Uncle Nearest 1884

I’ve been dealing with the side effects of Depression for a long time. I was first diagnosed well over a decade ago and in hindsight had been suffering for a lot longer than that. Today has been what I call one of my “down days.” I’m not having a full-blown depressive episode, but I know that without care it could easily turn into one.

Mental illness fucking sucks, my friends.

One of the ways that I cope is by finding things that make me happy. Like a lot of people, I spend my morning coffee time catching up with what is going on in the word. And as we all know, there has been a lot of bad news in the past few months. So tonight, I decided that I needed to find some actual good news. And since I am mentally in no condition to actually write any original works, I thought I’d share the good news that I’ve found with you.

• Kentucky Tattoo Parlor is Creatively Covering Up Hate Tattoos For Free I think this one is pretty cool. Not having any tattoos myself, but really liking them on others, I can see where a person might have done something dumb when they were younger. In fact, the thought of a poorly done, painful, and permanent piece of art on my body is one of the major anxieties that have lead me to not get one myself. So it’s nice to see someone try to help those that did go ahead and do something dumb.

• Nature Conservancy buys Sheep Bridge to protect ‘pristine’ Virgin River, Zion National Park habitat Zion National Park is one of my favorite places on Earth. I’ve never been more “at peace” than the two times I visited this park. Anything that helps protect it and the wildlife it helps to protect is good news in my book.

• Engineers find neat way to turn waste carbon dioxide into useful material They found a way to turn waste carbon dioxide from the use of fossil fuels into the raw materials for fuel and plastics. Minimizing the use of raw materials is a good thing and if it helps with climate change? Even better.

• A 9-year-old and her friends have raised nearly $100,000 selling bracelets to help black-owned businesses The daughter of a former University of Minnesota Golden Gopher football star and her friends came up with a way to help the people of Minneapolis.

• They Recycle Electronics – And People’s Lives – By Giving Ex-Felons Good Jobs to Imagine a Better World Giving people just coming out of jail a leg up and giving them a job that helps keep plastic out of the landfill. Wins all around.

• Nearest and Jack team up again with $5 million whiskey diversity initiative This one ties directly into tonight’s review. Uncle Nearest and Jack Daniels have pledged five million dollars to improve diversity in leadership positions in the American whiskey industry. Mark does a nice job reporting on it too.

Uncle Nearest 1884

Purchase Info: $40.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $2.73

Details: No age statement. 46.5% ABV. Distilled and Aged in Tennessee. Bottled by Uncle Nearest.

Nose: Delicate and floral. Notes of mint, baking spice, and oak.

Mouth: Mint, bubblegum, baking spice, and just a touch of oak.

Finish: Warm and medium length. Lingering spice and honey notes.

Thoughts: I really like this. This may sound weird but this makes me think of sitting in a rocking chair on the back porch, watching the sunset while listening to the sounds of a quiet country evening. It’s a whiskey that makes me happy.

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Four Gate Whiskey Company: Batch 6, The Kelvin Collaboration II

I’d like to thank Four Gate Whiskey Company for providing a review sample with no strings attached.

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For some reason, I’ve been thinking of my childhood lately. Probably because I’ve had a lot of time to think during this enforced downtime. It’s funny how scents can bring back good memories that you hadn’t thought about for years. Tonight’s whiskey did that for me. One sniff and I was reminded of time spent with my father.

My mom and dad divorced when I was young. Very quickly afterward he and his new wife were married and gave birth to my little sister. Needless to say, this caused some issues later on in life when I was an angry teenager and realized what the implications of that timeline were. But at the time, I was just happy to spend time with my dad, even though I hated my new step-mother. I was at his house for two weekends per month. He’d come to get me every-other Friday and on the way to his place, we would stop for supplies at the gas station near his house. He’d get smokes and beer for him and treats for my brother and I. A soda, candy, chips. You know, the sorts of things that were usually forbidden by my mother.

Sitting in the pickup sharing a candy bar with my dad and brother in the gas station parking lot is one of my happiest childhood memories of spending time with my dad. As I get older, I realize that it is the memories of the small “unimportant” events that I cherish the most.

Four Gate Whiskey Company: Batch 6, The Kelvin Collaboration II

Purchase Info: This sample was graciously supplied by the producer for review purposes. Suggested retail price is: $199.99

Price per Drink (50 mL): $13.33

Details: 12-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon finished in Cognac and Rum Casks. Mash Bill: 74% Corn, 18% Rye, 8% Malted Barley. Non-Chill Filtered. 63.2% ABV

Nose: Oak, tobacco, coconut, and a hint of wood smoke

Mouth: Shows a lot of influence from rum and cognac along with notes of vanilla, baking spice, and coconut. Water opens it up, bringing out more spicy and fruity notes.

Finish: Long and warm with lingering notes of dark chocolate, coconut, and capsaicin-style spice.

Thoughts: This is absolutely delicious. This might be my favorite of the samples they have sent over. I love the coconut notes. When I was growing up a Mounds candy bar was my favorite treat at the gas station. This reminds me of that. I love this one. Partially for how it tastes, but also for the happy memories it drug up from the depths of my childhood.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.

Uncle Nearest 1856

There are times when my love of history gets the better of me and everything gets put on the shelf to satiate my curiosity. See I picked this bottle up a couple of weekends ago thinking that as I was running short on things to write about, I might as well pick up one that I’d walked past a couple of times and give it a shot.

I knew that it was named after the first Master Distiller of Jack Daniel’s (and the guy who taught him how to make whiskey). I also knew that Nathan “Nearest” Green was a slave and had been left out of the official story somewhere along the way. I knew all of this because I read it in an article by Clay Risen in the New York Times back in 2016 (though later I learned that the name “Nearis” that he used was incorrect). If you go read that article…stay away from the comments, the racists came out in force for that one…I think I need a bath now.

But by picking up the bottle, I was reminded of the story and decided to see what I could find that had been learned in the intervening years. I read articles, listened to podcasts and watched videos. I learned that Fawn Weaver, credited as “an African-American real estate investor and author” by the New York Times had also read that article. Unlike me, she read it and noticed the things that were missing and decided to go on a quest to find the missing pieces of the story. Pieces like the fact that Nathan Green was not Jack Daniel’s slave, there is no record he owned any and that Jack was friends with Nathan’s son, giving him pride of place right next to him in a company photo.

Along the way, Ms. Wever helped to convince Brown-Forman to follow through on their decision to start giving Nathan Green his rightful place in their history books. Quoting the New York Times from the article above on why the company needed the push:

The company had intended to recognize Green’s role as master distiller last year as part of its 150th anniversary celebration, Mr. McCallum said, but decided to put off any changes amid the racially charged run-up to the 2016 election. “I thought we would be accused of making a big deal about it for commercial gain.” 

It’s on their website and in the tour scripts now. I guess it’s a case of better late than never. Not that I blame them. These days you can get in trouble from one side for bringing it up and being “politically correct” and from the other side for ever leaving it out in the first place. It really could have been seen as a no-win situation. Luckily they got a little push and jumped at the chance to do the right thing.

And the Uncle Nearest brand of whiskey? Well Fawn Weaver, with input from Nathan Green’s descendants, decided that the best way to honor the man was to put his name on a bottle. CBSNews says that “Some of the proceeds from the whiskey's sales go into a foundation designed to ensure that each of Green's descendants get a college education. So far, 10 of them have graduated from college.”

If you have 10 minutes or so, I’d recommend checking out the video below (the Vimeo settings won’t let me embed it, but just click on the image to go to the Vimeo page). It is beautifully written and shot. It has Jeffery Wright in it (dude’s a National Treasure). It’s also a much more involved version of the story above that includes more details than I could include here. It may be a long advertisement, but if the story is true and they bring the receipts, does it matter?

Uncle Nearest 1856

Purchase Info: $49.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Blue Max, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink (50ml): $3.33

Details: 50% ABV

Nose: Dry oak, wintergreen, brown sugar, nutmeg

Mouth: Honey, Flintstone's Vitamins, hot baking spices

Finish: Warm and medium length. Notes of caramel, honey, chewable vitamins and baking spice.

Thoughts: This is pretty good. It has strong mineral notes, and since it is sourced from somewhere in Tennessee, my guess there is at least some Dickel in there. I like it. I’d recommend it.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.

Corner Creek 10 year old

I’ve been running this site for almost eight years now. I started slow, really only reviewing something about once every couple of months on average. (In a good month, there would be two posts at the beginning, so it isn’t quite as bad as it seems.) For the last six years or so, I’ve been pretty consistent about putting out two posts a week. And during that time, about 80 percent of them have been reviews, which is odd as I never set out to do a review site.

The idea for this site was a long time coming, but it boils down to one fact: I like to tell stories. I’d had a blog previously where I told stories. Twos of people read it. Occasionally a really popular post would go up, and maybe five people would. After that, I had a photoblog. I didn’t really care if anyone visited that site. The goal was for me to improve my photography skills. I took photos, post-processed them, and chose one for publication. I did that every day for three years. After I got to the point where I felt pretty good about my photo skills, I ended the photo a day project, and I told stories about photos instead.

Then I discovered bourbon. I learned everything I could about bourbon and other whiskeys. I read every book I could get my hands on, read every blog, listened to the podcast. Along the way, I realized something: I didn’t really like whiskey reviews. I liked the people that wrote them. I enjoyed the content around them. I liked the stories and personalities. But I didn’t like the reviews. They were either too sterile or too poetic for me. Some were basically just a rehashing of the press release. So, I went back to the idea I had with my photo site. I was going on a bourbon journey. I was trying to learn all there was to know about bourbon. And along the way, I’d share what I learned with everyone else. I didn’t plan on writing reviews, but Google seemed to like it the few times I did. And unlike the previous sites, I thought I might be able to contribute to the wider community. So since Google liked them, I decided to include them in the posts. I’d craft each story in such a way that it would weave into and set up the review. In a way, it was a lot like the photo-a-day project. Each time I did it, it got a little easier. And I became a better writer. And eventually, the reviews became fun. The stories and the reviews didn’t need to be woven together because frequently, the review would inspire the story.

So all of that is the background to this past weekend. I realized that my editorial calendar had run dry. Somehow, I just never planned past my tax appointment last Thursday. It was an odd feeling. And when put on the spot, I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted to write about. Not off the top of my head. So I decided to check the archives and see if there was something that I had overlooked over the years. Some easy to find bourbon that somehow slipped through the cracks.

And I realized that I didn’t have a list of what I had reviewed previously. Not one. Just the website itself. I’d been keeping track of everything in my head. Which if you know how my memory works, you’ll understand that it is the least safe place I could keep track of things. So I spent all weekend cataloging eight years’ worth of blog posts. And I found some things that I’d overlooked over the years. I filled a whiteboard with ideas.

Then I went to the store and immediately bought two bottles that were not on my list at all. Just because they looked interesting. Sigh. One of those bottles is a 10-year-old version of the Corner Creek that I featured in September of 2018. I did a pretty good intro to the brand there so I won’t rehash it here.

Corner Creek 10 year

Purchase Info: $50.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN

Price per Drink (50mL): $3.40

Details: 10 year age statement, 44% ABV.

Nose: Mixed berries, baking spice, brown sugar, mint

Mouth: Nicely spicy with notes of baking spice, juicy ripe fruit, mint, and caramel.

Finish: Nice finish. Medium length with notes of mixed berries, menthol, and cinnamon.

Thoughts: This is pretty good. I like it. Very fruity with notes of mixed berries throughout the experience. The finish isn’t hot, but the menthol notes last a while.

When I revisited the standard Corner Creek, I called it a “change of pace” bourbon due to the very fruity nature of it. This lands in the same place. Very fruity. I wouldn’t want it all the time, but when I’m looking for something that is a little off the standard bourbon flavor profile, I’ll probably reach for this one.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.

Old Medley 12-Year-Old Bourbon: Revisited

Next week I leave for a long anticipated vacation to Kentucky. While I’m there I’m planning to attend the both the Kentucky Bourbon Festival and Bourbon & Beyond. It is an especially full vacation filled with events, friends, shopping, music, camping, and of course bourbon. To be honest, I’ve been on vacation mode for most of the last week.

I last reviewed Old Medley 12-year-old seventeen hundred and eighty days ago, just shy of five years. At the time I thought it was fine, but over priced. I rated it a meh. The commenters were of mixed opinions as well.

This is my favorite and I go find it. It is a good drinking bourbon that grows on you.

— Mark

Justin, however, had a slightly different take:

Watered down and sad. I’d rather have my taint waxed for $45 than suffer through another bottle of this pretentious overpriced swill. Seriously…next.

— Justin

So now, five years later, what do I think about it today?

Old Medley 12-Year-Old Bourbon: Revisited

Purchase Info: $47.96 for a 750 mL bottle at Blue Max Liquors, Burnsville, MN.

Details: 12 years old, 43.4% ABV.

Nose: Caramel, weathered oak, hints of mint, and a vegetal undercurrent.

Mouth: mint, vanilla, baking spices

Finish: Short and gentle. Lingering dry, vegetal oak notes.

Thoughts: This is a very meh Bourbon. I really was expecting more, though maybe if I had checked out my previous review, I would have been forewarned. I'd give this a hard pass. For the price, it just isn't worth it. I’m thinking that I just picked up a $50 cocktail ingredient because it does pretty well there.

Off to Kentucky next week so no posts. If you see me at BourbonFest, Bourbon & Beyond or just out and about in Louisville/Bardstown/etc please stop me to say hi. I love meeting new friends.

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BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!

Stolen X Rock & Rye

I’d like to thank Ro-Bro Marketing & PR, Inc. for providing this review sample to me with no strings attached.

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I knew next to nothing about Stolen Spirits when I accepted the request to send me a sample of their new Stolen X brand of rock and rye. I love rock and rye. It is one of those things that I love to have around for when I want a cocktail, but I’m feeling too lazy to make myself one. Unfortunately, if I have it around, I’m always too lazy to make a cocktail and just end up drinking the bottled stuff instead. One of these days I’m just going to have to make my own. I already make my own boozy cherries and my own orange bitters, why not a bottled cocktail too?

So even though, I knew next to nothing about the brand that was putting out this particular rock and rye, I did know enough about rock and rye to take a flier on it. I mean, I’ve had plenty of bad liquor that is marketed for consumption as a shot (most of it, I’ve poured straight down the drain), but I’ve seldom had a bad rock and rye. So after I said yes to the sample, I got down to Googling.

That’s one of the services we at BourbonGuy.com provide to our readers, we Google so you don’t have to. Here is what they have to say about themselves on their Facebook page:

“Our history is simple and grounded in one fact: We like to party. Our brand was born from two Kiwis sick of their day jobs, a need to escape and the love of a good time.”

And in the press release for the Rock and rye they say:

“Humans have been drinking horrible shots since the discovery of fermentation,” said Marc Bushala, CEO of Spirits Investment Partnership. “There has not been much evolution from the swill that we hoisted in college to what people are shooting today. I don’t really recall why we did shots of a certain herbaceous concoction that looks and tastes like shoe polish, but I remember that we drank a lot of it. The main difference with the popular shot brands today is the use of artificial flavors and sweeteners to make bad booze more palatable - we think that people will love great rye whiskey blended with all natural ingredients that actually tastes good.”

I don’t know about you, but I can get behind all of that. So now that we know just a little about the product, we should probably focus on the most important thing: how does it taste?

Stolen X Rock & Rye

Purchase Info: This review sample was graciously provided to me by Ro-Bro Marketing & PR, Inc. for review purposes. Suggested retail price is $24.99 for a 750 mL bottle with plans to release a liter bottle for $29.99 and 100 mL cans for $2.99 this summer.

Details: Rock and rye bottled cocktail, 40% ABV.

Nose: A lot of orange on the nose plus cinnamon.

Month: Orange oil, cinnamon and honey.

Finish: Lingering orange

Thoughts: You can tell this was intended to be served over ice. I tasted it neat in a Glencairn first just so that there would be a baseline between this and other reviews. On its own it is very sweet and orange forward. But, when you serve it over ice as they recommend, the rye notes move more to the forefront and the finish is more enjoyable as the dilution allows a bit more spice to show. This is a pretty delicious orange cocktail. I'm a fan.

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BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!

Calumet Farm 10 Year Old, Single Barrel Selection by Total Wine Kentucky

Last week, I mentioned that upon entering a Louisville total Wine, I had been surprised by an expanded line of Calumet Farm bourbons. And that after much deliberation I had gotten the Private Selection over the batched versions. It was a good choice because, as it turned out, I wasn’t able to get the Private Selection at home, but ended up having the rest of the line available for purchase.

I also teased that the only reason I picked up the 10 year old Single Rack Black was because I had this one in the closet and wanted to see how they compared. This is the second part of the Calumet Farm “series” and the review that I teased last week.

Calumet Farm 10 Year Old, Single Barrel Selection by Total Wine Kentucky

Purchase Info: $68.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine-Paddock Shops, Louisville, KY.

Details: 10 year age statement. 46% ABV. Barrel 225. Barreled on date: March 2006.

Nose: Wintergreen, artificial cherry flavor, and tobacco.

Mouth: Warm and tingly with mint, baking spice, fruit and a touch of tobacco.

Finish: Gentle at first with a blossom of heat after. Lingering baking spice and tobacco.

Thoughts: This is obviously from the same source as the batched version as it has a very similar flavor profile. Fruit, spice, mint, and oak flavors dominate. In this version oak shows as tobacco instead of wood. In the Single Rack Black the fruits were less generic in flavor and the oak on the finish is more tannic.

I like them both. And I’d probably pick this up over the Single Rack Black if they were evenly priced. But since this is priced more than $15 higher at the same store, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to pick it up again. The difference isn’t that big (unless you are super sensitive to tannins). And, in my experience of Total Wine private selections, that is pretty much par for the course. They are seldom much, if any better, then the original.

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BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts Etsy store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. Thanks!

Calumet Farm 10-year-old Single Rack Black Bourbon

I try to keep my nose to the happenings in the whiskey front. I read and listen to whiskey news, blogs, and reviews. I used to be on twitter to follow such things (not so much anymore, Twitter can be a vile place). But sometimes, things slip through the cracks, and I get surprised at the liquor store. I mean, if the company doesn’t send me the press release, it’s not like I’m out searching for them. I’m a storyteller, not a journalist.

Take tonight’s whiskey. Apparently, this was introduced earlier this year. In researching it, I found a press release for its 12-year-old brother dated April of 2018. Looking at the archive.org snapshots of the Calumet Bourbon website show that images for this bourbon showed up on their site around the same time. But when I walked into a Total Wine in Louisville back in September, I knew none of this. I saw that they had a Private Selection of a 10-year-old Calumet and picked it up. It wasn’t until I got back home that I realized that there were bottles of 10- and 12-year-old Calumet bourbons on local shelves.

Knowing that I thought the standard “small batch” Calumet was fine, but that I felt it was overpriced, I wasn’t in a real big hurry to grab another bottle from the line. But, of course, I did have that Private Selection in the closet, and I was a fan of the Bird Dog 10-year-old released from the same company. So, yeah, I pulled the trigger and picked this up.

What does “Single Rack” mean? Apparently, that is a descriptor that the company is using because each batch of bourbon is created using the barrels from a single rack (19 barrels) in the rickhouse.

Calumet Farm 10-year-old Single Rack Black Bourbon

Purchase Info: $52.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Details: 46% ABV. 10 year age stated. Rack C0505.10. 19 barrel batch.

Nose: Bubblegum, mixed berries, a hint of soap, cinnamon, and light oak.

Mouth: Nice spice, with cinnamon, ripe fruits, mint, and oak.

Finish: Warm and of decent length. Lingering baking spice, ripe fruits, mint, and oak.

Thoughts: This tastes like it has more than its fair share of Heaven Hill juice in the batch. But, it also reminds me a bit of something from Jefferson’s. This ain’t half bad. It’s a nice “change-of-pace” bourbon as it sits solidly between the typical bourbon flavor profile and the fruity fringes of the bourbon flavor profile. I’m going to say this one will not be for everyone, but I like it. And I like it more after I’ve spent some time with it than I did when it was first opened.

You might be asking that since I felt that the “regular” small batch release was overpriced for what it was, what about this one? I’d like to say that a $50+ price point for a 10-year-old bourbon is high, but we all know that is no longer the case. So in light of that, I’m going to say that the price is on the higher side of acceptable for me but still within tolerances.

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BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts Etsy store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. Thanks!