Review: Jim Beam Single Barrel

I’ve been living at my current residence for almost eight years now. I’ve been ready to move for almost seven and a half. It not that there is anything particularly wrong with where I live. I mean, it snows way too much and gets way too cold for way too long, but it wasn’t that. I’d lived with those things my entire life.

I love being in a new place. I love not knowing where I’m going and finding the best way to go anywhere. After I move to a new city, a trip to the grocery store is as exotic and full of adventure as a holiday on another continent is for most people. “What happens when I turn here?” “Where does this go?” “That’s a pretty road/tree/park.” “What a cool little hardware store.”

But then, after about six months or so, you’ve found all the ways you can travel to the grocery store. You know what the hardware store stocks on it’s shelves and that the Home Depot is probably still cheaper, even if you do need to buy an entire box of screws instead of just the three you need. You know what to expect around every turn. And that what’s there isn’t really all that interesting. 

In other words, it’s time to move again. But you can’t. You just bought a house. You are stuck there. 

For twenty years. Maybe ten with good behavior.

I think I developed a nomadic streak somewhere along the line. I like nothing more than to be somewhere new. To see what there is to see, smell what there is to smell, and taste what there is to taste. It’s possible that it is this same drive to experience new things that makes me love trying new bourbons. Especially single barrel bourbons. Even if you think you know what you are getting, sometimes there manages to be a surprise or two around the metaphorical corner. 

Jim Beam Single Barrel

Purchase Info: $39.99 at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN

Details: 47.5% ABV, Barrel #: 4-164, Bottled on: 2-19-14

Nose: Dried grass, cedar and apricot

Mouth: Syrupy mouthfeel. Caramel corn. Gentle, with just a hint of spice.

Finish: Warm and sweet with a hint of spice

meh.gif

Thoughts: While I like this much more than the regular release, I’m not as wowed as I thought I’d be. If you are a lover of Jim Beam products, this higher proof version is certainly a step up from many that bear that name. It lands right inside the Jim Beam stylistic wheelhouse. Tasty enough, but I don’t think I’d buy a second bottle. Meh.

Evan Williams Single Barrel bourbon, 2004 vintage (The Cellars Wine & Spirits pick)

Evan Williams Single Barrel has a special place in my heart. It was one of the first souvenir bottles I picked up on my first trip to Kentucky. And by souvenir, I mean I payed too much for it in a gift shop because it had the distiller’s signature on it.

It’s not like it was anything special, but it seemed it at the time. I was actually quite excited by it. In a way I feel a little silly about that now. Some dude scrawls his name on a bottle and I was one of the people dumb enough to pay extra for it. And while I wouldn’t probably do that now, it does still sit on display in my office so maybe the extra price was worth it. I’ve paid a lot more for dumber things to sit on a shelf and collect dust. 

I enjoyed that first bottle and and have been going back every year since. As my palate has become more experienced, I’ve noticed that I like these bourbons less and less. I really liked 2001. 2002 was ok, a bit meh. 2003 I didn’t particularly care for. A solid meh (and I tried two bottles of that one). I’m not sure if I’ve changed or if they’ve gotten worse. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that any of these are bad bourbon. They are good, not great. Average and uninteresting. I still buy them every year. It’s not like $25 is a bad price, even for average bourbon. 

So my interest was peaked when I walked into a new liquor store here in the south Metro and noticed that they had their own pick of the 2004 vintage. I hadn’t had the regular release of the 2004 so I picked it up. My hope is that being a store pick, it might be a little more interesting than the regular release once I get around to buying that. 

Evan Williams Single Barrel 2004 (Cellars Wine and Spirits)

Purchase info: $23.99 at Cellars Wine and Spirits, Eagan, MN

Details: Barrel # 229, barreled on 4/6/04, bottled on 2/4/14. 43.3% ABV

Nose: Honeydew melon and wet rock.

Mouth: Baking spices, grasses and a hint of the melon from the nose

Finish: short with just a hint of a burn

Thoughts: This was certainly interesting. I’ve never gotten melon from a bourbon before. But in the end this is another good, not great Evan Williams Single Barrel. I’m not wowed, but then I didn’t really expect to be.

I don’t know how representative this is of the 2004 release but, considering the price, I could be convinced to recommend picking up a bottle.

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.

love.gif

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

love.gif

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. 

love.gif

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

meh.gif

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.

love.gif

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.

like.gif

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.