A new arrival in an old style: Jim Beam Bonded

April 28, 2015 Eric Burke

Bottled in Bond whiskey is an old thing. There are very few brands that weren’t available to your grandfathers that maintain that status. Companies just don’t come out with Bottled in Bond whiskeys very often. And why would they? You have to follow all the rules for a straight whiskey plus you need to have it be at least four years old, exactly 100 proof and the product of one distillery during one distilling season. That limits your flexibility. Most of the time these are no age statement whiskeys and unlike a non-bonded bourbon you can’t make up any shortfall with something a little younger or a little older. They really are a snapshot of what was going on at the distillery at the time they were distilled. Because of this, bonded bourbons are the darlings of the bourbon enthusiast croud. You know what you are getting since the info is right there on the label, they are a decent proof and they are ususally inexpensive.

All of this makes it especially notable that Jim Beam just released a Bottled in Bond bourbon this year. Why go through the extra steps needed just to put those three words on the label for a rather inexpensive release? Especially since unlike many bourbon producers, Beam has two distilleries. I have no answer to that, but I am certainly happy that they did it. It’s like a little present to the whiskey geeks. It’s not quite as inexpensive as other bonded bourbons, but is in the ballpark. If it does well, maybe we’ll see more of them. Of course, if it does too well the next guy might decide to raise the price too.

Jim Beam Bonded

Purchase Info: $21.99, 1 Liter. Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Details: 50% ABV

Nose: Cinnamon candy, mint, dusty oak and hints of cocoa.

Mouth: This shows its proof with a nice tingle. Initial impression is bready. It’s sweet with mint cocoa and dried corn.

Finish: A warm, medium length finish with hints of dusty oak, cocoa and mint.

Thoughts: While this isn’t a knock-your-socks-off bourbon, it is a nice step up from Jim Beam White Label. I personally like it better than the Black Label as it doesn’t show as much oak. It won’t be my first choice for bonded bourbons, but it is a nice change up.

One little mystery is why Beam left the DSP number off the label. Luckily this mystery seems to have been solved: http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-good-and-not-so-good-of-old-grand.html

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Review: Jim Beam Black 8 year old

April 23, 2015 Eric Burke

Today was one of those days where I noticed every step I took. It’s not that I hurt or anything like that. I was just aware of every step. It’s a strange sensation. Noticing things that should be so natural that they are below notice. It happens to me every so often. And of course as soon as I’m aware of it, I inevitably seem to forget how to do it. I trip over nothing and I stumble.

For most of my life, my mother has told me that I’m weird. Growing up in the Upper Midwest where “that’s different” is used as an expression of intense disapproval, being told you are weird is on a whole other level. But I don’t think she ever meant it as a statement of disapproval to me, even though she often used it as an excuse as to why she didn’t like others. To me, it always sounded like there was a bit of wonder in there. Like she couldn’t quite understand where all my odd statements could possibly come from.

I’ve always seemed to look at the world a little differently. It’s either because I’m a designer or it’s the reason why I’m good at it. Sort of a chicken and egg thing there. I notice things and wonder about them. I’m intensely curious. Growing up I wanted to know how things worked and that contnues to this day. I’m constantly taking something apart. I’ve studied history in my spare time for almost a decade because I really want to know why things are the way they are today.

It’s one of the things I like best about whiskey. From the history to the chemistry, there is so much to learn and discover. Even a simple glass of Jim Beam can give you just a little insight into the way a company works and what is going on there. Take the Jim Beam Black that I’m drinking. It’s stated age is 8 years. It was one of the last few on the shelf that still said that. The new ones you buy just say “Extra Aged.” This gives you a little hint that either the 8 year old wasn’t tasting quite up to the profile they wanted, they were running low and needed to be flexible, or they decided to squeeze a little more profit out of the label. It may even be a bit of all three.

In any case it’s interesting to ponder. And at least when I notice things like this I tend to not fall down.

Jim Beam Black

Purchase Info: Total Wine. Burnsville, MN. $16.99 for a 750 mL.

Details: Age Stated 8 years. 43% ABV

Nose: Caramel, cedar, allspice and a faint melon sweetness.

Mouth: Spicy and tingly on entry. Black tea, black pepper, brown sugar, oak, cayenne and toffee.

Finish: Some tingle. Decent length. Black pepper and black tea.

Thoughts: All in all this is a decently put together bourbon. If you are a fan of Jim Beam branded whiskeys you will probably like this a lot. If you aren’t, then you probably won’t. It’s lands right inside the Jim Beam wheelhouse just with more oak. Typically, I’m neither a fan of Jim Beam branded bourbons or ones that show a lot of oak so I fall into the second camp on this one. There’s nothing wrong with it, it just isn’t for me.

Finding out just what "Old Malvern Export Whiskey" is

April 21, 2015 Eric Burke

It really is quite amazing what internet rabbit holes a bit of antiquing can lead you down. But first, a little background.

A browned and dirty label. And apparently a batch number? Bottle Number?

A little over a year ago, I was in Owatonna, Minnesota visiting an antique store. My wife and I were on a trek across southeast Minnesota to visit a few of these stores that she had found online. She normally has one or two items that she is looking for. Me? I wander around and try to see if there is anything whiskey related. I’ve found some cool things this way. Full, sealed bottles and decanters are always appreciated. On this trip though I found a mystery.

This label was thick as leather, dried out, cracked and peeling, with visible wood pulp.

I was standing in line waiting for my wife to pay for a wooden box she had decided that she couldn’t live without. I was looking at the shelves nearest to the line when something caught my eye. I wandered over and saw a a bottle that was so dirty that it looked like it had been in an old basement for quite a while. The label was browned with age. There was a lead foil and twisted wire seal, though the actual closure had been lost to time. Something about it spoke to me though and I also ended up with something I couldn’t live without.

When I got it home, I started looking closer at it. What I initially took to be a hand-written label was actually printed. Which from a design standpoint is a horrible decision since it took me three tries with google to even figure out what all the letters in the brand name were. In fact it is the very difficulty of figuring out what this was that lead me down the rabbit holes mentioned above. The first thing I wanted to do was find out what this was. I could make out the words “Old” Something “Export Whiskey.” I tried a few different possibilities before I hit on the site Those Pre-Pro Whiskey Men. There I learned the “something” was actually “Malvern” (which Wikipedia tells me may be Welsh for “bare-topped hill”). I also learned a bit about Sigmund Freiberg of Cincinnati, Ohio who’s signature is on both the front and back label. This site is still in my RSS feed and I read every article that comes out.

So now that I knew what it was and where it came from, I felt I needed to know when it came from. For that I started with what I saw. There was just the tiniest bit of a tax stamp which placed it after 1868 (based on this site on tax stamps). The glass was clear with just the slightest lavender tint in the thickest areas and there was an interesting scar on the bottom. This site on bottle dating tells me that clear bottles started after 1905 and that the chemical used to decolorize the glass used from 1905 to the early 1920s caused the lavender tint. Mine is only very faintly colored lavender leading me to believe that this bottle spent a lot of time in a cellar since sunlight will cause the glass to “purple.” The interesting scar on the bottom was a suction scar from the bottle making machine. Since this machine was not in widespread use until 1910 it probably came from after that time. And as there was no marking on the bottom other than the scar the bottle was probably from before 1919 when the company who made the bottle making machine decided to add it’s mark to the bottles it produced. The embossed volume measurement was mandated after 1913 with all bottles needing it after 1914.

Suction scar from bottle making machine.

So based on the previous two sites, I determined that the bottle was from somewhere between 1910 and 1919 with a distinct possibility of it being after 1913. So back to the Pre-pro site. There I learned that the business registered the Old Malvern was trademarked in 1911 and that the company who made it went out of business in 1918. This jives with what I learned from the bottle. So I am fairly confident that my bottle was sold somewhere between 1913 and 1918 and then stored in a cellar for a very long time. And based on this ad in the Toledo Medical and Surgical Reporter. I know that the whiskey inside it was “guaranteed 15 years old” and sold from $2 to $2.50.

Of course, I still don’t know how this bottle got to Southern Minnesota. So if you have any more info about this brand, how widely it was distributed, etc. please let me know in the comments below. I’m very curious.

In case you were curious here is the full text from the label:

Old Malvern
Export Whiskey

This whiskey was aged in wood in the US Government bonded warehouses for many years and after being fully matured was shipped direct to us and bottled by us under strictly sanitary conditions. The Old Malvern Export Whiskey is of the highest quality and if the neck strip and wire seal on the neck of the bottle are intact we guarantee the quality under our own signature. None go (unreadable) without it.

Cincinati, Ohio Sigmund W. Freiberg
full quart

NOTICE

Dealers are cautioned not to refill this bottle. The sale of other whiskey under our label is a violation of the rights which we propose to protect by legal proceedings.

Sigmund W. Freiberg

High West Master Class Plus a Review of High West Double Rye

April 16, 2015 Eric Burke

High West Distillery is a company that gets a lot of love from whiskey geeks, myself included. They are located in Park City, Utah. Though they do distill some of their own stuff, they’ve really made their reputation on the ability to obtain interesting spirits and then blending them together to make something even more interesting.

So it was with real interest that I attended the master class Whiskey: An Organoleptic Journey at Sunday’s Whiskey on Ice Festival. The class was lead by Brendan Coyle, Lead Distiller at High West. During the class he discussed the whiskey making process in great detail. Everything from sourcing the grain down to bottling the finished product.

The coolest part of the class was that it wasn’t just “first you mill, then you mash, then you ferment.” Instead he went into great detail about how and why you might want to do things a certain way and how it would affect the finished product. For example: He didn’t just say you mill the grain, but showed a diagram of a hammer mill and described the relative courseness of the resulting flour. And why you’d want to mill at the speed you do so you don’t risk scorching.

Plus I really liked the dive into the science behind the processes. Things like why you might want a little bit of bacterial fermentation to go along with your yeast fermentation (complexity). The differences between the grain-in method of fermentation that American whiskey typically uses and the grain-out method used in making malt whiskey and why those methods are used (ease of filtration). Or why you would want to make your cuts at certain times and a bit of how you’d know when those are (taste/aroma + proof measurements).

And of course he went over distillation and aging. Each of these were illustrated with a small taste of whiskey. We tasted six whiskeys* during the course of the class. First were two silver whiskeys Western Oat and OMG Pure Rye. After that were four aged blends: Double Rye, Rendezvous Rye, Campfire and the newly-reintroduced Bourye. I enjoyed all of them on some level except the Campfire. It tasted a bit too much like it’s namesake for me.

All in all, if you get a chance to see one of Brendan Coyle’s talks, do it. My only regret is that it only lasted an hour. I could easily have sat through one twice as long.

High West Double Rye

Purchase Info: $32.99. 750 mL. Casanova Liquors, Hudson, WI (on a Sunday, out of state, for those who are watching Minnesota politics)

Details: 46% ABV. Batch# 14E20. Bottle# 3488. Blend of two straight rye whiskeys: a 2 year old 95% MGP rye and a 16 year old 53% Barton rye.

Nose: Mint, cedar, bubblegum, clove and licorice.

Mouth: Spicy. Toffee, mint, clove and licorice.

Finish: Mint, cedar and a nice lingering warmth

Thoughts: When I tried this side-by-side with the Rendezvous Rye during the class, I noticed that this one had much more of the typical “MGP” character. Which is perfect for me, because I really like that. It has more complexity than your typical MGP bottling though due to the addition of the much older Barton rye. This is a nice sipper with plenty of heat and at $30-$40 the price is right too. I like this. It’s an easy one to recommend.

*If you want info an any of these whiskeys visit www.highwest.com. The other cool thing about High West is how transparent they are about the details of their whiskeys. They will tell you what makes up each blend and we even got to see what proof the tails were cut at for the stuff they distilled during the presentation.

A new event in town: Whiskey on Ice

April 14, 2015 Eric Burke

Sunday I attended Whiskey on Ice, the first whiskey festival to call the state of Minnesota home. The goal of the festival is admirable. Minnesota is seen as a small market for many whiskey companies. We don’t get what a lot of other states do. The premise was that if we had our very own whiskey festival, maybe companies outside of Canada would think about distributing their products to us. Now, I have no idea if it will help us get larger allocations of hard to find whiskeys, but I figure it can’t hurt. So now that my body has stopped punishing me for attending, let me tell you a little about my experience there.

Whiskey on Ice was held in the Depot in downtown Minneapolis. The Depot is a combination hotel and ice rink/event center that is housed in a historic train depot. It is a beautiful space with high ceilings, ample underground parking and easy access to that all-important lifeblood of the economy: coffee. For this event, the fact that there are two hotels attached to it was a serious safety bonus.

The event featured five master classes and “the grand tasting.” If you wanted to spend the extra cash on it, there was also a VIP hour ahead of the tasting where you could taste even more whiskeys surrounded by fewer crowds. And of course there was whiskey. A lot of whiskey. I was told it was a fairly pedestrian pouring list, but I was satisfied.

There were two concurrent sets of master classes. The first of which started at 1:30 pm. I attended one being held by High West’s head distiller. Ordinarily, 1:30 is a little early for me to be tasting whiskey so luckily it got into all sorts of sciency goodness that made me forget about how early it was. After the class was over, it was a half hour wait or so for the opening of the VIP session of the “Grand Tasting.”

The Whiskey on Ice Grand Tasting at the ice rink in The Depot, Minneapolis. Yes. In the winter you can skate here. — The Whiskey on Ice Grand Tasting at the ice rink in The Depot, Minneapolis. Yes. In the winter you can skate here.

Bagpipes. Why does there always have to be fucking bagpipes?

This really was worth the price of admission. Tickets were limited to 150 and there were only about 60 or so tables so it was easy to find one where you could talk to the brand representative or in the case of the smaller distilleries, the owner or distiller. I was able to taste a few things that I really liked which I’d never purchase for myself due to a combination of price (Jack Daniels Sinatra), availability (Compass Box Hedonism Quindecimus) and rarity (Kilbeggan 18 year old). Of course just as valuable to me are the things that I tasted during this time that I didn’t like and now do not need to spend the money on (GlenDronach 21 year Parliament, Kavalan Vunho Barrique and the Hudson Whiskey range).

Directly after the Grand Tasting VIP hour I attended the other of the master classes I attended. This was an entertaining look at the products of Jim Beam with American Whiskey Ambassador Adam Harris. Once again, we got to taste things that haven’t made it to Minnesota yet such as the Harvest Collection, Distiller’s Masterpiece and Old Tub. The Old Tub was brought along as a bit of fun since it is only available at the distillery. It also is either not very good or really suffered from being tasted last. The Harvest Collection I found a bit surprising. All of them were interesting though none were fantastic. And I was about to be fine with the fact that they weren’t available here. Then I decided to try an experiment. I mixed them all together. Now that I enjoyed. Either that or it benefited from being used to get the taste of Old Tub out of my mouth.

And after this class we wandered back into the tasting hall. This was a mistake. I met up with another local blogger and we sort of made the rounds. After a bit of time I found myself dumping less and less as I got more and more invested in the various conversations we were having…

And now we come to the part where I re-establish the fact that I am a big advocate for moderation in drinking. I highly advise it. And I can’t stress it enough: you do not want to be in the shape I was in after that festival. Next year, I’ll probably just skip the main tasting and only go to the VIP session and the classes. Also I’ll drink lots of water, eat the food and always, always remember to dump. Though my hotel got both channels, I still haven’t seen Game of Thrones or Mad Men from Sunday. Thank goodness for my DVR.

A decent value: Ezra B single Barrel

April 9, 2015 Eric Burke

Last year during the 2014 Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets, I discovered Ezra Brooks. A bourbon that was one I figured I would buy again. Mostly because it was cheap. A few months later I discovered the Old Ezra 7 year old bourbon. 101 proof and less than $20. So I wouldn’t be buying the regular Ezra Brooks again after all. That itch was about to be scratched by an older and higher proof family member.

But it got me to thinking. If the 7 year old is good, what would the 12 year old taste like? Well, it could be one of two things. Either it is an oakier version of the same product or possibly almost nothing like the other two since all three of these are bourbons sourced by Luxco and are under no obligation to even come from the same manufacturer. Or it could even be both, I guess since Ezra B is a single barrel and there is no reason two barrels need come from the same place…Now I’ve talked myself into nervousness. But there is really only one way to find out for sure and that is to taste it.

Ezra B Single Barrel

Purchase Info: Marketplace Liquors, Savage, MN. $27.99, 750 mL bottle.

Details: Single Barrel. Barrel # 533 Bottled 2/14. Aged 12 years. 49.5% ABV.

Nose: Fruity: apples and berries, coconut and brown sugar.

Mouth: Ginger and clove, honey sweetness and oak.

Finish: Medium-longish with lingering oak and warmth.

Thoughts: This is a 12 year old bourbon for less than $30 where I bought it. It’s tasty with nice oak, a warm finish and it numbs the mouth a little. It’s a good bourbon for a good value. I like it and I’d buy it again. Though I will still buy the 7 year one too since it’s just as good a value and is even cheaper.

Handcrafted? Yes.

April 7, 2015 Eric Burke

In the last few months there has been a lot of news regarding the lawsuits alleging a misuse of the term handcrafted by members of the bourbon producing community. And on the face of it, it almost sounds legit. The lawyer alleges that something can’t be hand made if it is made in a giant computer controlled factory. If you didn’t know anything about whiskey, that argument might make you believe that the lawyer was onto something. To many people, handcrafted means that there is at least a little skill, a bit of human touch involved in making the product. (To others who are a bit more cynical it is a marketing term that has long since lost all meaning to reasonable folks.) So the lawyer tries to convince people that he knows what he is talking about, because computers.

What this lawyer either doesn’t understand or is betting that a judge doesn’t understand is that there is a very large difference between distillate and whiskey. If Jim Beam, Makers or any other bourbon maker were bottling distillate there might be a case to be argued. Might.

You see distillate is a product that could conceivably be very tightly controlled by people who know what they are doing and, yes, with computers. But bourbon is a natural product. It goes into a barrel and sits there for a good long time. And the longer it sits, the more influence the barrel has in the finished product. But just as each tree is different, so too is the infusion of each tree. The bourbon. Because at a basic level that’s all bourbon is. An infusion of charred new oak by a grain based alcohol solvent.

And yet, the bourbon from each batch tastes so close to the same that if you didn’t have them side by side you’d never know the difference. Or for most people, even if you did. So how does that happen? Well, bourbon manufacturers have a tasting panel. It could be one person, it could be many. And they do quality control. They make sure each batch tastes like the reference sample that they are aiming for within tolerances. And if they are off, they fix it by adding another whiskey until it is right.

Let’s look at an illustration. For this example we are going to pretend that oak changes a distillate’s color instead of flavor. Mostly because it is easier to visualize color than flavor.*

We’ve got three barrels we are using to make whiskey. One produces a light orange color, one a pink color and one a teal color. If you mix all of these together in equal amounts you will get a brown color. And so you’ve got your first batch of bourbon.

But then you go to make you second batch and you realize that what came out of the second batch of barrels are not the same colors as the first three barrels. So you need to go find barrels that will make this batch of whiskey as close as you can get to the first batch. In this case what you find is that if you mix a different pink, a lime green and a light purple together you will get a brown that is extremely close to the initial batch. So close you couldn’t tell the difference.

One more example, this time we want to make a lot of whiskey. So once again based on our reference sample, we mix and match until we find that if we take 6.5 parts of light orange, 6.5 parts of pink, 6 parts of teal, 4.5 parts of the other pink, 5 parts of lime green and 5.5 parts of light purple we once again end up with almost the exact same brown as our sample.**

In each of these examples we are trying to match that initial reference sample. And in each case the art, the skill, the human touch comes in while taking the different results you get from many different barrels and mixing them together to get a consistent result that matches the reference. You may argue that distillate can be computer-made in a factory but to me, bourbon qualifies as handcrafted.

The Maker's Mark tasting panel. Shot in September 2014 while on the Beyond the Mark tour.

*They are in mason jars because this idea came from a bourbon 101 presentation I used to do where I would invite volunteers to mix a color based on a reference sample to show this very topic. All of the colored waters were stored in mason jars and that shape just stuck in my mind.

**Don’t believe me? Take the illustrations into photoshop, sample the colors and mix them in the same proportions. It works.

Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets 2015: The Championship Rounds

April 2, 2015 Eric Burke

They’re here, the Championship rounds. We’ve made it through the opening rounds and tonight we find out who graduates to the Fancy Shelf.

Once again, I am struck by just how good the competition has been. There were plenty of matchups where I actually liked both of the bourbons involved. Obviously one more than the other, but still. There was only one I would absolutely rule out ever buying again and that is the Old Crow. I doubt that I’ll get the OGD 80 again just because its higher proof brothers are still inexpensive and much better. Benchmark, I’d grab this for a cheap everyday whisky on occasion. It’s pleasant enough. And Henry McKenna was a pretty good card-playing bourbon.

Of course now that we are down to four, it is interesting to note that all four are from Heaven Hill and that three of the four are 100 proof or greater. I’d say this means that when it comes to putting out bourbons that both taste good and are good values, Heaven Hill knows what they are doing. It’s interesting to note that they also won last year’s competition.

So here we go. These were tasted blind again. And remember as with last year, these were not formal tasting notes, just impressions to let us decide which one we liked better.

Round 2: Down to Four

Division 1: Fighting Cock vs Evan Williams (Black)

Nose A: Fruity and sweet

Nose B: More vegetal, but otherwise similar

Mouth A: Sweet and spicy with a hint of fruit

Mouth B: Sweet with baking spices but with a vegetal undercurrent

Finish A: Warm and long. nice and spicy

Finish B: Hints of baking spices and oak

Thoughts: A is a much nicer bourbon. It has hints of fruit that really tie it together. B was showing a bit too vegetal in comparison.

Winner: A wins this one hands down. It is Fighting Cock. It really is amazing to me that what I interpreted as oak in Evan Williams last round is showing as vegetal today. That says more about me than the bourbon, but it is still interesting.

Division 2: JW Dant Bottled in Bond vs Evan Williams Bottled in Bond

Nose A: Caramel, hint of spice, slightly fruitier

Nose B: Caramel, hint of spice, slightly drier

Mouth A: Sweet, baking spices, oak

Mouth B: Drier than A, but otherwise very similar.

Finish A: Spicy, baking spices

Finish B: Slightly more oak, but otherwise similar

Thoughts: When you consider that these are both the same distillate, more than likely aged to about the same amount of time and bottled at the same strength, it isn’t too surprising to find out that they are very, very similar.

Winner: Today, the winner is Evan Williams Bottled in Bond. Tomorrow it might be the Dant, it is that close. These will both be on my shelf again. When it comes to buying, I will probably just go with which one the store I’m at carries and which is cheaper if it has both.

Fancy Shelf Championship

Evan Williams Bottled in Bond vs Fighting Cock

Nose A: Fruity and sweet with hints of oak

Nose B: Exactly the same. I can’t tell the difference.

Mouth A: Spicy, sweet and hot.

Mouth B: Spicy, sweet, hot with a little tannic bitterness.

Finish A: Spicy and sweet

Finish B: Spicy and sweet with some lingering oak.

Thoughts: Once again, there is no surprise that these are very similar. Same juice put into the barrel. One aged for an assumed 4+ years, the other for a stated 6 years. One 100 proof, one 103. Very, very similar. And which is better, that will depend on who you ask. Like a touch more wood? Go with B. Like a touch less? Go with A.

Winner: That said, I enjoyed having just a touch more oak so the Fancy Shelf Champion is: B, Fighting Cock.

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