anniversary, do it. If you can't, don’t feel too bad. Every bottle I've had of the regular release was worth the price I paid for it. I highly recommend both of these.

A Review of Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch 2013 Release

It’s no secret that I love Four Roses. And this, my friends, is getting to be a problem. Everyone loves Four Roses now. They love it so much that you can barely buy one of their limited releases anymore. This year, my normal source for the Limited Small Batch release pulled it off the shelves and into a lottery. A lottery that had a suspicious number of couples winning for the number of people at the drawing. Not coincidentally, a lottery in a store that is no longer one of my top visits when looking for good bourbon.

Other than that, I never saw it in Minnesota. In fact, never saw it on a shelf. Period. Popularity is a bitch for those of us who’ve loved it all along. But I’m not one of those hipsters who loved something until it got cool and then moved along. Because Four Roses really is that good. And luckily I have friends. Friends who are willing to pick me up a bottle where they live and get it to me. Friends that I now owe a drink to the next time we are in the same state. 

Once I got my bottle of Four Roses Limited Small Batch 125th Anniversary Edition, I rationed it. I rationed it for the last few months. And now it’s finally down to one more pour. So. What did I think of it?

Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch 2013 Release

Purchasing Info: $99, unnamed Las Vegas store.

Particulars: 51.6% ABV, Recipe: OBSV 18 year + OBSK 13 year + OESK 13 year

Nose: Black Tea with honey. Cedar. After a bit it gives up some baking spices and a hint of citrus.

Mouth: Thick, spicy and sweet with clove, maple and hints of pear.

Finish: Warm and sweet leaving a bright tingly sensation on the tongue and cheeks.

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Thoughts: First off, I really, really like this bourbon. I’ve heard people describe it as the best bourbon they’ve ever had, but that’s probably pushing it a bit. I’ll go ahead and say that, for me, it’s not even the best Four Roses I’ve had. I would rank both the 2012 Limited Small Batch and the the 2009 Mariage higher (which were basically equally good in my book). 2013 was a bit too thick and sweet and the flavors a bit more muddied when compared to the 2012. But that’s splitting hairs. I can see why this was chosen to be the American Whiskey of the Year last year, it’s an amazing whiskey. It’s just not the best ever.

I am already looking forward to 2014’s version. I hear that the barrels that went into making both it and the 2012 have been exhausted so I’m excited to see if they try something new and venture away from the OBSV/OBSK/OESK formula they’ve used the past couple years. I’m really kinda hoping for something with the OESF. Or maybe something with a Q yeast. Something that’ll throw people for a loop. But we’ll see.

Bourbon Review: Jefferson's Presidential Select, 18 year old

Roughly a year ago, I was walking through one of my usual liquor stores. I was on a beer run. And, as I always do, instead of walking straight back toward the beer coolers I turned left and went to look at the bourbon. 

There is a tiny little shelf near the ceiling that holds four or five of the more expensive North American whiskies they have on hand. And I look up there every time I visit. I have to, it’s where I found (and passed on) various van Winkles back in 2011. It’s where I found out about the yumminess that was the 2009 Four Roses Mariage (still my favorite of the ones I’ve had). 

On this particular visit, I hadn’t planned to buy a hundred dollar bourbon. I hadn’t really even planned to look. I was stopping in for a six-pack of beer. My wife was with me. More at issue, my mother-in-law was with me. Randomly dropping a hundred bucks on something to put in my closet would get a raised eyebrow and a shrug from my wife, but it would get shock, confusion, questions about my sanity and wonder that her daughter ever let me out of the house unsupervised from my mother-in-law.

So, of course I looked. And up there, was one bottle of a bourbon that I knew was no longer being distributed. The writers were cautioning that if you saw it, and wanted it, to grab it because that was it. There would be no more. 

Well, crap. It was one I hadn’t tried yet and one I’d been meaning to. There was nothing for it. I had better grab it. And so I came into possession of a bottle of Jefferson’s Presidential Select 18 year old (Batch 14, bottle 1811). My wife, predictably raised her eyebrow and shrugged. As a lifelong drinker of Old Style beer, my mother-in-law was shocked that anyone would pay that much for any booze. And kept on being shocked for a while. 

So was it worth it? Sure, my mother-in-law is a funny lady and I’d pay a decent amount to set her off sometimes. But what about the bourbon?

Jefferson’s Presidential Select, 18 year old

Purchase Info: $99, Blue Max, Burnsville, MN (May 2013)

Nose: Sweet baked apples with brown sugar. Earthy, like freshly dug soil. 

Mouth: Nice syrupy mouthfeel. Warm on the first sip. Baking spices and sweetness at first, but transitions to a dry tannic woodiness.

Finish: Swallows gentle but develops a heat in your chest that lasts for minutes. Drys the mouth.

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Thoughts: I find this to be too woody. To me, it was aged too long. It’s too dry. I described it in a tweet shortly after opening it that it was like drinking woody honey. My opinion hasn’t changed. That said, my wife really likes it. Which doesn’t surprise me in the least. I’m not normally a fan of extra-aged whiskey. The bourbons I like best tend to be in the 10 year range. Whereas her favorite bourbon was 18 years old before it was discontinued in favor of 20, 21 and 22 year old varieties. So if you also like bourbon with a bit of wood on it, give this a shot if you happen across one of the few remaining bottles. I’m glad I did even if, for me, it was just meh.

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.