Breaking my personal price ceiling: Wild Turkey Master's Keep, 17-year old bourbon

I’ve got some momentous news. I’ve made the decision to increase my personal price ceiling for bourbon. For the last 5 years or so, it’s been sitting firm at $125 per bottle. At the time I set it, it was a safe price, only Van Winkle would have broken it and honestly, I’ve never been a fan of wheated bourbon. But I could see the trends happening even then. I instituted it as a self-imposed way to keep me in line.

To say that prices have been increasing over the past few years would be an understatement. Though super-premium bourbon starts at around $25, and good bourbon can still be had for less than that, newer expressions tend to skew a bit more…up-market from that price point. Forget super-premium bourbon, we now live in the world of Ultra-Premium. It is no longer unusual to see new expressions at an MSRP of around $100 right out of the gate. And while I am among the herd of people who bemoan this fact, it remains that people don’t even seem to blink an eye at this price anymore. In fact, in a weird bit of human psychology, they seem to just want it more. 

Things have gotten so bad that even my value favorite, Wild Turkey has gotten in on the action. Their last two releases Diamond and Master’s Keep have shattered the $100 barrier. With the latest, Master’s Keep at a suggested price of $150 for a 750 mL bottle. 

Master’s Keep is a 17-year old bourbon. Bottled near barrel proof it is 86.8° proof. And I can hear you now questioning that last statement. As we discussed in June, a barrel of bourbon can either gain or lose proof depending on it’s aging environment. According to Wild Turkey, this 17 year old bourbon had an interesting aging history. The bottle says it started life in a wooden warehouse. At some point in it’s life, they ran out of room and rented some space from another distillery who happened to use stone warehouses. Once space opened up, the decision was made to bring the barrels home to the wood and metal Wild Turkey warehouses again. The theory is that the time in the stone warehouse allowed the bourbon in to rest in the barrel with less interaction with the wood and lowered the proof from an entry proof of 107° to a dumping proof of 89°. In any case it produced a bourbon that, while old, doesn’t taste over-oaked. 

And though this has next to nothing to do with the bourbon inside, as a designer I did geek out a little on the packaging. The box is a nice matte black with foil, embossing and hidden magnetic closures. The painted bottle is simple and elegant with an embossed flying turkey. The closure is cork, with a heavy wood and copper top. It really is beautiful and will be on a display shelf long after it is empty.

Wild Turkey Master’s Keep

Purchase info: $169.99, 750 mL bottle. Wild Turkey Distillery Gift Shop. (I saw it for sale in Minnesota today for $154.)

Details: 17 years old. 43.4% ABV. Batch 1, bottle #46237. 

Nose: Floral and fruity. Cherry blossoms, brown sugar, vanilla, baking spices, mint, oak and hint black tea.

Mouth: Nice mouthfeel with just enough heat, though more than I expected from sub 90 proof. Lots of rich flavors: leather, dark chocolate and cherry. More brown sugar and baking spices. Herbal mint. 

Finish: Nice warm finish that lingers for a while. More herbal mint and brown sugar. 

A heart because I love this one. I don't love the price though.

Thoughts: This is a very expensive bourbon, well over both my old and new price ceiling, purchased because my wife is a Wild Turkey fan-girl and really wanted to get it signed by Jimmy Russell who happened to be sitting in the visitor’s center. It is also a very old bourbon with a legitimately unique aging history. And it tastes fantastic. If you have the money, this is highly recommended. At this price, I won’t be buying a second bottle but I don’t regret breaking my price ceiling to buy the one I have.

Oh and in case you were curious, my new personal price ceiling is just the old one adjusted for inflation: $135. 

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!

The Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History

Have you ever been to Bardstown, KY? You really should go. It’s a small town at around 12,000 people or so. Most of those 12,000 people are fantastic. Helpful, nice people are the rule, not the exception. If you are looking for a bit of quiet, Bardstown is perfect. The stores downtown tend to close around five o’clock at night. The restaurants somewhere near ten. But the major thing Bardstown offers is that it sits smack dab in the heart of Bourbon Country. It’s a home to two major (and a couple small) bourbon distilleries and is a short drive from most of the rest.

Sitting just off of downtown is Spalding Hall. Spalding Hall was originally built in 1839 as part of St. Joseph’s College, the first Catholic College in Kentucky. As you drive down Stephen Foster Avenue, Bardstown’s main road, don’t feel too bad if you don’t notice it at first. It is tucked behind the Basilica of St. Joseph and the grounds of the current St. Joseph’s Preparatory School. But, if you turn onto 5th Street, you can’t help but notice it. A large green lawn with large trees fronts the large Federal style building. Though built as part of the college, it has served various functions over the years. It was a hospital during the Civil War, a seminary, an orphanage and a high school. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Today it houses a restaurant and the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History. 

Oscar Getz and his brother-in-law were whiskey brokers before and after Prohibition. When the whiskey business started to change, they bought the Tom Moore distillery in Bardstown so that they could be assured of a steady supply of whiskey for their brands and renamed it Barton. Being an avid fan of whiskey history, Getz collected whiskey memorabilia and created a small museum on the distillery grounds to house his collection. Chuck Cowdery tells us that museum was open to the public. After Mr. Getz died in 1983, his wife donated the museum to the City of Bardstown in July of 1984 and it was moved to Spalding Hall.

Today the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History takes up most of the first floor of the three story building. There are two wings. The one to the left (as you enter the building) houses an exhibit on distilling and aging, a replica saloon, Abraham Lincoln’s liquor license, temperance and prohibition propaganda items and old bottles. Many, many old bottles. If you take a right, there are rooms that house exhibits that roughly trend around one or two of today’s major distilleries. Wild Turkey, Heaven Hill, Brown-Forman, Jim Beam, etc. Mixed in you will find more old bottles, labels, label printing plates, advertisements and much more. It really is a must stop for the bourbon lover who finds themselves in Bardstown. 

But there is a problem. The museum needs money. In talking to the volunteers, I found out that the museum doesn’t get any outside help. Though bourbon tourism is big business in Kentucky these days, drawing people in from all over the world, the state gives the museum no monetary help. And though it houses exhibits that are basically advertisements for many current brands, the distilleries don’t give the museum any money either. Though to be fair, I was told that Barton has a couple times in the past. Instead, the musuem funds itself through various other means. During my last visit, they had a table out selling old empty whiskey bottles. They’d had a large donation and were selling off ones they already had. I bought an Old Crow “traveler fifth” bottle and an IW Harper decanter bottle from the 60s for $5 each. 

Master Distiller’s Auction

The main way the museum funds itself is with the Master Distiller’s Auction held each year during the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. The auction is held in the chapel of the building. The auction is sponsored by the Van Winkles and provides most of the museum’s operating budget for the year. Items up for bid include old “dusty” bottles of bourbon, historical artifacts, signed bottles of special releases, gift baskets, and other interesting items. The items for sale are all donated. Most from the distilleries in the area.

I went to the auction for the first time last year and didn’t buy anything. This year on the other hand, we went in with a plan to come away with something. I was particularly interested in the dusties. Last year a few had gone at prices I could afford. This year, no such luck. A bottle of JW Dant and a bottle of Gibson’s Rye each from 1933 went for $1350 each, a quart of Old Sunnybrook from 1937 went for $500 and a pint of Prohibition era Crestmore bourbon went for $700. I was also interested in the prohibition whiskey prescriptions. Those went for about $200 each, also more than I wanted to pay. There were a couple of things I wish I could have bid on but knew I couldn’t afford and would have needed to be fairly local to use. One was a cocktail class by Joy Perrine that received no bids and that the auctioneer bought. The other was a tasting led by bourbon historian Mike Veach and that went for $400. 

I ended up getting a few things though. I bought an Old Forester gift box from 2008 commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition for $95. I might have gotten a little carried away there, but it’s for charity so I didn’t mind overpaying some. But I also got a couple of things no one else wanted for less than retail. I got a bottle of 1792 plus a bottle of Bloody Kentucky bloody mary mix for $40 and a bottle of Wild Turkey Diamond plus a set of four glasses for $140. Overall I felt good knowing the money was going to support the museum and I got a couple things I would drink.

Of course the really big money was reserved for more current releases of Whiskey. Yep the Pappy was the big money prize of the day. A signed bottle of Pappy 23 came in at $1600, the 20 was $1150, 15 year old went for $900, the Old Rip Van Winkle 12 year for $750 and the 10 year for $425. Overall, as befitting the corporate sponsor, Van Winkle  bourbons brought in more than one quarter of the $17,000 that the auction brought in for the museum.

I really recommend that if you find yourself in Bardstown, you visit the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History. It’s free to visit, though there is a donation box. The building is old, the exhibits are old, the stuff inside the exhibits is old. But in this case, that’s a good thing.

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!

Why I go to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival

Last week, I went to Kentucky to do a little shopping...go to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown, KY.

You might ask, “Eric, you’ve been there before why keep going back?” And honestly, I’ve asked myself that very question. I tend to go to the same events. I visit the same stores and gift shops. To be honest, I don’t even consume that much whiskey. In fact, I almost didn’t go this year. We already had a trip planned for late August and didn’t think that we’d be able to go on another one that soon.

But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized that it isn’t the events or even the shopping that brings me back every year. Sure the couple of events I go to every year, I go to because I have a good time. And yes, I could have paid a good chunk of my mortgage with the amount of money I spent on whiskey in those four days. But the real reason is the people. I’ve made a lot of friends going to BourbonFest. I missed a couple of them this year, but I met new ones as well. 

I like to go to the All-Star Sampler™. Distilleries, big and small, are are pouring whiskey. And I see a lot of people there. Some I see every year and I almost always spend much more time talking with friends, old and new, than I do drinking. 

I like to go to Let’s Talk Bourbon™ at Four Roses every year both because it is at Four Roses and because it is always different. It always starts out the same, but the question and answer session always goes in directions you couldn’t anticipate. Plus this year we got to hear from new Master Distiller, Brent Elliot in addition to Jim Rutledge and Al Young.

The best event though is one it costs nothing to attend. Even though it might turn out to be the most expensive one you go to if you aren’t careful. And that is the Master Distiller’s Auction at the Oscar Getz museum. (I’ll have a full post about that one coming soon.)

Toss in the festival, the barrel races, the spirit garden and the crafts for sale on the lawn and it is a very good time. No, you probably won’t be wowed by the whiskey that is poured. It’s mostly the stuff you can walk into any store and grab on the shelf for under $30. But you know what? There is something to be said for sitting under a tree with a glass of old Grand-dad 114 talking to people who share your love of whiskey and your knowledge that friends are the best thing you can find in Kentucky.

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!

Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch, 2015 Release

Every year, the bottle that I most want to find is the Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch. Like all limited edition releases, this used to be no problem to find. I was still buying the 2009 Mariage in 2011. In fact, I kinda wished that this particular release would become a little more popular because we weren’t getting the intervening years on the shelf due to 2009 not selling. 

Oh did I ever get my wish. 

But the universe, like it often does in these situations, overcorrected. Now, the only way I can be assured of getting a bottle of this is to be at the distillery early on release day. Luckily for me, release day seems to line up with BourbonFest these days. Which means I get to pretend that the festival is the real reason I go to Kentucky in September instead of a single bottle of whiskey. 

But this year is even more special. Jim Rutledge, Master Distiller of Four Roses has just retired taking the title Master Distiller Emeritus. This is his last Limited Small Batch. This was one I knew that I would have to try. 

Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch, 2015

Purchase info: $120 for 750mL. Four Roses Distillery Gift Shop, Lawrenceburg, KY.

Details: 54.3% ABV. A mix of 16 year old OBSK, 15 year old OESK, 14 year old OESK and 11 year old OBSV. Bottle number 8722 of 12672.

Nose: This is one of those bourbons that I could nose all night. There is a big hit of oak right off the bat, followed by brown sugar, apples, cherries and baking spices. Beautiful!

Mouth: First impressions: warm, sweet, spicy and comforting. Like a warm blanket for your mouth. Leather, allspice, clove, brown sugar and cherry. 

Finish: Long and warming. More leather and cherry. 

A heart because I love this one!

Thoughts: Oh. My. God! I hesitate to say this for fear of fanning the fervor, but this might be my favorite Limited Small Batch yet. This is Mr. Rutledge’s last outing on this and he has outdone himself. Standing ovation on this one. Amazing! 

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!

It's That Time of Year Again...

It is that time again. It's the time of year when people turn their minds to bourbon. Even those who aren't fanatics. In Kentucky (and in our hearts), it's Bourbon Heritage Month.

In honor of the bourbon-time of year, I've added a new design to the BourbonGuy online store*. It's what I consider to be the essential recipe for a great glass of bourbon. You can have more ingredients, but you at least need these five. (Though the last one is optional at times.) The design is available on posters, wood art, coffee mugs, t-shirts and a tie. The poster above is 12" x 36" and it is the item I felt like I needed to have out of the bunch. So if you want to support the site and get something for yourself or a loved one, please check it out. 

It's also time for me to head to Bardstown, Kentucky for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. I'm packed, my house is cleaned and the dog sitter is here. All that is left is to hit publish. Thanks for another great year folks. 

*This item, and in fact this store, are no longer available. 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!

Dad’s Hat Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey Finished in Vermouth Barrels

I, by nature, am a bit of a hermit. I like my desk. I like my office chair. I like sitting in my office. Which is a good thing since I now work from home and spend a lot of time in that spot. Luckily for my ever expanding waistline, my wife is pretty good at getting me to leave my office. 

But every once in a while she needs to travel for work. When that happens, I get to indulge my tendency to be alone in my office for every waking moment. Knowing that I can work for 12-15 hours at a time if I don’t have anything to distract me, she feels a little guilty leaving me alone for multiple days. To make it up to me, a bottle of whiskey will often find it’s way into her luggage on the way home. Which is how I ended up with a bottle of Dad’s Hat Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey Finished in Vermouth Barrels.

Since this one is not available here in Minnesota, I’d love to spin you a yarn about how I went searching for this whiskey all over the country and finally, finally found it tucked away in the corner of an old mom and pop liquor store in the backwoods of a sparsely populated state. I’d love to do that, but it isn’t true. My wife walked into the Party Source back in June and bought it. That’s all there is to the story. 

But why did I ask her to pick up this particular bottle of whiskey to bring home? Well, I seemed to remember that people I think highly of said nice things about it when it was released. I love Manhattans so the idea of vermouth and rye whiskey was appealing. And even if it wasn’t good, I figured it might well be interesting. Plus I felt like it would be a good one to share. I know a guy locally who has a thing for young rye.

But here’s the thing, when I got the bottle i noticed it was 9 months old. All of a sudden I went from excited to try it to wondering what I would be doing with the rest of the bottle. I mean, I find Willet’s two year old rye to be too young. Immediately upon opening it, I poured some to share. 

A little later I got a tweet back from him. “Dad's Hat Vermouth Finished Rye? Not my favorite thing.” Not having tried it myself yet I asked if it tasted like a 9 month old whiskey. His answer?

“It tasted young but not that young. And I thought it had a hint of vermouth from a 10 yr old bottle lost in the back of a cabinet”

Now I was actually more intrigued than scared.

Dad’s Hat Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey Finished in Vermouth Barrels

Purchase Info: $41.99, 750 mL. The Party Source, Bellevue, KY.

Details: 47% ABV. Aged 6 months. Finished for an additional 3 months in Vya sweet vermouth barrels.

Nose: This is an odd nose. Very grain forward (as to be expected from a nine month old whiskey). Under that is black tea, caramel and hints of cardamom and celery seed.

Mouth: Showing it’s youth it has the raw spiciness of a very young rye along with a lot of grassy mint. Hints of the vermouth barrel finish play along the sides of my tongue. 

Finish: Warm but fairly short. The vinous vermouth flavor really shows here. Hints of cinnamon and cardamom reappear.

a neutral face since I find this a bit meh.

Thoughts: Not being a fan of really young ryes, this is not quite to my palate. That said, it feels like it was a nicely crafted rye before the barrel finishing and I hope they have some stuck away in big barrels for the future. (I see they have a two year old distillery only release.) As it stands, I probably can’t recommend it unless you are a big fan of really young ryes and even then would suggest trying it in a bar before dropping $40 on a bottle.

A distillery visit and review: Wyoming Whiskey

Kirby, WY. From one end to the other.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect as the van I was driving crested the hill that gave me my first view of Kirby, Wyoming. I had read it was a small town. But even for a guy who spent a good portion of his childhood in a town with no population listed on the sign, Kirby was small. Off in the distance we saw one tall building. “A grain elevator?” I asked my wife.

Kirby, Wyoming is a village with a population just south of 100 people. It’s four block by five block area split in half by the railroad line that runs through the center of town. The roads are gravel. The houses are few. The nearest population center with over 50,000 people is Casper, WY, two and a half hours to the southeast. This is not the type of place that you would expect would be the home of a product that sits on store shelves in roughly half the country.

When I pulled into the parking lot in front of that one tall building (a distillery it turns out, not a grain elevator), I asked Samuel Mead, distiller at Wyoming Whiskey, why Kirby? The answer was simple: his family had a ranch there. It seems that that ranch was what allowed Wyoming Whiskey to go about setting up the distillery, distill product and allow it to age until it was ready to be sold. 

Ask any small distiller what the one thing they wish they had more of and the answer is probably going to be operating capital. A distillery is a huge investment, even after you’ve bought the equipment and gotten it up and running. Aged product takes time. Time where you are not making any money. Having another source of income allowed them to hire Steve Nally, formerly of Maker’s Mark, to come help them get running and as Mead says, “teach us how to make whiskey.” 

Launched in late 2012, Wyoming whiskey met with mixed reviews. Some folks gave it very high marks while others were not so happy with their bottle. When asked about the apparent discrepancy between batches, Mead was honest and told me that their quality control "may not have been the best early on." In an effort to combat this, they have recently hired a well regarded blender to help them out. With recent batches (batch 28 and on) having come under her supervision.  

Wyoming Whiskey, Batch 29. Purchased in Casper, WY at the Liquor Shed

As I was going to be through on a Sunday when the distillery was closed, I set up a tour with Distiller Samuel Mead. Photos follow.

Wyoming Whiskey, Kirby Wyoming. This is the tallest building in Kirby by a long shot.

There is a good reason why this is the tallest building in Kirby. They need it. This is a tall still.

The still is made by Vendome. It was made back when you could contact them and be reasonably sure of not being on an 18 month waiting list.

The back of the still features the cattle brand of the Mead family. I didn't think to ask what the TT stood for.

The still safe also features the brand. But I just put this picture in because I thought it was pretty.

If you look closely at the grain hoppers that feed into the cookers you'll notice that this is a wheated bourbon. 

This empty barrel is waiting to be filled.

Though the info is written on by hand, true to the cattle ranching roots, the barrel's logo is branded on.

When we entered an aging warehouse, I noticed this guy. Barrel number 1.

The last stop on the tour was the bottling line. Empty today as it was a Sunday. While there we got the opportunity to taste the tasty upcoming Cask-Strength Single Barrel release.

Wyoming Whiskey

Purchase Info: $34.99, 750 mL. The Liquor Shed, Casper, WY.

Details: 44% ABV. Batch 29. Bottled on July 31, 2015.

Nose: Caramel, custard and cola with just the barest hints of spice and oak underneath.

Mouth: A nice, but not overpowering, tingle. Sweet cola, vanilla and caramel. Herbal rosemary and mint. A nice biscuity flavor overall.

Finish: Gently warming and of ok length. Lingering herbal and cola flavors.

A smiley face because I like this.

Thoughts: This is certainly not your typical bourbon. And maybe that is why I am liking it so much. In a category that normally differs by degrees of sameness, this is a truly unique product. Wyoming Whisky may have had a rocky start, but if this is any indication of the direction they are headed under their new blender, they are now on the right track.

Because it is quite unique, I'd recommend trying one at a bar should you see it on the shelf. I like it a lot, but your milage may vary.

Want to know if Wyoming Whiskey is available in your state? Lucky for us they had this handy map in the stillhouse.

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!

A less than tasty vacation souvenir: Yellowstone Bourbon

Last week I went on a family vacation to Wyoming and Colorado. My retired mother, despite being moved to tears at the sight of mountains, had never seen Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons or Rocky Mountain National Parks. Being the good son that I am I felt it was my duty to make sure she got there. 

My mother can be a bit of a recluse. She lives in an extremely small town and seldom leaves it. She is terrified of freeways, especially if there are other cars on them. And deviations from her comfort zone tend to make her more than a bit nervous. But for all of that, I knew she would love these parks. 

My wife is an amazing trip planner. She finds the most amazing ways to make vacations memorable. In this case, aside from the destinations, she invited my cousin and his family along. He lives in Wyoming and the rest of the family seldom gets to see him or his kids. My mother was thrilled.

One night, before bed, we were sitting on a porch at the Old Faithful Inn. I was chatting with my cousin about whiskey. He likes whiskey, but isn’t as adventurous as I am about spending money on new things, sticking mainly to Pendleton, his go to. He mentioned that he saw a Yellowstone whiskey in the gift shop for forty something dollars. Now the only Yellowstone whiskey I was aware of was sold by Luxco and was a bottom shelf dweller. So, being confused, I went to look at this $40 plus Yellowstone whiskey. 

It turns out that it was a local craft whiskey that said something like “Something special from Yellowstone” as its tagline. But right next to it was a bottle of the Luxco Yellowstone Bourbon. It was priced appropriately cheap at about $6 for a small bottle. Being impressed by my surroundings, I decided to buy the bottle to share with my cousin. If nothing else it was a good excuse to try something I would otherwise not have purchased. 

I took it back to the room and poured a glass for my cousin, my wife and myself. He took a sip and made an interesting face. I knew that face. It was the face of a man who, unexpectedly, had been given a mouthful of something he didn’t like, but was too polite to spit out. I smiled. I’d seen that face before. And I took a sip myself. I mean it couldn’t be that bad.

It was. I swallowed it, looked at him and asked: “dump this out?” He agreed and we both went off in search of something better. I decided that instead of immediately dumping out the rest of the bottle, I would (voluntarily) do tasting notes for it when I got home. So here I am, a week, three National Parks and four states later, keeping my promise.

Yellowstone is a bourbon sold by Luxco out of St. Louis. They make some good value brands that I like, a few premium brands that I like and a bunch of things I hope to never taste again. The brand is currently sourced bourbon, but they recently bought a share in the Limestone Branch distillery in order to produce it there. The folks at Limestone branch have family ties to the brand on both sides of their family. Back from when I assume it was something to be proud of. It’s not now, but who knows. Maybe in a few years time, it will be again.

Yellowstone Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Purchase info: $5.99, 200 mL bottle. Yellowstone General Stores, Yellowstone National Park

Details: Aged 36 months. 40% ABV.

Nose: Dried corn, mint, citrus, confectioners sugar

Mouth: Molasses and mint. Very grain forward. Thin mouthfeel. 

Finish: Hints of mildew, a medicinal ethanol, mint and cloves. 

A frowny face because I really dislike this.

Thoughts: This was paid for by the generous support of this blog’s patrons. And it was such a waste of that money! $5.99 for a 200 mL bottle was way too much. I wouldn’t even use this for mixing. In fact, right after I took the photo above, I finally dumped it out.

But here’s an interesting tidbit. Yesterday, I got a press release from Luxco stating that they were releasing a Yellowstone Limited Edition for $105. If they hope to sell any to someone who has bought Yellowstone in the past, they might want to do as Kirin did with Four Roses and buy back all the existing rotgut so no one buys it in confusion. Of course, if you confuse a $105 bourbon with a sub $20 one, you might deserve what you get. But still, it would be nice to know that this product has gone the way of the Yellowstone Wolves. Wiped out only to be reintroduced when they’ve learned better. 

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!