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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Booker’s Bourbon

Purchase Info: $47, Burnsville, MN 

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

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

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

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

Booker’s 25th Anniversary Bourbon

Purchase Info: $104, Richfield, MN 

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

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

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

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

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

Consistency: Is it a misplaced goal?

I was reminded yesterday of an argument I had with a friend of mine a while back. He is the owner of a brand of craft spirit. You see, yesterday he posted on his brand’s Facebook page about consistency. It is his position that batch to batch consistency is, in and of itself, not a goal. 

As far as that goes, he’s correct. Every barrel of bourbon tastes a bit different. It doesn’t matter if the the same mash bill was put into the barrel on the same day and they were aged in a similar location. They will all taste different. This is to be expected. Barrels are made from trees. They are natural products. The trees will have been subject to different nutrients, amounts of sunlight, stresses, etc. It is to be expected that the levels of certain chemicals in each may be slightly different. It is also to be expected that environmental factors will come to play during the time the spirit is sitting in the barrel. Hot spots in the warehouse, access to better breezes, atmospheric pressure differences from season to season are all probable. Bourbon is a natural product.

So how does every one of the bottles of Jim Beam taste exactly the same? The short answer is they do not. But they taste close enough that no one, possibly not even those trained to do so notices. And because of this things change slightly over time. If you get your hands on a bottle from 15-20 years ago odds are there will be slight differences. While there are many possible reasons for this (15-20 years ago there may have been more older whiskey blended in, the bottle may have been subjected to extreme heat or light, bottle maturation, recipe changes, etc), I posit that subtle shifts are inevitable even if “nothing has changed” and conditions were perfect after bottling. 

But if you got a bottle of Jim Beam that was produced this year and compared it to one produced last year, I doubt you’d notice a difference. So how do they get it so similar. The major reason is that they make a lot of bourbon. And they mix a lot of it together until they get the flavor profile they are looking for. They are good at what they do and have a lot of stocks to chose from in order to get it just right.

But why do they do it? Why do they work so hard to make an admittedly inconsistent product so consistent? In a word: consumers. The big brands know that the everyday consumer has been trained to expect that one box of Cheerios® will taste just like the next box. And that Toasted Oat Circles will taste different. And they know that the same consumer will expect a bottle of Jim Beam to taste like the one next to it and not like Knob Creek.

And yes, there are geeks in the world who know more than the average consumer. We know that there is variation from barrel to barrel. We know that this batch might taste better than the next batch. This is why those same companies market single barrel products to us. We are interested in the minute variations. Plus we know that the companies are going to be choosing the best barrels they can find. The ones that won’t need to have the edges averaged off.

So with all of that, should consistency be a goal in, and of, itself? My friend, from the beginning of the post, says the goal should be consistency within an acceptable range. He states craft products should not be held to the same standards as the big guys. All of this is correct, in a manner of speaking. Due to the nature of an actual small batch product using natural ingredients and processes, there will be batch variation. This is fine and may even be admirable. 

This year’s infusion may taste different than last year’s because this year’s strawberries or plums may taste different than last year’s. Why should Batch 1 be the flavor standard bearer if Batch 2 can improve on it? 

It probably shouldn’t. But if you don’t tell the consumer that, they will expect it to. Remember, we live in the world of artificial flavorings where one batch of strawberry flavored yogurt tastes the same as the next. 

Consistency should not be a goal. But letting your customers know what they are buying should be. And consistency is just one way of doing that. It’s up to producers to tell us when they are playing by a different set of rules. Whether it is batch numbers on bottles of Booker’s or vintages on bottles of wine, if you give consumers a hint that something might be different, they’ll play along. They might even want to try more than one. But if you don’t, and they notice, you may have lost the next sale.

James E. Pepper 1776 Straight Rye Whiskey

Last November, when I was in Kentucky, I was looking for something I couldn’t get at home. I stood in the whiskey aisle of Liquor Barn trying to find something that was both normally unavailable to me and affordable. I looked for a while. A long while. My wife was in a hurry to get to the hotel. I wasn’t making her happy with my dawdling.

It didn’t take too much longer for me to finally grab something that I’d heard of, but hadn't had. That something was James E. Pepper 1776 Rye. I’d remembered that I’d heard something about it. Problem was, that I didn’t remember what I’d heard. I thought I remembered something positive. At the very least, I seemed to remember that I hadn’t heard anything bad. 

It turns out I had heard the good things about the 15 year version of the James E. Pepper line. And this was not that. In fact, after I got home, I realized that it claimed to have 95% Rye. So…MGPi. But I tend to like that flavor profile. And it was 100 proof and under $30 so I wasn’t too upset with the pickup.

James E. Pepper 1776 Straight Rye Whiskey

Purchase info: ~$28, Liquor Barn, Louisville, KY

Nose: Pine forest and mint. Hints of cherry fruitiness, citrus and tobacco.

Mouth: Thick and oily. Mint. Soap. More cherry hints. Lots of pine and pickle juice.

Finish: More pickle. Warmth that lasts. Mint that lasts even longer.

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Thoughts: I thought the nose was the most interesting part of this one. It’s very nice. I Iiked the whiskey neat, my wife didn’t. Though I will admit, it is a bit one-note. But it made a good Sazerac (which is my go to rye cocktail). In the end, this is basically a higher proof version of Bulleit Rye. It’s a bit sweeter. The flavors are a little bit muddier. If you like that flavor profile and this is sold near you, pick it up (if you don’t like that flavor profile, I’d advise you to skip it). It's a pleasant enough whiskey, but what I really like about it is that the bottler isn’t charging an arm and a leg for something they didn’t produce. MGPi juice gets a poor reputation, not because it is bad, but because people keep trying to pass it off as their own “craft” and charging small producer prices for it. In this case, it’s about the same price as the most widely distributed MGPi (Bulleit) and it’s a higher proof. So that’s a win.

Book Review: Founding Spirits—George Washington and the Beginnings of the American Whiskey Industry

In February, my wife and I made a trip to Virginia to meet some friends, spend some time sightseeing with my uncle and generally check out if I liked the state. One of the sights we saw was George Washington’s home at Mt. Vernon. If you are into early US history, you should check it out. I was there at open and stayed long enough to have a late lunch. In fact for spirits fans if you go in the summer, you can visit the recreation of George Washington’s distillery. If you go in winter, like I did, you can pick up the book about it. Like I did.

Founding Spirits: George Washington and the Beginnings of the American Whiskey Industry

Author: Dennis J. Pogue

Purchase info: $24.95 at the gift shop of George Washington’s Mt. Vernon

This book is a nice overview of the history of the American whiskey industry as seen through the lens of George Washington. As the subtitle states, the book starts with George Washington, giving an overview of his life before, during and after his Presidency. 

In the first part of the book, the author examines Washington’s relationship with “spiritous liquors.” He shows us how Washington, as was the custom at the time, bought votes by supplying alcohol to the voters. How he diligently practiced the customs of hospitality and made sure his guests had something to drink even leaving instructions on what to serve while he was away being President. The book even details Washington’s complicated views on alcohol by telling us how Washington believed in both the “healthsome” benefits of alcohol and recognized the dangers of continual overindulgence. And, of course, the book discusses both the fact that Washington led troops against whiskey distillers who didn’t want to pay their taxes and then opened up one of the largest whiskey distilleries in the early days of the country. Rightly showing that there was no hypocrisy there.

The second part of the book details the business of running Mt. Vernon. Which, to me was made much more interesting by having just visited before reading the book. This portion describes the many ventures that Washington tried to make his lovely plantation profitable, fishing, planting, dairy cattle, milling and, yes, the production of whiskey, rum and brandy. It also talks about Washington’s views on the evils of slavery. It’s a sad thing to say, that in this case, the economics of running a profitable business overcame the fact that he seemed to hate even the idea of slavery. He did eventually free his slaves, but in his will and only after his wife had also died. There is also a brief chapter describing the distillery itself. This includes both historical records and archeological information that the author uncovered while digging at the distillery site.

The third part of the book is the topic of the second part of the subtitle. It is an overview of the history of the whiskey industry from the death of Washington, through Temperance, Prohibition and Repeal, then up to the modern day. It’s mostly things you may have read before if you’ve read books on the subject, but there are a few tidbits in there as well. 

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The book finishes with the story of how the modern rebuilding of the distillery at Mt. Vernon, and it’s whiskey, came to be. Overall, I found the book to be well written and very interesting. It had just the right amount of detail for me. Digging deep for the parts that needed it and speeding past those that didn’t. I liked it a lot and recommend it to fans of American history and the history of American spirits.

The disappointment and redemption of Fleischmann's Straight Rye

It’s mid-March 2013 and I’m about to embark on one of the most disappointing, and yet ultimately most interesting, hunts of my life: the hunt for Fleischmann’s Straight Rye. 

I discovered that Fleischmann’s Straight Rye existed, coincidentally, by finding out that it had been replaced. As Sazerac is wont to do, a statement that hinted at an age had been removed and replaced with a bit of nonsense in the same typeface. Straight Rye Whiskey had turned to Mash Rye Whiskey. 

A label change would not normally be enough to send me searching for a whiskey. But in the article, Chuck mentioned that it was the only rye made at the Barton distillery and that it is distributed only in Northern Wisconsin. Well, that’s home. And for the next few months every time I went back home, I checked the liquor stores to see if I could find it. And in October 2013, I finally did. 

Now, Fleischmann’s, whatever the spirit, is a bottom-shelf product. There is a vodka, gin, rum, brandy and blended whiskey to go along with that rye. But it’s an old name and was born from the same company that birthed the yeast that most baker’s are familiar with. That company was born in 1868. And along with being the first to introduce yeast sold in it’s modern form, they also were distillers. Wikipedia claims that they were America’s first commercial producer of gin but it’s Wikipedia, so take that with a grain of salt.

All that is to say that I really shouldn’t have expected a lot of this product. But, yet, I kind of did. I’d read good reviews of it. The forums at StraightBourbon.com had entire threads dedicated to singing its praises. It couldn’t be terrible, could it?

It couldn’t. It was not terrible. It was close to terrible, but not terrible. It was bad enough that I didn’t want to infuse it or cook with it for fear the flavor would come through. It made the only manhattan that I’ve ever dumped out. But it was better than say, Rebel Yell. So it sat on my shelf. For months. I tried giving it away as a curiosity sample, but felt bad doing it and more often than not cautioned the recipient to not drink it. What could I do? There is no way I can throw away a whiskey, yet it was taking up valuable space on the shelf. 

And so it sat. My excitement in a successful hunt turned to disappointment. At least until I traveled to Virginia and visited the A. Smith Bowman distillery (another Sazerac location). As a souvenir, my wife bought a bag of barrel char that she could stick in a container and smell every once in a while. They said if you dumped a tablespoon of whiskey in there every so often, it would retain the smell it came with. Now there was a use for that Fleischmann’s, but 1.75 liters would take a long time to disappear a tablespoon at a time. But it inspired me to try something. Aging bourbon in a second barrel is big right now. It could be another bourbon, a cognac, sherry or even rum barrel. I didn’t have a barrel, but I did have barrel char. And I had a lot of whiskey that I didn’t know what to do with. Hmmm…

I devised an experiment. I set up four mason jars and put a quarter cup of barrel char into each one. I then took added a cup of Fleischmann’s Rye, tightened the lid and put it into a closet, shaking it every day. I strained the first through a series of coffee filters after a week. The next was strained at two weeks, the third at a month and the final at 2 months. I also poured a four ounce sample to use as a control. The results were as follows:

Fleischmann’s Straight Rye Whiskey

Purchasing info: ~$12 for a 1.75L, Northern Lakes Cabin Stop, Hayward, WI (October 2013)

Nose: Silage/grain with hints of mint and cherry

Mouth: Thin, lightly sweet, hints of mint that feel medicinal.

Finish: Gentle with a faint charcoal aftertaste

Thoughts: This was an inexpensive curiosity. I can’t imagine using this for everyday drinking/mixing/cooking. Now that it seems to have been replaced by Mash Rye Whiskey, I doubt anyone other than the Straight Bourbon forum inhabitants will miss it.

Barrel Char Finishing Experiment 

Nose

  • Even after a week’s infusion, this doesn’t nose like the same whiskey. It’s sweeter, showing much more caramel. 
  • Not much difference between week one and two.
  • By one month, the silage from the control sample is gone and the cherries are back, but now they are chocolate covered. 
  • At two months, the cherries are not only chocolate covered, but dark chocolate covered and joined by rich caramel and char.

Mouth

  • A week made a lot of difference in the mouthfeel. It’s thicker and much sweeter. The bourbon influence is clear.
  • At two weeks, the silage flavors are gone. There is more cherry presence with hints of chocolate. Think of the liquid that runs out of the Christmas candy. It’s kinda cherry and kinda chocolate, but not quite either.
  • One month: Dark, rich and thick in the mouth. Cherry notes very pronounced with black pepper spice.
  • At two months this is like drinking a candy bar: toffee, coconut, nougat, chocolate. And of course that ever present cherry.

Finish

  • Week one: getting better
  • Week two: no real change
  • One month: The finish still has hints of the original medicinal mintiness but there is much more warmth and it lasts a lot longer
  • Two months: lingering spice and sweetness in the finish. After a bit the mint returns.

Thoughts

After a week or so, you start to notice that there is something interesting going on. It’s not there yet, but you know there is something. At about one month, it’s actually gotten to something I would drink on it’s own. the dichotomy between the thick, rich, spicy sweet mouth and the minty finish is very interesting. At two months, the flavors are even more complex, but they are starting to become muddied. If I were forced to chose one of these to bring to market, I’d go with the one month. 

I thought that this purchase was a bust. If this experiment hadn’t yielded something drinkable, I would have dumped it out and not thought about it again. But it turned out to be one of the most interesting redemption stories I’d ever witnessed. In fact, it was good enough that I poured the control and the one and two week infusions together and am reinfusing it. I’m starting at three weeks, but may let it go for another if it isn’t ready yet. I’m now actually quite excited about my bourbon-char finished rye whiskey.

A Review of Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch 2013 Release

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

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

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

Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch 2013 Release

Purchasing Info: $99, unnamed Las Vegas store.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blog about a blogger who's blogging whiskey: Josh Wright

“You went on the wrong weekend, my man!” 

This was the beginning of my first in-person meeting with Josh Wright of SipologyBlog.com. I was extremely excited for my first visit to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival and had tweeted out my order for my first drink of the week. After a little coversation we ironed out that it was ok that I was there the weekend before BourbonFest because I was there the whole week. Also, as it turned out, that I would probably be happening across his path since he was coming for the following weeekend. This was exciting for me. I’d been following Josh on twitter for a while and reading his blog for a while longer. 

You see, shortly after I took my love of bourbon online, I started looking for other blogs on the topic to read. I wanted reviews, tasting notes, and insight into what was going on in the world of whiskey. I started by looking at who other whiskey fans were reading. One blog that seemed to be on everyone’s list was SipologyBlog. I read it and liked it. The thing I liked best about the reviews was the fact that he tended to focus on american whiskey, beer and wine, things that I was also interested in. Things that I could get. And afford.  

As I followed him on twitter, I found out that he was more than just a palate and nose. He was a smart guy with interests remarkably similar to mine. When I first had the idea for a series of posts highlighting those people I enjoy reading and interacting with online, he was the first guy I thought of. So without further ado: Josh Wright.

Hey Josh, thanks for agreeing to be the guinea pig for this series. First things first: who are you, anyway?

You're welcome. It's an honor!

That's kind of a philosophical question.  I'm Josh Wright, born, raised and educated in Central Indiana, most of that time on the north side of Indianapolis. I mean the actual north side of Indianapolis, not a suburb. I graduated from Broad Ripple High School in 1994 and Anderson University in 1998. Both sides of my family have deep Indiana roots. I've lived in the Detroit Metro area since 2001. That was also the year I married my lovely wife Liz.

My current occupation is stay-at-home dad to my 3 year old daughter. I also blog about booze, of course and I enjoy screwing around on the internet in general. I consider myself a Christian and a democratic socialist, although I may not be a great example of either. I'm a craft beer lover, cocktail lover, wine lover and whiskey lover. I'm a writer although I've never been paid for it. I'm a rheumatoid arthritis sufferer. I have ancestors who came over on the Mayflower, some who were early settlers at Jamestown and one who was Daniel Boone's uncle. That's all of the answers I can think of right now.

The first time I thought "this is a guy I need to pay attention to" it was for a joke that combined a professional football player and an ancient Christian heresy. So it seems you and I have a lot in common: from a love of history and, at least a passing interest in, professional football to a love of bourbon. If we have this much in common, what else are you into outside of bourbon? I feel like I should be checking into things you like.

That's very kind. I love history, especially the history of Christianity and the history of pre-modern Europe. I love those two topics so much I have master's degrees in them. I got my Master of Theological Studies degree in 2001 (it was a big year for me) and an MA in History in 2013, concentrating in Medieval and Early Modern (Reformation through French Revolution) Europe. I wrote my final essay on Julian of Norwich. I still do a lot of reading in those areas and hopefully I will get back to writing in those areas too. I'm currently reading a book called The Orrible Synne by E.J. Burford. It's a history of prostitution in London from the Roman period to the time of Oliver Cromwell. It's a bit dated but a fun little book.

I enjoy the usual team sports, especially NFL football, MLB and B1G basketball. Despite living in Michigan for almost 13 years, I still don't understand or enjoy hockey. I blame my formative years in basketball-obsessed Indiana.

Music is my other big love. I sing in my church choir. I love classical music, early music, blues, reggae, rock 'n' roll of any era, hip hop, R & B, Irish folk, classic country and jazz. That's not to say I like everything in those categories, but I like some artists and songs from all those genres. I've been on a classic hip hop kick lately. I've long been a rabid Gang Starr fan and I also love Public Enemy, De La Soul, Rakim, A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots and MC Lyte to name just a few. I'm also a big fan of the Afghan Whigs, Wussy, and PJ Harvey.

My other interests are homey type stuff. I love cooking and I do it almost every night. I especially love BBQ, southern style cooking and traditional Mexican cooking. I'm kind of a locovore too. I buy fruits and vegetables in season at our local farmer's market as much as possible. I love gardening especially native wildflowers, herbs, tomatoes and chilies.  We also have red currant bushes and strawberry plants in the backyard.

I love art and archaeology and comedy and TV and old movies too but this response is way too long already..

I know you are a bourbon fan, you're active on forums, blog about it, etc. How'd you get into it?

I've always had a curious mind and when I first started drinking alcoholic beverages after I graduated college I was interested in knowing where my booze came from and exploring the topic in general. My parents are teetotalers so I knew next to nothing about it. I started by reading labels and trying some of the popular brands. The internet was a much smaller place back then and there wasn't a whole lot of information on American whiskey around. One of the first things I noticed was that I liked Jim Beam better than Jack Daniels. From then on bourbon was my first choice.

I stuck with Jim Beam for a long while until I picked up a book entitled The Book of Classic American Whiskeys by Mark H. Waymack and James E. Harris (1995). It is part tasting guide and part travel guide. Not all the distilleries were open for tours back then and it was written at a time when Seagram's still existed and the only Four Roses product available in the US was the yellow label and it was only sold in Kentucky. There's a great story about Al Young of Four Roses taking them off into the snake-filled Kentucky woods to the site of the original Old Joe Distillery. It really captured my imagination. 

I used the book as a jumping off point to explore the bourbon landscape literally and figuratively. My wife and I planned our first Kentucky vacation in June of 2007. We managed to visit all the distilleries that were open for visits on that first trip, and also worked in visits to other tourist attractions in Kentucky. We went again the next year and I think we've been once every year since then. I also started doing tastings for our friends around that time. I don't do those very much anymore but I enjoy them a lot.

Right before our first trip to Kentucky, I joined StraightBourbon.com. It's been a lot of fun connecting with other bourbon enthusiasts and I've made a lot of friends there. For my money, it's still the best place on the internet for information and informed discussion about American Whiskey. It's a very well-run forum.

You write about whiskey and other spirits, wine and beer at SipologyBlog.com. What's the history of SipologyBlog?

Sipology Blog started back in the spring of 2010. I came up with the name on my own. Sip-ology, meaning the ology of things people sip. I later discovered that a now defunct coffee house in California also used the name, so I have emphasized that it is Sipology Blog on social media. From what I've read the coffee shop self-destructed in a rather ugly fashion so I doubt they'll send lawyers after me for the name any time soon.

I got the idea for the blog shortly before my daughter was born. I had been writing a long, rambling series of wine posts on my old Live Journal blog and I had also been posting tasting notes on  StraightBourbon.com for a while. I had grown sick of LJ and people seemed to enjoy my tasting notes so I decided to start up a simpler, more focused blog in which I would review whatever I was drinking. That happened to be mostly Michigan beer, wine and bourbon.

There were a lot fewer booze blogs back then. I had read Sku's, Chuck Cowdery's, and a few others and while I liked them, I didn't feel like I needed to do what they were doing. I tried to do news early on, but it was too time consuming and too easy to screw up. I do commentary now and again, but the part of blogging that appeals most to me as a reader and a writer is tasting notes, so I've stuck with that for the most part.

A secondary purpose to Sipology Blog was the to keep up my writing chops. I had to take some time off from grad school when my daughter was born and I've never been very good at keeping a journal so I though a simple blog would be an easy way to keep writing so I could jump right back into academic work when I needed to.

Judging alcoholic beverages for what they are one of the things that I try to do with my reviews and that's why I always factor in price. A $20 bottle of bourbon should not be evaluated the same way as a $60 bottle. Some people claim that they don't factor in price when they write up tasting notes but I don't think that's possible. Tasting is like history in that respect. Total objectivity is not possible, so the best way to overcome bias is to acknowledge that it exists and move on from there. Not acknowledging that bias means that the taster (or historian) is a hostage to it. 

As a guy who follows this stuff, what's your take on the state of the bourbon industry right now? What would you like to see happen?

The overarching problem right now for all the big distillers is keeping up with demand. The distillers that have been hardest hit have been smaller macros: Buffalo Trace, Barton, Wild Turkey and Maker's Mark. What we've seen from them is price hikes, proof reductions (or attempted proof reductions anyway), the dropping of age statements and rolling shortages. Four Roses and Dickel may also be facing problems sometime soon, but all their regular products are NAS so that gives them more flexibility. I don't see an end to any of this anytime soon. The only hope of relief is if demand starts leveling off but to my knowledge there's no sign of that happening.

In spite of this, there are lots of reasons to be optimistic. Wild Turkey has a new, bigger distillery with new warehouses and on-site bottling now. Buffalo Trace is adding warehouse space and I don't think the quality of their products has discernibly diminished in the past few years (others may not share that opinion, though).  A new line of 1792 bourbons from Barton, including a wheater and a high rye, will probably be hitting shelves in the next year. Wild Turkey and Jim Beam have been releasing a lot of new, experimental-type products. Those haven't always been successful but it's still a good sign. Heaven Hill has also been maintaining age statements for most of their products and even adding one to Bernheim Wheat Whiskey.

The micro-distilling scene is also a mixed bag, but the wheat is starting to be separated from the chaff. The stocks of the micros are getting older and getting more consistent. Some of them even taste good now. The prices are still ridiculous for most. $50 or $60 for an 86 proof NAS rye? No thanks, brother.

Hypothetical question: A new bourbon magazine comes calling and offers you a column. Would you be interested and what beat would you choose to cover?

I would love to do something like that. I'd love writing tasting notes, of course but I think I'd also enjoy writing about bourbon fandom or historical topics relating to bourbon. I think there's a lot of material that still could be covered better in both those areas.

Plug time: where can people find you online and is there anything else you'd like to plug?

My blog is SipologyBlog.com My blog also has a Twitter account, @sipologyblog (home to all sorts of stuff not just booze stuff), and a Facebook page. My Spotify playlists are also open to the public, so anyone with similarly weird tastes in music can follow me there. My defunct blog on Christian Mysticism is anagnosis.wordpress.com My LJ journal is still out there but it sucks so I'm not telling you what it's called.

Everything on my blogroll is good, and probably better than my blog. If you like knitting and Detroit, visit my dear friend Amy's blog, bonneamieknits.wordpress.com. If you like cheese, Lutheran pastors or both, check out my college friend Katherine's cheese blog called Cheese Learnin': cheeselearnin.blogspot.com If you like theology, philosophy and heavy metal, check out my brother-in-law Lee's blog thinkingreed.wordpress.com. I would also plug your blog, but whoever is reading this is already reading it anyway.

If you like excellent, contemporary art by a living artist who is an amazing person, visit cherylpaswater.com and buy as much art from Cheryl as your budget will allow. If you like web comics, go to thebrothersgrant.com and read the brilliant and funny comic by my brilliant and funny friends Chris and Ginger. Everyone should also subscribe to the Bourbon Country Reader and buy Chuck Cowdery's book, Bourbon, Straight.  

I've never been interviewed like this before. I feel quite honored! Thanks!

Josh, thanks again for agreeing to this. Hopefully it was as much fun for you as it was for me.

An interview with Lee Egbert, Formulator for Dashfire Bitters

It was sometime this past winter, possibly December. I’d heard from multiple people that South Lyndale Liquors was a store that I needed to check out. (By the way, it is.) While I was there I saw a man mixing drinks for people. I found this a bit odd in the middle of a liquor store so, as is my way, I wandered over to find out what was going on. 

It turns out that the man wasn’t making very big drinks. It was a liquor store, after all. What he was doing was giving tastes of his product, Dashfire Bitters, in the best way one can. In a drink. I was impressed enough to buy the Old Fashioned Bitters and an Applewood Smoked Sea Salt solution. That second one I bought because I had never seen a salt solution for sale before, it was cheap, and I figured I would be able to figure out what to do with it. I never did, in case you were curious. 

After talking to the guy for a little bit, I asked for his card. Shook his hand and wandered off. It wasn’t until last week while I was once again trying to figure out just what I was supposed to do with the salt solution that I remembered that card. “Why not ask?” I thought to myself. 

I also figured that while I was at it, I would find out more about Minnesota’s own Dashfire Bitters. Lee Egbert, Formulator for Dashfire Bitters and a principle in the soon-to-open 11 Wells Distillery in St. Paul, MN was generous enough to answer a few questions for us.

Let's start very general: What the Dashfire Bitters story? Why bitters?

I’ve always been a big spice and flavor guy, but it’s really during my travels to New York that I really started to understand this new focus on cocktails. Thanks to prohibition we really lost the art of cocktails, but the Japanese picked up where we left off and man did they take it and run with it.  One of my favorite Speakeasies in New York is Angles Share, a Japanese speakeasy, and ever since I studied Japanese in Junior High I’ve always appreciated the effort the Japanese put into perfecting things - whether its sushi, robots, animation or cocktails. The Japanese really know how to obsess about a given subject, which is something I understand and appreciate. I too had been obsessing about craft cocktails, sparing no expense, making hard to find ingredients such as shrubs, gum syrups, tonics and of course bitters. Anyone who likes these old cocktails finds themselves reading books like Jerry Thomas Bartenders Guide and soon realizes these ingredients can be hard to find. Even the ones you can find can seem chemically produced. For that reason I thought I’d try making my own products but using different base spirits. I’m certainly not the first to try this, there are lots of bartenders making their own in this way, but I found it odd that pretty much all products on the shelf were made with neutral grain spirits. Out of my first four test formulas, three bombed horribly, but one was a home run. That is now the exact formula for Dashfire Bourbon Barrel-Aged Vintage Orange No. 1. Since Orange is such a classic I was a little scared some wouldn’t like it but man did I have such a great response. With my first release I wanted to show my skill to earn some respect but my next release had a whole separate intention. With Mr. Lee’s Ancient Chinese Secret I wanted to introduce something that revealed my creativity and knowledge of unique ingredients. Between my time in China and love of travel this was an obvious choice for me. The rest as they say is history. 

I've interviewed a few distillers now and I know you have a foot in that world as well. Can you talk about some of the differences between making cocktail ingredients and making spirits? Other than the obvious lack of distilling.

You know to me they are one in same. That’s not true for all distillers though. I think many are purely focused on the base spirit, but I do feel it is very important to understand how that base spirit will be applied in cocktails. I know as long as I’ve wanted to make bitters I’ve also wanted to produce spirits and really for the same reason. My dream has always been to make all the ingredients for a Manhattan. I’ve now have the bitters and I did make some crazy tasty brandied cranberries from last year’s cranberry harvest, so I guess now I just need to make the rye and vermouth. The rye is definitely in the works and I have a trip to France and Italy planned this fall to continue my education on vermouths. 

From a production side it is very similar to the process of making a gin. I macerate my spices and ingredients in high proof alcohol for some time in a barrel and some times in glass depending on the flavor I’m after. Then instead of distilling I filter to keep all the flavors. Sometime I add sugar which is traditional in bitters but in the case of Vintage Orange I use natural ingredients such as fruits and flowers to add that slight bit of sweetness. That process is a bit unorthodox in bitters but for certain flavors I prefer the result.  

You make a few different products, bitters, tinctures, cocktail salt solutions, etc. If someone were going to buy just one, where would you recommend they start?

They would definitely need to start with a bitter and I would suggest the Vintage Orange. There are literally hundreds of cocktails that call for it, last time I checked the Kindred Cocktails Database there were 350 or so. It’s also used in the primary classics like Old Fashioneds, Manhattans and Martinis which makes it a great place to start. 

I've purchased both your Old Fashioned Bitters and your Applewood Smoked Sea Salt. I understand how to use the bitters, but tell me what I should be doing with the salt solution?

Bartenders have been using salt for quite some time to balance cocktails. Similar to how you add a dash of salt to your cookies, salt balances flavors but also accentuates them. A specific application is to add a couple drops to the top of an Old Fashioned. Lately I’ve been making mine with Applejack, Maple Syrup, Old Fashioned bitters and the Applewood Salt. I’ve also noticed it seems to make a drink more complex and also easier to imbibe which could be a dangerous thing. So many cocktails are overly sweet and not really balanced and salt can help with that. Not every cocktail has to cover all the flavors, sour, sweet, savory, bitter, umami, but it’s good to have balance. 

I'm local, I can find your products in quite a few of the liquor stores I frequent. But where can folks outside of the metro buy your products? Are they available in other states? Online?

Yes, I am in a handful of other states, but they are online through a couple retailers such as France 44, South Lyndale, Ace and Surdyks.

Anything new on the horizon that we should watch out for?

I do have a couple new formulas I’m excited to release for Dashfire before the holidays, but right now I’m laser focused on spirits for 11 Wells. If we are lucky enough to get the cocktail room law passed we’ll need to start making a wide variety of spirits which I can’t wait to create. You will see some usual suspects but also some completely new stuff too. 

Any advice for the home bitters maker?

I separate all my ingredients first and then blend them together after they’ve macerated. This saves you the disappointment of over flavoring something with one or more of the ingredients, especially the bittering agent. Also don’t bother filtering and just let it settle and siphon of the top. This saves the hassle of clogging up coffee filters. 

I’d like to thank Lee for answering my questions. Check out Dashfire at dashfirebitters.com or on Facebook at: facebook.com/DashfireBitters. The Old Fashioned Bitters (now called the Brandy Old Fashioned Bitters) are quite good and I recommend them.