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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Old Charter 8 (NAS)

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

Details: NAS, 40% ABV

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

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

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

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

Old Charter 8 year old

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

Details: Aged 8 years, 40% ABV

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

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

Finish: Tannic bitterness and oak linger

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

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

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

Shrubs: An old Fashioned Drink for Modern Times by Michael Dietsch

A few years ago, as I was first exploring the fine world of bitters, infusions, tinctures, cocktails and ultimately flavors, I ran across a reference to a colonial era drink called a shrub. The site described it as: “drinking vinegar.”

The history geek in me teamed up with the cook in me to decide that this was certainly something that we would all be trying to make. I liked vinegar well enough. Normally in something or on something. Sometimes that something was oil with bread sometimes it was green leafy spinach. In either case, vinegar was something that made other things taste good. But these recipes made it seem like the star of the show. What would that be like?

Terrible. That’s what it was like. I’d never been more nervous to try something and yet had those expectations be so completely optimistic. I was sad, but resigned myself to keep an eye on this thing figuring I must have done something wrong.

A couple months ago, I ran across a book by Michael Dietsch called Shrubs: An old Fashioned Drink for Modern Times. I’d been seeing articles in the cocktail blogs I follow mention shrubs. I’d seen small outfits actually sell them. I’d never seen a book solely about them before. I resolved to set my previous shruby experience behind and buy the book. 

I wasn’t disappointed. The book gives you a brief history of shrubs, the evolution of the name, etc. It points out that a shrub was kind of just the name for stuff you drank. Be it alcoholic or not. Then it gives recipes. Oh, so many recipes. Both alcohol and vinegar based recipes. I was in heaven. If there is one thing I like more than a history book it’s a cookbook. And if the final product is drink related, even better. 

I figured the only real way to review this book was to try a couple of the recipes. I went for one alcoholic and one not. For the alcoholic version I chose the Country Gentleman’s Brandy Shrub from page 74. And for the non-alcoholic I tried the Cranberry-Apple Shrub from page 97. Both were basically chosen at random with an eye on ingredients I had in the house.

Country Gentleman’s Brandy Shrub

Nose: Perfumy in a lemon sort of way. Kind of like a gentle furniture polish.

Mouth: Thick. Lemonheads candy is the best way to explain it. Lemony. Sweet, yet tart at the same time. Hint of spice.

Finish: Slight lingering warmth, more lemon.

Thoughts: This is an amazing liqueur and one that not only gives me a use for the handles of brandy my dad keeps giving me, but that might make go buy one if I run out. I may need to make sure this is kept on hand.

Cranberry-Apple Shrub

Nose: Strong Apple Cider Vinegar. (To be expected, I only bottled it up a couple days ago)

Mouth: Thick. Tart and vinegary, but not overwhelmingly so. Vinegar balanced by the apple and cranberry.

Finish: Not Applicable.

Thoughts: This isn’t bad by itself. I wouldn’t seek it out that way, but I could choke it down. Where this shines is as a cocktail ingredient. I used it in place of vermouth in a manhattan and it was fabulous. It mixed with the Very Old Barton and bitters exquisitely. I’m very impressed.

If you are into flavor, the way I am, you owe it to yourself to buy this book. If you want something that will help you impress foodie friends, buy this book. Looking for cocktail ingredients that you haven’t had before? Buy the book. 

You get the picture. I thought it was great.

A familiar redhead: Maker's Mark

You’re on the road. Traveling. Maybe for work, maybe for pleasure. You’re staying in a hotel. Or maybe visiting a local tavern at the end of a long day. 

Looking behind the bar you see a very thin selection. There are a couple of taps that contain Bud Light and some Miller product. But all you really want is a good bourbon. Jim, Jack and a few others are there. But not much else. What do you do? 

I’d say in a case like that you look for a familiar redhead. One that, even though it may not be the wildest one out there, has never let you down. I’d look for the nearly ubiquitous Maker’s Mark.

Maker’s Mark

Purchase info: I got this handle as a gift from my daughter but it would run about $40-$50 here in the Twin cities.

Details: 45% ABV

Nose: Honeydew Melon, Peaches. Maple Syrup on French Toast and hints of baking spices.

Mouth: Soft mouthfeel. Melon, dusty oak, caramel/vanilla

Finish: The finish sneaks up on you. Seems soft at first but then settles in your chest for a little while. Notes of melon and a lingering bitterness.

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Thoughts: There are people out there who overlook things because they are accessible and popular with the non-geek. In this case, that’s a mistake. This is a great whiskey. It’s soft and fruity. Tasty as hell and you can get it at even the most dive of dive bars. If you can’t trust that the tap lines are clean, get a Maker’s.

"Baby Saz" Sazerac Rye

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

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

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

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

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

Sazerac Rye

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

Details: 45% ABV

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

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

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

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

Good bourbon at a great value: Four Roses Yellow Label

My wife and I are finally reaching the end of all the Four Roses Single Barrels we bought last year. And we’ve had a good run with them. We did comparisons. We played with blending, even going so far as to try to approximate our own Yellow Label at cask strength. It was a resounding success. That was a great Christmas present we gave ourselves. 

It was also over five hundred and fifty dollars. For many people, myself included, this is not a price point you look at lightly. You don’t regularly just walk up, plunk down roughly six hundred dollars and walk away with bourbon. If you do, that’s cool. But, I don’t understand you. 

Maybe it’s the fact that I grew up dirt poor in a trailer park that causes me to be always on the lookout for a deal. I’m not cheap, I’ll splurge just like most people. But I want it to be “worth it.” I like value. And finishing that last bit of last year’s splurge got me to thinking about the fact one of the things that drew me to Four Roses in the first place was their entry priced bourbon. The one normally referred to as Yellow Label. And coincidentally one of the best values in bourbon.

Four Roses Yellow Label

Purchase info: $15.99 for a 750 mL at Total Wine in Burnsville, MN

Details: 40% ABV

Nose: Initially: fresh green pea pods. After sitting a bit: delicate floral notes. hints of bubble gum and caramel. 

Mouth: Soft in the mouth. Juicyfruit gum, mint, vanilla, ginger and underneath it all is a floral hint of that pea pod from the nose.

Finish: Warm but gentle with a lingering sweetness.

Thoughts: Four Roses likes to tout their bourbon as mellow and this certainly lives up to that billing. Gentle and sweet, this is a conversation bourbon. Meaning that it is a bourbon to have during a conversation, not one that starts one. It’s there for when you want to concentrate on the person you are conversing with, not the bourbon in your glass. I like it a lot and for less than $20 per bottle, it’s a great value.

The latest addition to my bourbon book stack: Bourbon, Strange by Chuck Cowdery

Bourbon is a drink. Obviously. But for a certain subset of bourbon geeks, it’s more than that. Bourbon grew up with our country. It’s history is our history. It’s stories are our stories. And though a lot of those stories have been lost, there are still bits here and there for historians to comb through. 

One of the first books I bought as I got interested in this subject as more than just a drink was 2004’s Bourbon, Straight by Chuck Cowdery. It’s a damn good history. And one I go back to as a reference all the time. Mr. Cowdery is an authority on bourbon and has one of the most consistently informative blogs on the subject on the internet.

This year, ten years after releasing Bourbon, Straight Mr. Cowdery released the sequel. Bourbon, Strange: Surprising Strories of American Whiskey is a second collection of the stories of American whiskey. And like it’s predecessor, it is both immensly enjoying to read and highly informative. As the title suggests, these stories tend toward the more unusual stories that the author has uncovered in the decades he has been researching bourbon and American whiskey.

I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s earned a spot on the whiskey book shelf right next to it’s older brother and I’m sure I will go back and reference it just as often. If you are looking for a non-alcoholic gift for the bourbon drinker in your life, you could do far worse than picking this up for them.

Old Forester Birthday Bourbon 2014

Old Forester bourbon was first bottled in 1870. That’s a pretty small statement for somthing that had as large of an impact as this did so let me repeat it. Old Forester was first bottled in 1870. And in doing so it became the first brand to be exclusively available in that packaging. You couldn’t get it in a barrel. You had to buy it in a bottle. 

Doesn’t seem that odd today. Even if you buy a barrel of something, you can still only get it delivered to your local liquor store as a bunch of bottles. (Unless you have all the proper licensure, of course.) But pre-Prohibition, this wasn’t the case. And why would it be? The bourbon is already in the perfect container for transport. Why would anyone want to spend the money to take it out of it’s already perfect container just to put it into an expensive bottle? A glass bottle? That might break? And cost money?

But that container isn’t actually perfect, is it? It’s got one major flaw. It can’t be sealed and made “tamper-proof.” It might leave the producer as Straight Bourbon Whiskey. But by the time it ends up in the consumer’s mouth it might have had any number of foul additives introduced to it. And since most medical professionals of the time agreed with today’s connoisseurs that whiskey is a healthful product, foul additives might just put a damper on things.

Enter George Garvin Brown, who seems to have noticed that there was a distinct lack of trust for the consistent availability of quality whiskey amongst the medical professionals. He decided to market a sealed whiskey exclusively to doctors. It was only available in a sealed bottle thereby assuring everyone of the unadulterated product inside. He named it after a local doctor, one Doctor Forrester. (After the good doctor passed away, that extra r was dropped.) The company he founded went on to become today’s Brown-Foreman producers of many things, but most notably for this site, Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve and Old Forester.

In 2002, Brown-Foreman decided to honor their founder by releasing a yearly limited 12 year old bourbon called Birthday Bourbon. It is announced on, or around, the September 2 birthday of Brown. It is released sometime after that. The batch is taken from a single day’s production.

I first noticed Birthday Bourbon in the fall of 2011. The bottle that my liquor store had was from the year before. I noticed it because it was barreled in 1997, the year I was married. I was looking for something special for my wife and I to share since both our birthdays and our wedding anniversary take place all within the same week. Coincidentally in September. It made a fun treat. Released near our birthday and barreled the year we were married. Not too shabby.

Of course since then, it has become impossible to find. Luckily we’ve normally had the chance to at least taste it. This year with a new national-chain liquor store showing up in town, I was able to finally get my hands on another bottle.

Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, 2014

Purchase info: $39.99 for 750mL at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN (yes, that is about $20 below the average price).

Details: Barreled 2002. Bottled 2014. 12 years old. 48.5% ABV

Nose: Brown sugar, caramel apple and latex paint

Mouth: Creamy mouthfeel. Spicy and sweet with cinnamon, maple and apple.

Finish: Lingering warmth with spicy latex paint and ripe fruit.

Thoughts: I like this whiskey very much. Spicy and fruity with a creamy mouthfeel and a nice finish.

It’s taken me a long time to place that “Brown-Foreman” nose that both Old Forester and Woodford Reserve have. In this one I finally figured it out. It’s a fruity latex paint. This sounds awful but isn’t (much like Scotch lovers will describe the wax or band-aid scent of certain drams and not mean it in a bad way.) I’ll admit, I actually rather like it.

Willett Family Estate Bottled Small Batch Rye, Aged 2 years

In September of 2012, I took my first tour of the Willett Distillery. There was a bit of cosmetic work still to be done, but they were up and running. I saw giant tanks full of fermenting mash and I was close enough to feel the heat coming off of their column still. I visited the warehouses and I took a lot of photos. Many ended up in the photo essay I did on it shortly after returning. Some of the photos I took there are among my favorite pictures I have taken at a distillery. It really is a beautiful place. That was just over two years ago. 

Willett has always had a following amongst the whiskey geeks for the single barrel bourbons and ryes that they release. Sourced whiskey, that through skillful aging and careful selection, has come to be known as some of the best you can buy. And that’s not just the old-timers talking about what used to be. There are two that I bought within the last year that might be in my top five bourbons I’ve ever tasted. So needless to say when it was announced that Willett was distilling product of their own, the Whiskyratti were all atwitter at what might come of it.

In September 2014 I picked up a bottle of Willett Estate Bottled Rye, aged two years. Was this what I saw in the tanks or going through the stills two years ago? Probably not, since there wasn’t quite enough time for that (I was there almost two years to the day and they needed some time to select and bottle it). But it’s fun to think that as I drove past or toured the warehouses on that first trip this young rye was in there somewhere, just settling in to take its short nap on its way to becoming the juice in my bottle.

Here’s what the distillery has to say about it:

In the bottling of this Rye Whsikey, we commingled the high rye Willett mash bill (74% rye, 11% corn, 15% malted barley) with the low rye Willett mash bill (51% rye, 34% corn, 15% malted barley). A larger percentage of the high rye mash bill was used in the commingling process. This is a non-chillfiltered Rye Whiskey.

Willett Family Estate Bottled Small Batch Rye, Aged 2 years

Purchase info: $35 at the distillery gift shop

Details: 55.7% ABV. Distilled, aged and bottled by Willett Distillery. Cask strength. Small Batch, not single barrel like other Family Estate Bottled releases I've had.

Nose: Grain forward. Mint leaves, orange, pine sap, green cardamom pods.

Mouth: Sweet but with a definite tingle. Grain, savory herbs and spearmint.

Finish: Nice and long. Sweet and minty.

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Thoughts: First off let me say this is a decent two year old whiskey. It might be the best I’ve had. That, of course, does not mean this is a great whiskey by any stretch of the imagination. It’s very good. But it’s very good for a two year old. This isn’t even old enough to be called whiskey in most whiskey-making countries. I have two different recommendations depending on who you are. 

  1. If you are a lover of Willett and want to taste what they have been up to: buy this. It’s tasty enough that if you love it, like some do, awesome! If not, it’s cheap enough that you can say it fullfilled your curiosity.
  2. If you are new to rye whiskey: maybe wait. Not saying that you won’t like it, but you might want to let this one grow up a little more. It might disappoint if you aren’t prepared for it.