Jesse James America's Outlaw Bourbon Whiskey

June 16, 2015 Eric Burke

It’s coming up on Father’s Day and I’m reminded of something that my step-father did on one of the many trips my wife and I took to the cabin to spend a holiday with he and my mom.

My step-father is a Jack drinker. He has been for longer than I’ve been alive. He likes a good bourbon, Basil Hayden was an appreciated treat one year for Christmas, but Jack is his go to. Jack on the rocks to be specific.

Well, knowing that my wife and I are bourbon drinkers, my step-father will occasionally stop off to grab a bottle to share on his way up to the cabin. He tries to grab something not Jack when he does this. He finds it to be a bit too expensive unless it is a special occasion. On this particular occasion he grabbed Jesse James Outlaw Bourbon Whiskey. He was pretty proud of the purchase, finding it on sale in the low teens. And as we sat around playing cards, it kept our glasses from going empty.

Jesse James is named in honor of the Old West Outlaw, but it is named after founder Jesse James Dupree of the band Jackyl. (Think early 90s and a chainsaw.) I originally bought it for my Bottom Shelf Bourbon Brackets back in March, but noticed just before we cracked open the bottles that it didn’t qualify. This bottle, though it is age stated at three years old, was not labeled straight. I have no idea why that is, but it was enough to put it out of contention and back into the closet.

But I’ve been bunkering this whiskey for long enough. It was time to take it out and make room for things that I’d want to bunker. And while we’re at it let’s see if it was the company and the ambiance or the whiskey that kept us filling our glasses that night at the cabin.

Jesse James America's Outlaw Bourbon Whiskey

Purchase Info: $14.98, 750 mL. Ace Spirits, Hopkins MN

Details: 40% ABV, 36 months old.

Nose: Berries, grain, cinnamon and a hint of mint.

Mouth: Thin, cocoa, cherries, hints of baking spices and mint.

Finish: Gentle, dusty cocoa and mint fading to a lingering bitterness.

Thoughts: This reminds me of a cross between Evan Williams and Jack Daniels. It’s too gentle for sipping, so I’m guessing this was intended to be taken as a shot. To be honest, I expected it to be terrible in a glencairn, but it’s not. It’s just kinda meh. I can see why my Jack drinking step-dad liked it.

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

Ask Arok: Your Questions, My Answers... Tasting Bourbon

June 11, 2015 Eric Burke

A few days ago I got a question from Ray about tasting bourbon.

I found your site and have been reading your blog posts about tasting different bourbons. I'm just getting started out on trying different bourbons and was wondering if you have any tips on how to do a tasting.

I almost always just taste the alcohol and can rarely detect any of the different flavors you list on reviews. I've read up on it and put some Glencairn glasses on my Father's Day list hoping that will help

Do you have any suggestions on what I can try or a site to review to read up on some good tips?

Thanks,

Ray

Now Ray asks a question that all of us have asked at some point in our bourbon journey. "How do these guys find all those flavors?" It's a good question. I get it a lot and I know I asked myself that for quite a while. The short answer is: practice and be mindful.

I know for me when I started tasting bourbons (not just drinking them), I initially found sweet and heat. Then, over time, as I tried more bourbons, I started to make associations. This sweet is more like vanilla, this one is more like brown sugar or maple. This spice numbs my mouth like cloves, that wood tastes like the sawdust I create when I'm chopping wood.

Of course there are some technical tips that will help you find flavors a little easier. Keep your mouth slightly open when you nose to allow the air to travel all over your olfactory system. Conversely, if all you are tasting is heat, try keeping your mouth closed while you taste it to keep the oxygen and alcohol combination from overwhelming your tastebuds. Move it around in your mouth, letting it hit all those tastebuds. You'll hear people talk about chewing on it. That's this part. The other thing you can do if all you taste is heat is to dilute it. You'll find those flavors easier if you aren't burning your tastebuds off. It might help, at first, to find a place where you can concentrate and think about what you're doing.

My process is to work my way into a set of flavors. I first notice, let’s say spice, then I try to figure out what spice I taste. Is it more like cinnamon or cloves or ginger. Is it mouth numbing like cloves? Sharp like ginger? Sometimes it’s nondescript, then you might be stuck with just “baking spices.” And that’s ok. There are no wrong answers. The important thing is to take your time. I’ll spend a half hour just on the nose sometimes trying to figure out all the little nuances. But then sometimes it just jumps out at you. It all depends on the bourbon. I tend to run through a mental list of all the flavors I’ve tried. Non-bourbon flavors. I compare what I smell or taste to what I remember about each flavor. Does it match up? If not I move on to the next.

And here is the interesting thing. What you taste says more about your background than it does about the bourbon. You can only identify what you’ve had so I might say juicyfruit gum, but someone else might say something else entirely. Scent and taste are tied to memory. That’s half the fun.

So if you are like Ray, hang in there if you want to find those flavors. Take your time and most of all be very mindful of what you are smelling and tasting. All the time. Especially when there is no bourbon around. When you are eating a cookie, think about that sweetness or spice. When you walk into the back yard on a hot summer day, think about that warm grassy smell coming from the earth. Rocks, minerals, dried corn, mulch, dirt, the spices in your cupboard. All of these things are sources of inspiration and knowledge. Catalog those scents and flavors in your mind so you can bring them back when you hold that sip in your mouth. As an added bonus, you may find that as you pay more attention to your food and your environment, that you enjoy it more. I know I do.

I guess, this all boils down to a few things: practice, be mindful and most of all have fun. That's the best advice I can give.

Crown Royal Hand Selected Barrel

June 9, 2015 Eric Burke

Are you one of those folks who have decided that Canadian Whisky would be interesting if only it had a bit more oomph? If it were served at a proof above the bare minimum to be called whisky? Some sort of single barrel pick that hadn’t had all the rough edges blended out of it?

Well, this is your lucky day. Crown Royal has recently expanded it’s Hand Selected Barrel program from Texas to the rest of the US. This whisky is released at 51.5% ABV. It’s a Single Barrel release of the Coffey Rye whisky. The Coffey Rye is one of the 50 whiskies that make up the standard Crown Royal blend. It is a Canadian rye (not the same definition as US straight rye) produced on a Coffey still.

Saturday was my lucky day. When I wandered into Ace Spirits, I noticed that they had participated in the Hand-Selected Barrel program. I don’t normally review them this quickly, but I bumped this to the head of the pack, just in case you are local and decide to go get one for yourself. So should you got get one?

Crown Royal Hand Selected Barrel

Purchase info: $64.99, 750 mL. Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN.

Details: 51.5% ABV

Nose: Earthy and sweet. Bubblegum, baking spices and tobacco.

Mouth: Soft and velvety. The proof brings a lot of tingle to this. Baseball card bubble gum, cinnamon, clove, anise, buckwheat honey.

Finish: On the short side of medium. More bubble gum fading to a nice bitterness.

Thoughts: This is a bottle that benefits from air. I tried doing my tasting right away and it was really just heat and bubble gum. I was extremely disappointed in it, especially for what I paid. I did notice that the sample in the store didn’t seem to be quite so one-note. And guessing that the bottle in the store wasn’t freshly opened, I poured myself another sample and then let it sit for an hour or so. After sitting, the nose and the mouth opened up considerably, becoming much more complex. This whisky is a touch hot, though I wouldn’t recommend adding any water. Even a little destroys the mouth feel and really lessens the flavors. Anecdotally, this seems to trend sweet. My wife overheard sales people at the Party Source telling folks that theirs tasted like marshmallows. Mine tastes like old baseball card bubble gum so there is a certain candy theme.

Bottom line: I like it and while it’s interesting to taste a bottle that goes into a major blend, it is really expensive for what it is. I’d be really happy with this at $40, but at $65 I probably won’t be buying it again.

Old Forester Ready To Drink Mint Julep

June 4, 2015 Eric Burke

It’s summer and to some of us in the bourbon world, that means it’s also Julep Season. My wife is a big fan of the mint julep. It carries all the lovely flavors of a good bourbon and adds in some sweetness and delicate mint. I normally take my julep without the mint, sugar, julep cup or most of the ice when I make one for her but I can be persuaded on a particularly hot day to partake.

But sometimes making a julep can be a bit too much for me. On a lazy Saturday afternoon? Sure. On that same Saturday when I’ve been working on the landscaping all day? Not a chance. I prefer my cocktail to be whiskey in a glass on a day like that.

I saw somewhere that last Saturday was National Mint Julep Day. I have no idea if that is actually a thing or if it was just a random person on Twitter proclaiming their love for the julep, but it was enough to make my wife want one. The trouble was it was a Saturday that I spent all day shoveling a pickup-load of mulch into various places in my yard and I wasn’t in the mood for making one. So it was with no little interest that when we went to the liquor store for beer that evening that I noticed the Old Forester Ready-To-Drink Mint Julep. My wife seemed satisfied, so we picked it up.

I was curious about just how “ready-to-drink” this was after my wife told me it was better on the rocks than just chilled. And so as a service to you, my dear reader, we took it upon ourselves to do a completely scientific (not at all scientific) discovery as to how ready to drink it really was. We tried it chilled in a Glencairn, 2 ounces made into a mint julep and then in desperation with an additional half ounce of good bourbon dumped in.

Old Forester Ready to Drink Mint Julep

Purchase Info: $24.99, 1 Liter. Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN

Details: 30% ABV, Caramel Colored

Nose: Heavy spearmint gum and something resembling whiskey

Mouth: Sugary sweet and thick. Spearmint gum and no hint of whiskey.

Finish: None to speak of.

Thoughts (neat): Well this isn’t very good, but then it’s hardly a fair test, is it? Whether it says “ready to drink” or not, I doubt it was intended to be tasted out of a Glencairn glass. Let’s try it next in it something like it’s natural environment. Let’s make a mint julep out of it. It’s already sweet and minty so I’m just going to pour it over crushed ice in a julep cup and shove in a large sprig of mint:

Thoughts (in Julep): Wow, this is still way too sweet for me. My wife tells me it’s better, I’m starting to doubt her good sense. The overpowering mint has been cut some, but a medicinal bitterness remains. In desperation, I decide to mix in a half ounce of good bourbon.

Thoughts (in julep with additional bourbon): So this isn’t terrible and on a hot day, where I’m too tired to make a julep, it should do. In a pinch. If you are out of beer. And don’t have a car. And live too far away from the store to walk.

Never mind, just shove a mint sprig in your bourbon and call it good. (Maybe even Old Forester.)

I do love the frost that collects on these cups though...

Ask Arok: Your Questions, My Answers... A Question About Barrel Proof

June 2, 2015 Eric Burke

A few days ago, I got an email from Tom asking about barrel proof.

Hi Arok......

I need a little clarification. I just received a bottle of "Booker’s” in a nice box, as a gift. The label says single barrel 127 proof. It aroused my curiosity. Then I read that Garrison Brothers have a new release "Cowboy Bourbon" @ 134 proof (not for the faint of heart)....! I thought to be "Bourbon.” whiskey had comply with certain criteria one of which is that it couldn't be barreled at higher than 125 proof....... what’s the story here?

Thanks for your help.

Tom

Tom asks a great question. To answer it we need to dig a little into the science behind aging. While it is true that bourbon can’t be barreled at higher than 125 proof, that is only true for the liquid going into the barrel. What happens after that is up to nature.

Let’s take a look at what happens during aging. There are three basic things going on: extraction of flavor, chemical reactions, and then the interaction with the surrounding environment (which is where Tom's question comes in). So to look at each in turn:

Extraction of flavor: Alcohol is a solvent and like all solvents, it loves to dissolve things. In the case of bourbon that is all the caramel and vanilla flavors that burning a piece of oak allows the alcohol access to. This happens pretty quickly in the grand scheme of things. It’s why you can get something that tastes like “bourbon” at six months or less in a small barrel. It doesn’t taste exactly like the large, mainstream bourbons, but it has a lot of the same characteristics. At this point it is basically a wood extract, kind of like the vanilla extract you’d find in your kitchen cupboards. Only in this case, it’s wood flavors dissolved in alcohol not vanilla bean.

Chemical Reactions: This is a function of time. Certain things happen to that extract as time passes while it is in the presence of oxygen. Molecules break down and recombine into tasty combinations that give a well matured whiskey a lot of the tasty flavors we associate with it. How does that oxygen get into the barrel? A properly constructed barrel is very good at keeping liquid inside, but luckily isn’t so good at keeping air inside (or outside).

Which brings us to the answer to Tom's question: interaction with the environment. In general terms, if you were to look at both the ethanol molecule and the water molecule, you would notice something. The ethanol molecule is much larger. As such, the water molecule can more easily pass through the grain of the oak being used in the barrel. This means that two things can happen:

In a hot environment, such as the upper floors of a rick house in Kentucky, water and ethanol evaporate. The water passes through the wood, but the alcohol stays behind. As such the alcohol per volume of the liquid goes up as the volume of liquid goes down due to the water escaping. This is why a barrel proof bourbon such as Bookers or Stag can be higher in proof than the liquid that originally went into the barrel.
In a cool moist environment, such as the bottom floor of a rick house with a dirt floor, just the opposite happens. It’s cool enough that there isn’t as much evaporation happening, but the air going in and out of the barrel, being moist, is bringing water into the barrel. And so the total alcohol by volume goes down as the volume of water goes up. This is why the new Wild Turkey 17 year old can be barrel proof at well below the proof that it went into the barrel.

Of course, this is just a simplified version of the science behind aging. People with degrees in more than art probably can give all the charts and more specific reasons behind these processes, but this is how it was explained to me.

Do you have a bourbon question you'd like answered? Just get in contact with me using one of the icons in the sidebar to submit one. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll try to find it from someone who does.

Rebel Yell American Whiskey

May 28, 2015 Eric Burke

This is the second part of a two part post. The first being the story of how I got the bottle and a reminder that you don’t know what’s in a bottle of whiskey until you open it and take a taste.

Well. I’ve spent two weeks with this whiskey. It’s half gone and now I think I can talk about it. I’ve turned the bottle over and over in my hands looking at what is said and what is not said on the label. And I noticed a few things.

The most obvious is that it is a blend of bourbon and rye. The back label says: “Our original, time-honored recipe, perfectly blended with the rebellious spirit of rye.” From that I’m guessing it is the normal Rebel Yell wheated bourbon mixed with rye.
“Distilled and aged in Kentucky and Indiana.” So I’m going out on a pretty sturdy limb and saying that rye is from MGPi.
This is a two-year age-stated whiskey. Remember, that’s the youngest whiskey in the bottle, there might be older whiskey in there. In fact I would guess there is since the flavor has a depth I wouldn’t expect from a two year whiskey.
Though it is two year, nowhere does it say “straight.” We’ve learned from Templeton that you can add minute amounts of flavoring to whiskey that isn’t labeled “straight.” Just throwing that out there. Though it is very possibly not applicable, I get a little nervous when a whiskey doesn’t say straight when it could.

I’m breaking format and telling you my thoughts now since this is such an odd situation. I can find next to nothing about this online aside from the Rebel Yell website, the COLAs and Chuck Cowdery’s blog announcing it back in February. I can’t even tell if it is for sale yet so I have no idea if this is a good value. I’d say if you get it for free in a regifting situation, the value is excellent. If you pay more than $20-25 you are probably over paying. It’s tasty but not on par with many other widely available whiskeys at that price point. Some even sold by Luxco, the company who makes this.

Rebel Yell American Bourbon

Purchase Info: Didn’t I just say I got it in a regifting situation?

Details: A Blend of bourbon and rye whiskey, 45% ABV

Nose: Cedar, mint, white sugar, leather and hints of vanilla

Mouth: Thin in the mouth, but it has a nice tingle to it. Oak, cloves, dark chocolate and a nice earthiness.

Finish: Fades quickly. The mint is back along with chocolate and cedar.

Thoughts: As detailed in the previous post, I went into this expecting something terrible. As such, it exceeded expectations. As a two-year age stated whiskey, I’m very impressed with it’s depth of flavor. Overall, for what it is, this is an impressive whiskey. I just don’t think I’d pay more than $25 for it.

Who knew all you needed to do to make Rebel Yell bourbon drinkable was add some MGP rye? So we've learned that.

Too many feels and then, eventually, a review of Wathen's Single Barrel

May 26, 2015 Eric Burke

I had a pretty shitty weekend. It was supposed to be good. It was a holiday. I was going to spend time with my family at the family cabin. There would be drinks, cards, a fire, kids, family and friends. Everything was set up to be great. And it started out that way.

Friday morning, I stopped off for a couple growlers of beer to take with us. As I waited for them to be filled, I thought it might be nice to have a touch of bourbon to close each night. So I looked at the bourbon selection and settled on one I hadn’t had before but could blog about. Might as well take one for the team, right?

We were supposed to build a new fire pit over the weekend, but I noticed shortly after pulling in that my mom and step-dad had already finished it. This is going to be a nice weekend, I thought to myself. And so it seemed. That afternoon, we sat around the new fire pit and variously, read a book, played a game, or talked. It was a very nice afternoon. We had nice supper and then ended up playing cards. I broke into the growlers. Everything was going well.

It was a nice slow morning the next day. Relaxing. We ran to town, got supplies and generally enjoyed each other’s company while waiting for the rest of the group to get there. One of the highlights of the weekend was going to be the time I got to spend with my niece and nephew who were coming with my brother and his wife that afternoon.

And everything went well until I noticed how my brother was treating my nephew (well, step-nephew, but I don’t count such things). You see he is on medication for ADHD and is suspected of suffering from depression. He is a rascal, to put it mildly. I identify a lot with what he is going through. I’m also the product of divorced parents. I also had a step-dad who met me while he wasn’t sure how to handle being a parent. I had problems with my mom, my dad, my step-dad, my step-mothers, my grandparents and step-grandparents…I was just generally an angry kid who suffered with undiagnosed depression (it wouldn’t be diagnosed until I was much older and dealing with my own teenager). I saw that I didn’t fit in in most of the “families” I had. Either I was related, but only seen every few months or I wasn’t related and was just another kid hanging about. All except my one set of grandparents. My mother leaned on them so much that my grandfather became sort of a surrogate father to me. He was the one I rebelled against, not my biological father. But he was also the one I looked up to more than anyone else.

I grew up with this hanging over my head for a long time. I was so angry. I was a good kid for the most part, but inside I was searching for why I didn’t belong. I just wanted to feel loved. And if that couldn’t happen, noticed. And when it came time for me to adopt my own daughter, I promised myself that she wouldn’t feel that way. That she would be loved and accepted by the family that I felt, at the time, had never fully accepted me.

Guess what? I failed. I didn’t know how to be a parent at 19. I didn’t know how to take care of a teenager at 29. I didn’t know how to be the parent of a kid going through normal teenage stuff while dealing with the fact that she knew her dad had adopted her. Knowing that in order for that to happen, another man needed to have decided he didn’t want to be her dad. That’s heavy stuff. I wasn’t ready for it. I lashed out like an angry baby and, much like my step-father and I while I was living at home, we never really saw eye to eye. And to top it off, I don't know that parts of my extended family ever fully accepted her as family either. I have a sister I haven't talked to for years over some of her comments.

So now, I see this happening with my nephew who is going through the same things I went through and then also the same things my daughter went through. And enough was enough. My brother is a father of two biological kids and can’t see he isn’t treating them the same way. My mother doesn’t realize that the things she’s saying are being absorbed and internalized by my nephew. On three separate occasions, I stepped in where I probably shouldn’t have (though my sister-in-law thanked me). I became an advocate for my nephew because I hate that I can see the same things that happened to me, and then to my daughter, happen to him. I picked two fights with my brother and one with my mother over it. I spent a lot of time alone in the camper because I was so mad I thought I’d do or say something I’d regret.

It’s a good thing I bought that bourbon. It wasn’t the best bourbon I’d ever had, but it was enough to calm the nerves and let me breathe when I thought I would say something stupid. Nights around the fire may have included more than I should have had, but taking a sip instead of saying something stupid worked ok to keep me sorta talking to my brother.

That bourbon? Wathen’s Single Barrel. Once I got home, I decided to review it and pour a couple samples for my sample library. That finished the bottle off. So, even though the bourbon was a welcome relief to a shitty weekend, how did it fair in the cold light of day?

Wathen’s Single Barrel

Purchase Info: $29.99, 750 mL, Casanova Liquor, Hudson, WI.

Details: Barrel number: 4730. Bottled on July 22, 2014. 47% ABV

Nose: Vanilla, caramel, toasted almonds, faint melon and some oak.

Mouth: Dry woodiness. Hot in the mouth. Caramel, toasted almonds and oak.

Finish: Lingering heat and oak fading to a bitterness that if it were paired with more than just woody flavors would be pleasant.

Thoughts: For me? Meh. I’m not a fan of overly dry, woody bourbons. And to my palate, that’s what this is. It’s more so than I would have expect from an NAS bourbon.

Speaking of NAS, I do have a few beefs with this bourbon. The first being just that. This is an NAS bourbon. But right in the middle of the label is a large “eight” in a a script font. Under that in smaller type is the word “generations.” This subconsciously suggest and eight-year age statement. I know because I had to keep stopping myself from thinking of it as an 8-year old over and over. And I know better. Secondly, I really wish people would use a screw cap. That photo above? That’s the cork. It broke the second time we opened the bottle. Not only is a screw cap going to keep the bourbon inside tastier if it lasts more than a weekend, but it has a much smaller chance of failure.

So your milage may vary, but for me? I won’t be buying this again. Not even to soothe a really shitty weekend that brought back way too many feels.

Russell’s Reserve Rye

May 21, 2015 Eric Burke

The first time I had this whiskey was on my first visit to the Wild Turkey Distillery during my first visit to Kentucky. That’s a lot of firsts to pack into one whiskey. I think back on that visit fondly. It was back when I could visit a major distillery and have samples that I hadn’t tasted before (because I hadn’t tasted that many yet). I’ve been on the Wild Turkey tour a couple more times since and I always make sure I grab a sample of the Russell’s Rye just for old time’s sake.

Fast forward to a couple months ago. I was looking at my editorial calendar trying to plan out what the next month or so of reviews would be when I made a startling discovery. I’d not reviewed any of the Russell’s Reserve line. And even more shocking, I’d never even bought the Rye. For something that has become somewhat of a tradition for me, the thought brought me up a little short. My search for the next new thing had allowed me to pass over this one I enjoyed. For years. That changed. Fast.

Russell’s Reserve Rye

Purchase Info: $32.99, 750 mL. Marketplace Liquors, Savage, MN.

Details: 6 year old. 45% ABV.

Nose: Cheerios cereal, mint, cherry and a hint of cedar.

Mouth: Nice tingle. Flavorful. Mint, clove and oak.

Finish: Cereal, mint and a nice long heat fading to a pleasant bitterness.

Thoughts: Though I was surprised by the Cheerios on the nose, it was quickly followed by the more expected mint and wood. I like this rye, it’s got enough heat to keep things interesting and a good minty oak flavor. It’s got a nice finish. The tingle sticks around for a decent amount of time before fading to a bitterness that makes me want to take another sip. The price is good too. Especially since I just saw a bottling of a 7 year old MGP rye going for $90.

Blog

Jesse James America's Outlaw Bourbon Whiskey

Crown Royal Hand Selected Barrel

Old Forester Ready to Drink Mint Julep

Rebel Yell American Bourbon

Wathen’s Single Barrel

Russell’s Reserve Rye