Maker's 46: an easily found "step-up"

It’s coming up on autumn again. Apples, pumpkins, football and of course, fall bourbon release season. Authors will be lining up all the free samples they received from various PR firms and distilleries to tell you about all those special, rare, and limited bourbons that you will never see, sniff or taste. 

You know: the “best they’ve ever tasted” and the kind of bourbon where “if you see this buy two.” Of course it’s only the best until the next one and you’ll never see one much less two unless you get really lucky or you’ve got an in with someone. But though you can help it along, you can’t plan luck. And if you don’t already have an in with someone, you are unlikely to make one by the time you need it. 

So what is there to do? Aside from getting sad and bitter at the idea of all those tasty treats that you won’t be tasting, that is.

Simple. Go to your favorite liquor store. Walk up to the bourbon shelves. Open your eyes. (That last bit will be easier if you’d closed them at some point, but I’d hate to recommend unsafe behavior like walking around a crowded store with your eyes closed.) Now look at the shelf. Odds are there is something really good right in front of your nose. 

Wild Turkey, Knob Creek, Four Roses, Maker’s Mark, Elijah Craig and Evan Williams are all solid choices that not only won’t break the bank, but I guarantee that at least one of these is available at every liquor store in the country. And if you are looking for a step up each has one. Rare Breed, Booker’s, Four Roses Single Barrel, Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, Evan Williams Single Barrel and Maker’s 46.

I’ll admit. If given the choice between a wheated bourbon (one that uses wheat instead of rye as it’s secondary grain) and a rye bourbon, I’ll normally choose the rye. I find many wheated bourbons to be sharp and more bitter than I’d like. But an exception to that is Maker’s Mark. I’ve always been a fan of Maker’s. So much so, that before I started this blog I became an Ambassador and got my name on a barrel. So when they came out with a second bourbon (already about 4 years ago now…wow) I was excited to try it. 

And I liked it. I liked it so much that it got put on that magical mental list of ones I would buy again after I got through trying all the ones I wanted to try. The unfortunate thing was that the second list got bigger faster than I could buy bottles and so I never got around to buying another bottle of Maker’s 46. Well, at least not until I saw it on sale at Total Wine, remembered that long ago list, realized how long it had languished there and decided to pull the trigger.

Maker’s 46

Purchase info: $28.99 for a 750mL at Total Wine, Roseville, MN (on sale)

Details: 47% ABV

Nose: Continually changing. Starts with fermented grain, changes to distinct cinnamon and apricot before settling into a nice generically fruity oakiness.

Mouth: Slightly thick mouthfeel. Peppery, candy sweet and fruity with baking spices.

Finish: Nice and long with lingering baking spices and a faint smokey oak bitterness

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Thoughts: I’m still a fan of this one. It’s like a spicy candy. And that makes me happy.

Crown Royal: Just because people mix it with cola, doesn't mean it's bad.

Last Saturday I was talking to my friend DP (from the Whiskey Detectives blog) at a bourbon cocktail class that we both attended. After it was finished we stood around looking at the wide selection the venue offers for sale when the conversation got around to those whiskies that we know we should have tried, but for some reason never had. 

It got me to thinking. There are strange, semi-random swaths of the whisky shelf that I have—for one reason or another—avoided. And there is really no rhyme or reason to it. Some I remember hearing bad things about. Some are styles I’ve historically been wary of. Some my latent hipsterness rejects, seemingly, just because of their popularity.

I promise I’m not some hipster A-hole, but I will admit to having minor hipsterish tendencies such as a the one where I tend to not trust anything that seems too popular. Or maybe that’s just snobbishness. In any case, it’s something I need to work on. 

So in the spirit of trying something that I’d passed over every single time I went to a liquor store solely because it was one of the best selling whiskies to come out of North America, I present:

Crown Royal

Purchase Info: $3.99 for a 50mL at Hayward Bait and Bottle Shoppe, Hayward, WI

Details: 40% ABV

Nose: Brown sugar, pencil shavings, ripe peaches

Mouth: Nice mouthfeel, thicker than I expected. #2 pencils (I chewed on the yellow ones a lot). Hints of maple sugar. Some mint as it moves back.

Finish: Gentle, but with enough heat to let you know you’re drinking whisky. Lingering sweet cereal.

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Thoughts: It’s really a shame I’d passed this over for so long. It’s got a nice sweet mouthfeel that is balanced by just enough woody bitterness. It’d be a good movie watching whisky as it’s interesting enough to add enjoyment, but gentle enough to not distract you from the show. I think a full-sized bottle needs to sit on the Canadian Shelf.

Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey: Don't Bother

How do you celebrate the three month anniversary of finishing chemotherapy? If you are my wife, you hike up a mountain in Colorado. And how do you celebrate making it all the way up? Well, you visit a nearby distillery, take a tour and buy a bottle of whiskey that you can’t get at home.

There are a lot of reasons I love my wife, but those two things might make it near the top of my list.

There haven’t been many times in my life that I’ve been standing on the ground at over 10,000 feet above sea level. That might have been the first time I walked there.

The tin cup top is a nice looking touch.

The distillery we visited afterward was Stranahan’s in Denver. The tale on the website is that it was founded by George Stranahan, the founder of Flying Dog Brewery and a firefighter as they bonded over Stranahan’s barn fire. It’s an unusual tale, and it may even be true, who knows. Now they are owned by Proximo Spirits out of New Jersey. Better known as the distributor of Jose Cuervo and brand owner of Three Olives Vodka and Kraken Rum.

I’d heard good things about the whiskey and the tour and tasting was fun enough that I didn’t feel too bad about buying a bottle. It comes in a very tall narrow bottle with a bright yellow label that wraps around it at a severe angle. It’s pretty distinctive. And once you have one on your shelf, you’ll notice it whenever it appears. In odd places like the Showtime show House of Lies where it seems to be Don Cheadle’s drink of choice.

But the proof, as they say, is in the whiskey.

Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey

Purchase info: ~$60 for a 750 mL at the distillery

Details: Batch #95, 47% ABV, 2 years old

Nose: very grain forward with just hints of oak, cinnamon and citrus pith

Mouth: Starts with a rough alcohol burn. Cooked cereal, brown sugar. It’s sweeter than I expected and tastes very new-makey.

Finish: the finish is nice and long, but fades to bitter really quickly

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Thoughts: Water helps this, but even with that, I don’t like this one. There’s nothing wrong with it that age wouldn’t fix. But for just about $60, I don’t want a fixer-upper. Add in the fact that this is malt whiskey in virgin oak barrels and you can guess that further age might kill it. Maybe they should switch to used barrels, more time and a lower proof? I don’t know. I’d avoid this one unless you love young whiskey and have too much money on your hands. Otherwise? Don't bother.

Old Ezra: 7 years + 101 proof + $16=Great value

It was back near the beginning of the year that I conceived of the idea to honor the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament by having a bracket-style taste-off of cheap bourbons with the twin goals of a) finding a diamond in the rough and b) getting a series of blog posts with minimal output of dollars. 

I like dollars and prefer to keep them for myself, which was sort of the basis of both goals.

During that time, I realized that while I found no real diamonds, I did find a really small sapphire and more than one really nice cubic zirconia that smelled and tasted almost…like…the real thing…

I think I lost track of my metaphor there somewhere. Any way, I found a couple of really good values that I would be happy to have on the shelf at any time. One of which was Ezra Brooks. A decent bourbon, not top shelf, but a good mixer and an ok sipper in a pinch. 

Fast forward to about a month ago. As I left my latest dentist appointment, I decided that it would be a mighty fine idea to stop into the liquor store that is just down the street. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I was just trying to wait for the traffic (and the numbness in my face) to subside. As I was wandering around, I noticed a bottle that I hadn’t seen before. Old Ezra 7 year, 101 proof. I’d heard of it while I was doing my research for the Ezra Brooks bracket. A lot of people seemed to like it. And as I hadn’t seen it in Minnesota previously, I picked it up.

Old Ezra, Aged 7 Years, 101 proof

Purchase info: $15.99 for a 750mL @ The Cellars Wine & Spirits, Eagan, MN

Details: 7 years old, 50.5% ABV

Nose: Soapy citrus, clove and cinnamon. Transitions to pear and an earthy buckwheat honey

Mouth: Classic Bourbon notes (caramel, vanilla, honey, spice) along with pear and, strangely, bubblegum

Finish: Bubblegum (specifically the slightly cardboard tasting stuff that came in baseball card packs when I was a kid) along with lingering allspice and honey.

Thoughts: This is not a $30 bourbon, but for $16 this is a fantastic value and will have a place on my shelf for as long as the price is right. Good for cocktails, infusing and even more than it’s black label (and lower proof) sibling, it’ll work neat for those situations where you don’t feel like analyzing your whiskey.

Bison Ridge Special Reserve 8 year old Canadian Whisky plus a similar looking bourbon

Buffalo Trace Bourbon. Produced by Crosby Lake Spirits out of Princeton, Minnesota. This fine imported Canadian Whisky has been aged for 8 years…

Wait a minute! Bison? Minnesota? 8 Years? This isn’t Buffalo Trace! This label says 8 years on it and we all know Sazerac is working very hard to remove age statements from their products!

But I kid. (Mostly.) I make the joke because earlier this year, Buffalo Trace sued the importers of Bison Ridge for creating a product that looked and sounded too much like their flagship bourbon. There are similarities to the name and the label, but I’m not a lawyer so I won’t really get any further into it than that.

One of the things that I actually like best about living in Minnesota is that we have a lot of Canadian Whisky that crosses the border and doesn’t go much further. So when I hear a recommendation on canadianwhisky.org for a new one, I tend to wander into my local liquor emporium to see if it’s made it here.

I originally noticed this brand as a mini in the “99 cent” bin on the store counter. I picked it up and thought it was ok. So I looked it up to see what Davin had to say about it. He didn’t mention the one I purchased, but did have a review of an 8 year version. Since both were imported by a company in Minnesota, I made a note to pick it up the next time I stopped in.

Bison Ridge Special Reserve, 8 year old

Purchase Info: $15.99 for a 750mL at Haskell’s Burnsville

Details: 8 years old, 40% ABV  

Nose: Grassy, soapy, delicate hints of cinnamon red hot candies

Mouth: Fairly thick and chewy. Very sweet. Demerara sugar, hints of anise, cinnamon candy and Dawn dish soap

Finish: gentle heat, slight white wine aftertaste to go along with the ever-present soap

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Thoughts: I love good Canadian Whisky. This, however, is not that. It’s not terrible, but I’m not partial to the dish soap flavor I got throughout. For me, this is just meh.

Partway through my tasting I found the actual bottle of Buffalo Trace up in the overflow closet and thought it might be fun to taste these together. See how disappointed someone would be if they bought Bison Ridge thinking it was Buffalo Trace as their lawsuit contends is possible.

Buffalo Trace Bourbon

Purchase Info: $15.99 for a 750 mL at Haskell’s Burnsville (on sale)

Details: 45% ABV

Nose: Citrus peel transitioning to an earthy garden soil. Damp earth and green plants. Under that is a sweetness tinged with faint baking spices.

Mouth: Maple candy and cinnamon red hots pair nicely with an acidic liveliness.

Finish: Nice and warm. Lingering caramel and baking spices that fade to reveal a stoney mineral flavor underneath.

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Thoughts: Even at full price I like this one. I may not agree with the decisions of Sazerac’s marketing department, but I have to say they make a damn fine bourbon.

If someone told me to buy Buffalo Trace and told me there was a drawing of a Buffalo on it and I bought Bison Ridge by mistake, I would wonder what the fuss was all about. Bison Ridge isn’t terrible, but Buffalo Trace is a really good whiskey for the price. Whether it was an intentional ploy to trick people or not is for the lawyers and/or the courts to decide, but I can see why Buffalo Trace sued. I gotta give Bison Ridge a little credit though. They at least got the name of the animal correct.

Dickel v. Dickel: 14 year and 9 year

George Dickel. The “other” Tennessee whisky. 

That’s how these articles always start out. Isn’t it? If it wasn’t for the fact that they are owned by Diageo, the world’s largest drinks company, you’d almost feel bad for them. Dickel can’t even get a mention without someone bringing up, normally the writer, the bland behemouth.

Somewhere around the middle of 2013, bottles of George Dickel “Hand Selected Barrel” began appearing in stores. It was initially available in both 14 and 9 year versions though the scuttlebutt is that there were very limited 14 year barrels available and, as can be expected, they sold out quite quickly.

My wife was visiting a friend down in New Orleans in March. I’d asked her to look around for a present for me since I was unable to go with her due to work. On a recommendation from Chris Mac on Twitter, I sent her to a grocery store in Metairie to have a look around. I got a call asking if I’d like a Private Selection Dickel Single Barrel. Oh, and did I want the 9 or 14 year?…

Really? I’d read that the 14 was limited and sold out and a grocery store in New Orleans had it?

…the 14 year, please.

I was visiting Ace Spirits here in the Twin Cities looking for some bitters that I was doing a blog post on when one of the guys working there offered me a taste of the 9 year Dickel private selection they had just done. Not being one to turn down a free sample, I gladly took the Glencairn that was offered and gave it a good nosing and a sip. Yep. I was buying that one.

Once I had both of these in the overflow closet, the only thing to do was to compare them. 

George Dickel Hand Selected Barrel, 9 year old

Purchase info: $44.98 for 750mL at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN

Details: 51.5% ABV, chosen by Ace Spirits. Bottle #087

Nose: Big hit of alcohol at first. After letting it sit: Brown sugar, vinegar and damp earth. With water: more sweetness and some clove

Mouth: Hot. Oak caramel and hint of vinegar. With water: still a lot of oak, but the heat is calmed and it becomes a bit sweeter.

Finish: Long and warm with lingering sweet caramel. Water didn’t affect the finish much.

Thoughts: This guy wants water. Don’t get me wrong, I bought it after tasting it neat in the store but water calms it a bit and allows more sweetness to appear. It’s quite good. I like this.

George Dickel Hand Selected Barrel, 14 year old

Purchase info: ~$90-$100 for a 750mL at Dorignac’s Food Center, Metairie, LA

Details: 53% ABV. chosen by Dorignac’s Food Center. Barrel# 98K24A36-3-9. Bottle 089

Nose: Lot’s of wood followed by cloves and a hint of sweetness

Mouth: Hot, but managable. Caramel, JuicyFruit gum, oak, ginger 

Finish: Nice and long. Good warmth. Lingering caramel and fruitiness.

Thoughts: I like this one alot. It is scary easy to drink at 106 proof. To be honest if handed this blind, I would have guessed it was a Four Roses, but given how much I like them, that’s a good thing.

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These are both quite good. For me, the 14 year wins hands down due to being less oaky, sweeter, fruitier and easier to drink. My wife on the other hand prefers whisky with more oak on it so she prefers the 9 year. Both are highly recomended.

A Competition of Canadian Clubs, Regular Release vs Sherry Cask

December 1, 2013 was an interesting day for me. I was driving from Indiananpolis to Minnesota. 

This is not the interesting part.

I had been scheduled to take part in an online Twitter tasting going by the name #DavinTT2 but obviously couldn’t take part due to that aforementioned driving. The group had two whiskies to sample and I had tasted mine the previous evening in order to have notes ready to tweet out during the event. I had really liked both of them and was excited to find out what they were, what other thought of them and most importantly if I could get them in the US.

Due to extremely intermittent internet connectivity (thank you AT&T for seemingly not building a tower along a large stretch of Interstate 94 between Madison and Eau Claire, Wisconsin) I found out what the second whisky was first. And that it was a Canada only release. Drat.

The first one, I didn’t like as much as the second, but I still liked it enough to search out if available in the US for a decent price. Imagine my delighted surprise when I found out that it was Canadian Club Sherry Cask. I’d seen that practically everywhere. 

I’d seen it everywhere but had dismissed it in large part due to the fact that it was Canadian Club. I had a vague recollection of not caring for Canadian Club back when I was young and very much not into whiskey.

It’s amazing how old prejudices stick with you even when you’ve forgotten why you have them. Isn’t it? But that’s the value of blind tasting. I knew these whiskies were from Canada but that was it. It got me to taste something I had literally passed over dozens of times. And I liked it. Now I just needed to find it so I could taste more than an ounce and see if I really liked it.

I ran to the store once I got home and…they were out. Odd. I looked at the other stores I frequent. They were out or didn’t carry it. What the hell? I looked every time I stopped at a liquor store. Nothing. It got so bad that I finally ended up grabbing a bottle at Binny’s on my next vacation. Of course, when I got home, it was everywhere. And cheaper. 

Knowing that this was a tasty drink got me to wondering what the regular release tasted like. Was it something that I might want to keep on hand? I mean, it’s cheap enough. I bought a bottle to sip on during the Mad Men season premier this year. It was tasty enough. So now I had two Canadian Club whiskies. One that went for almost $30 and one that went for about $15. Was one twice as good as the other?

Canadian Club

Purchase info: $14.99 for 750mL at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN

Details: 40% ABV

Nose: Delicate nose with notes of ripe cherries, wet stone and dusty old wood

Mouth: silky texture with a malt-like sweetness. It has strong floral notes. There is a bit of mineral flavor along the sides of the tongue.

Finish: Sweet and gentle, but with just enough heat to subtly remind you you are drinking whisky.

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Thoughts: There is absolutely nothing wrong with this whisky. And, if you love delicate flavors, I can see this being a nice inexpensive bottle to keep on hand. I prefer my whisky to be a bit more in-your-face and not so eager to please so, although I wouldn’t turn down a glass if offered, I doubt I’ll be buying this one again.

Canadian Club Small Batch: Sherry Cask

Purchase info: $29.99 for a 750mL at Binny’s, Bloomington, IL

Details: 41.3% ABV. Batch: C12-232

Nose: Floral soapiness, wet stone, dusty wood, sweet caramel and raisins.

Mouth: Thick and sweet. Fruity caramel paired with dark chocolate. 

Finish: Sweet and of a decent length. Lingering fruitiness that fades to bitter. Dries the mouth nicely.

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Thoughts: This is a good conversation whisky. Buy it to have with your friends for those times you’d rather think about your friends than your whisky. It’s not a complicated whisky, but I like it. Just not for every pour.

In the end, the Sherry Cask is better than the regular release. Is it twice as good? No. But then whisky math is seldom that straightforward. If I pick this up again it will be as a change of pace whisky. It doesn’t perfectly line up with my palate, but it’s not far enough off that I wouldn’t want a glass now and then.

Brenne French Single Malt Whisky and an Experiment

I could write an entire article about how much I admire Allison Patel. She’s a blogger at www.whiskywoman.com, entrepreneur, and a whiskey lover. She is also the person behind Brenne, a French Single Malt finished in ex-Cognac casks. 

It’s no secret that I love the people associated with craft spirits. I love the passion and the drive to create something new and innovative. The desire to not only bring people something they haven’t had before, but something that they will want again. In the world of craft spirits, it is commonly held that there are two categories. There are the distillers and the non-distillers. And while this is true, it is simplistic enough of a categorization that non-distillers often all get painted with the same brush. 

And this isn’t a good thing, necessarily. Certainly there are a lot of folks who just go buy something and pretend that it is their own product. But there is another whole group that I would call curators. They find/think up/get their hands on a good product, release it to the world and are justifiably proud of it. This is Allison. She exports American craft products to the world and imports a fantastic French Single Malt to the US.

I love supporting small businesses. Yes, I shop at Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon and Best Buy. I buy my groceries from one of the many SuperValue brands that happen to inhabit the Twin Cities of Minnesota. But I will go out of my way to support a small business if I can. I visit my local hardware store for everything other than a big project. I shop at small local liquors stores about 75% of the time. I like supporting small businesses for the same reason I like supporting craft spirits (also small businesses). Passion and a commitment to what they are doing that you can’t get at Target or Wal-Mart.

So it was with great excitment that as I was searching the Binny’s website before my last vacation I saw that Brenne was in stock in one of the stores I would be passing. I’d been reading about it for a while. the story was facinating and the product sounded intruiging. The main problems were that it wasn’t available in Minnesota and to that point, I hadn’t yet found a malt whiskey that I’d prefer over a bourbon. But I love supporting passion and Allison seemed to have that in spades. So when I saw it on the shelf, I had no hesitation about picking it up.

Brenne French Single Malt

Purchase info: $59.99 for a 750 mL at Binny’s in Bloomington, IL

Details: Barrel#: 257, 40% ABV

Nose: Very fruity with distinct notes of strawberry, melon and peaches followed closely by cooked cereal and honey

Mouth: Slightly syrupy with an initial burst of heat. Subsequent sips follow the nose with strawberry, melon, peaches and honey.

Finish: Lingering fruitiness along with bitter grapefruit pith.

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Thoughts: This qualifies as the first single malt that I liked instead of just tolerating. It is really sweet and as a bourbon drinker, I would like to see that balanced with a bit of spice. But that is just preference. This one is a winner and I plan to pick up another bottle next time I see it.

So ordinarily, this would be the end of the story. I’d pack up my keyboard and get ready to submit this article. But a while back, I noticed a similar melon note between this and the Old Forester Single Barrel that I have open. The rest of the flavors were different, but it got me to thinking. I wonder what these would taste like blended together. Based on the fact that I have multiple bourbons open at one time and that I have a short attention span, I combat the inevitable need to open a new bottle by trying to blend the ones I already have open and see if anything interesting shows itself. 

And this time, boy did it.

50/50 Blend of Old Forester Single Barrel & Brenne French Single Malt

Nose: Baked apple with brown sugar and baking spices along with muted mineral notes

Mouth: Sweet and floral with well balanced brown sugar, floral and spice flavors

Finish: Lingering ripe honeydew melon flavor. Medium length warmth, but long lasting flavor

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Thoughts: This was a really fun experiment. Having tasted both of these seperately before mixing them, it was cool to distinctly taste both of them in the blend. I found it odd that the melon note that brought them together in my head really only presented itself in the finish after blending them together. They played together very nicely though. And though it was not more than the sum of it’s parts, it was another cool way to experience them. Brenne brought fruity sweetness and Old Forester Single Barrel brought richness and spice. I liked it a lot and will be going back to it on occasion.