Crown Royal Noble Collection: 13 Year Old Blender's Mash

August 28, 2018 Eric Burke

I realized today, that I was still paying for an Audible.com subscription. I found a deal before I went on my last trip where I could get two books instead of the usual one for my initial month. I thought that would be great as it would allow me to put on the headphones and drown out noises that the kids were making. Worked great! Except I forgot to cancel and I ended up with another credit for a free audiobook.

I'm a big fan of Ancient and Medieval Mediterranian History. Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, Carthage, and the Phoenicians, as well as the Later Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Huge fan. Like, I read scholarly works and textbooks for fun type of fan. That said, I've never read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I know that he got some things wrong and that he had certain biases, but I always figured that I would get around to it one day when I'd read enough to allow me to see through the cracks of the 200-year-old, 12-volume text.

Tonight, since I had forgotten to cancel the subscription, I decided to get my money's worth for that unexpected credit and got the entire 126-hour, unabridged version of the book using my one credit. Not too bad for $16. And right afterward (since they allow you to keep access to your books even after you cancel) I canceled the subscription.

And speaking of getting my money's worth, I was very worried that tonight's whiskey was going to be the exact opposite of that. It is a 13-year-old Canadian Whiskey from Crown Royal. It is created from a mashbill of 60% Corn, 36% Rye, and 4% Malted Barley. It was aged in new, charred American Oak barrels. And if that sounds like a bourbon, know that if it had been distilled and aged 130 miles to the south, it would be. But after the fiasco of the Crown Royal Bourbon Mash release last year, they wisely chose to leave the word bourbon off of the packaging, calling it "Crown Royal Noble Collection: 13 Year Old Blender's Mash" instead.

So though it is not legally Bourbon, how close is it and is a 13-year old Canadian "bourbon-ish" whiskey worth the $60 I paid for it?

Crown Royal Noble Collection: 13 Year Old Blender's Mash

Purchase Info: $57.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Details: 45% ABV. This would be bourbon if it were distilled and aged 130 miles south of where it was. 60% Corn, 36% Rye, and 4% Malted Barley and aged in new, charred oak barrels for 13 years.

Nose: Delicate and fruity with cherry Starburst® candy, mint and cinnamon.

Mouth: The first sip starts delicate, but doesn't stay that way. The second sip brings a nice, thick mouthfeel, caramel, cherry, baking spice and hints of mint and oak.

Finish: Medium length, but in a sneaky way. It fades quickly but then reappears a second or so later and hangs around for a bit with flavors of Cinnamon spice, mint and oak.

Thoughts: This is honestly the most "bourbon-like" Canadian whisky I've had. Which is why I keep stressing that this is bourbon in all but name. The price is higher than I would like but still lower than the prices of comparably aged bourbons these days. It has a good thick mouthfeel, complex flavors with nice spice and fruitiness. All in all, I like this one a lot and feel I got my money's worth on it. Maybe not as much as I did in the audiobook above, but this won't last 126 hours of constant use either.

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Four Roses Single Barrel: Private Selections from Binny's, OESQ and OESF

August 23, 2018 Eric Burke

IMAGE: Side label of 2 Private Selections of Four Roses Single Barrel showing they were purchased from Binny's Beverage Depot

Well, my wife left.

Not forever, just for the weekend. It's times like this when I realize just how much she does around here. Sure, I do a fair bit of the cooking even when she is here but that isn't what I'm talking about. No, she performs that greatest of all tasks: she deflects the kid.

My daughter is a bit of a worrier. Add in the fact that she is in her mid-twenties, and hasn't realized that other people know things yet, and you have the makings of a doting and slightly condescending young lady. One who is pretty sure that I can't take care of myself for a few days even though I took care of her for somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 years.

Luckily I convinced her that I wouldn't starve this evening and she decided to go out to see her boyfriend...now I just need to find something to eat. I had planned to run to the store before she left but I didn't, and she took the car. Guess she wasn't that worried.

But even though I may not know what I am going to eat, I have a pretty good idea of what I am going to drink this evening. Last weekend my wife and I tasted two different private selections of Four Roses from Binny's in Bloomington, Illinois. Binny's is mostly a Chicago chain, but they have a couple of locations further south in Illinois that I drive past on my to and from Kentucky.

These particular Four Roses Private Selections are OESF and OESQ. To my palate, these are the yeasts that are furthest from the classic bourbon flavor profile of caramel and spice. The F and Q yeasts tend to bring in more floral, fruity, and herbal notes. As such, they are some of my favorites to buy as private selections as they are both delicious and add a bit of fun to any blends I happen to make.

Four Roses Single Barrel Private Selections: Binny's OESQ and OESF

Purchase Info: Each bottle was $59.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Binny's Beverage Depot, Bloomington, IL.

Details: OESQ: 9 years 5 months old and 57% ABV. OESF: 9 years 6 months old and 56.7% ABV.

Nose:
OESQ: Caramel, cherry, dusty oak, and hints of leather.
OESF: Caramel, mint and citrus.

Mouth:
OESQ: Nice mouthfeel. Floral, fruity and mint notes. The proof brings a nice tingly warmth.
OESF: Proof brings a lot of heat. Once you get past that it follows the nose with sweet sweet caramel, herbal mintiness, and fruity citrus notes.

Finish:
OESQ: Longer side of medium. Dusty oak precedes lingering spicy, floral, and cherry notes.
OESF: Long and warm. Lingering cherry and mint.

IMAGE: A hand drawn heart because I love these!

Thoughts: I was super excited to find the F and Q versions of this on the same shelf. I had to talk my wife into allowing both to travel home with us, but we are both very glad that they did. The Q is my favorite of the two as I am loving the floral notes. My wife prefers the rich caramel of the F.

A refreshing summer cherry limeade...with booze!

August 21, 2018 Eric Burke

IMAGE: An antique collins glass filled with liquid ranging from clear at the top to a cloudy red at the bottom. Two cherries on a skewer are balanced on the rim as a garnish.

Even though tonight I'm sitting here with the windows open enjoying a nice breeze and temps in the low 70s—low 20s if you use the less precise space points that most of the world uses—this has been an overly warm summer here in Minnesota. Multiple instances of 110°+ (40°+ LSSP) heat index has driven me indoors for a good portion of the summer.

Now, I'm not one to complain about heat. Legitimate chances of snow 9-10 months out of the year will do that to you after 40-plus years of dealing with it. No, but that doesn't mean I don't want to enjoy a nice refreshing drink when the heat proves to be a little too much to handle (or sometimes even when it doesn't). And it just so happens that I stumbled across just such a refreshing drink while making this year's batch of Orange-Spiced Cocktail Cherries. It's really simple actually. I just mixed equal amounts of the syrup and lime juice and topped with soda water. But since much of the country has ripe cherries in the store at the moment and probably also has a few more months of lemonade weather, I thought it might be nice to share the recipe. And the recipe you'll need to make the recipe.

Arok's Cherry Limeade

2 oz Orange Spiced Cherry Syrup (see recipe below)
2 oz fresh squeezed lime juice (use less if it gets too tart or add some sugar...I like it tart though)
1 oz 100° proof bourbon (or higher, if you'd like)
Ice
Soda water

Pour all your ingredients, except soda water, over ice. Top with soda water. Take a photo if you are the type, then stir and sip this tart cherry goodness.

Arok's Orange Spiced Cherry Syrup

Syrup Ingredients

2 cups cherry puree (puree pitted sweet cherries in a blender, run it through a fine mesh screen sieve, discard the solids)
1 cup water
3 cups sugar

Syrup Spices

2 tbsp cinnamon chunks (crushed cinnamon sticks)
2 tbsp Juniper berries
2 tbsp whole Allspice
2 whole Star Anise (broken up slightly)

Syrup Sprits

6 fluid ounce Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao
3.5 fluid ounce new make rye (I used Buffalo Trace)
9.5 fluid ounce Bourbon (I used Knob Creek)

In a medium saucepan, combine the cherry juice, water, sugar and the spices and bring almost to a boil. (If you want to avoid straining it later, tie the spices up loosely in a piece of cheesecloth so you can fish them out). Once the mixture is at a simmer, let it simmer for 5 minutes to infuse the spices.

Allow the cherry juice to cool to at least below 160 degrees (don’t want that alcohol boiling off), remove the spices, add your spirits and stir.

At this point, you can bottle it and refrigerate. It made just under a quart and a half of syrup. My math says that with the spirits I used the proof of this syrup is roughly 40° proof, so it should keep a little while. But your proof will vary depending on the proof of the spirits you use.

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Red Wheat Bourbon

August 17, 2018 Eric Burke

While trying to figure out the DNS issue this site was having last night, I ended up doing a little research for an upcoming post. One of the unsung benefits of being a spirits writer is that if you plan to write about what you are drinking, then you can just say you are doing "research." And the greatest part of that is, it isn't even lying.

So since I was busy doing IT work (and doing research on future posts) last night, I thought that it might be a good time to finally get around to the third of three bottles of Limestone Branch Experimental Bourbon that I bought back in May.

This one has a very similar name from the second bottle I reviewed. So much so that the reason that the reviews were written in the order they were was because I grabbed the wrong bottle when I did the second review. There is a single word of difference in the names. This one does not have the word Malted in it. Which of course means that this is a much more typical wheated bourbon mash then the malted wheat bourbon was.

Limestone Branch Red Wheat Bourbon is a 98 proof bourbon distilled from a mash of 60% White Corn, 28% Wheat, and 12% Malted Barley. It is 22 months old.

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Red Wheat Bourbon

Purchase Info: $22.99 for a 375 mL bottle at Total Wine, Louisville, KY

Details: 49% ABV. Single Barrel. Barrel 59. Mash bill: 60% white corn, 28% wheat, 12% malted barley. Barrel Entry ABV: 50.58%. Barrel Char level 3. Aged 22 months.

Nose: Caramel, wintergreen, cardamom, and peach.

Mouth: Caramel, brown sugar, mint, hints of baking spice.

Finish: Warm and of medium length. There is an immediate "young" note upon swallowing which is followed by peach and baking spice.

Thoughts: I have never had a peach note show up in a bourbon before, so for that, I find this really interesting. This shows a lot of promise, but sadly just isn't there yet. As they release older versions though, this will be one to keep an eye on.

O.Z. Tyler, Bourbon and Rye

August 14, 2018 Eric Burke

IMAGE: Two miniature bottles. One OZ Tyler Bourbon, one OZ Tyler Rye

When I was a kid, Walt Disney's Bambi taught me two things.

1) The mom will always die in a Disney cartoon.
2) "If you can't say anything nice, don't say nothin' at all"

...

OZ Tyler Bourbon and Rye

Purchase Info: $0.99 each for 50mL bottles from Liquor Barn Middletown, Louisville, KY

Details: 45% ABV. Processed using the TerrePURE fast filtering process.
Bourbon: "Aged a minimum of a year and a day in new charred oak."
Rye: "Aged a minimum of six months in new charred oak."

Nose:
Bourbon: Caramel Corn. Smells very young.
Rye: Buttered corn initially. A hint of rye spice appears after a bit.

Mouth:
Bourbon: Gentle spice (mostly alcohol tingle), Sweet corn.
Rye: Thin and cool in the mouth. After holding it in the mouth for a while, rye spices appear. Slightly sweet with a hint of citrus.

Finish:
Bourbon: The finish really reminds me of the sips of Seagrams 7 and 7-up that I'd steal from my dad as a kid. Thin, grainy and just a bit longer than you'd hope for given the flavors.
Rye: Gentle and short with hints of rye spice that fade quickly.

IMAGE: A hand drawn face with a frown, tongue sticking out and x's for eyes.

Thoughts: It is my understanding that most of the TerrePURE whiskey is being either sold as bulk whiskey or bottled as store brands. Given that, you can be sure that it will end up in plenty of private labels near you. I know that Total Wine has multiple of their own brands that are made from TerrePURE whiskey. I've tried a couple. I haven't found one yet I could recommend. I bought this thinking that since this was a brand being released by the producers, that it might be a good representation of the best that they could do.

I still decided to only risk $4.

If this is representative of TerrePURE whiskey, then "Distilled in Indiana" will become the mark to look for on unknown bourbon instead of "Distilled in Kentucky." This bourbon gives Kentucky bourbon a bad name. Luckily most of the TerrePURE whiskeys I've had have been labeled as such. But maybe we should avoid all store brand Kentucky bourbons, just in case. And in case it wasn't obvious, I really do not like this. At all.

The rye is pretty meh. It's light on rye flavor. Doesn't have the punch you'd expect from even young rye. But, hey, it is much better than the bourbon. So there is that.

Heaven Hill 27-Year-Old Barrel Proof Small Batch

August 10, 2018 Eric Burke

Apologies for the delay on this post, paying work had me up until midnight last night and didn't leave much time for writing. Thanks for understanding.

I state in my Statement of Ethics that if I accept a review sample, I will disclose it at the beginning of the article. I’d like to thank Heaven Hill for providing this sample to me with no strings attached. As always, all thoughts are just my opinion and should be taken as just that.

IMAGE: sample bottle of Heaven Hill 27-Year-Old Barrel Proof Small Batch

My daughter is in her mid-twenties (or as I like to tease her, almost thirty). She moved back home to save up money and doesn't really have too many bills, so it wasn't too much of a surprise when she came to us a few months back and said she was going to be traveling across the country to visit a friend for his wedding.

What was a little surprising was that she was buying a camera for the trip. She's not a gadget person, and I just assumed that, like most of the population, her smartphone was going to double as her camera. What was even more surprising was her choice of camera.

Yesterday the camera arrived, and last night she tried it out using the dog as her model. I was working in my office when I heard the familiar "clickclick...whirrrr" of an old-style Polaroid camera come from the hall. Shortly after, she came bouncing into my office to show me that her new toy had arrived. Not usually being the bubbly type, it was unusual to see this much excitement from her. It turns out that my daughter has a bit of a hipster streak to her and bought a brand-new Polaroid-style instant camera to take on her trip.

I was shocked. I've been practicing photography for decades now. I remember when I was helping on studio photoshoots and the pros would have Polaroid backs on their medium-format cameras to preview a photo set-up because that was the only way to make sure everything was set-up correctly. It was a pain, and I was delighted when digital workflows made that unnecessary. Little did I know that my daughter is not alone in her desire for an expensive and low-quality image. There are so many people in the market for this old-style type of camera that I was able to find websites that reviewed and ranked all the currently available choices on the market. Having lived through it because I had to, I'm confused by the desire of people to, voluntarily pay that much for a single image.

But I am also smart enough to know that sometimes the things that excite one person are not the same things that excite everybody else. Take tonight's whiskey for instance. Heaven Hill 27-Year-Old Barrel Proof Small Batch is not only a mouthful of a name but is also the oldest bourbon I've personally ever tasted. I'm on record as being a fan of bourbons that fall in the 6- to 12-year-old range. And even then, I sometimes feel that the higher end of that has a reasonable possibility of having too much oak presence for my palate. But far be it from me to yuck someone else's yum.

The bourbon itself is a batch of 41 barrels that were distilled between 1989 and 1990 at the Old Heaven Hill Springs Distillery in Bardstown. That distillery famously burned down in 1996. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there is comparatively little of this juice remaining and that much of what is still around tastes more than a bit like you are sucking on an old log. Heaven Hill backs up that assumption by saying that only those 41 barrels passed their taste test. And that those 41 barrels only had enough liquid in them to allow the release of 3000 bottles at barrel proof.

That's right barrel-proof. But before you proof-chasers get all worked up, remember that this barrel proof is only 94.7° proof. One of the reasons this was able to last for a minimum of 27 years was that most of the barrels aged on low floors where the proof actually dropped while in the barrel.

But now we come to the moment of truth, how does it taste?

Heaven Hill 27-Year-Old Barrel Proof Small Batch

Purchase Info: This sample was generously sent to me by the distillery at no charge. The suggested retail price is $399.

Details: Aged 27 years. 47.35% ABV. Pre-fire Heaven Hill distilled.

Nose: Floral spice with a slightly astringent note greet you upon pouring. After a bit of time in the glass, soft vanilla and red fruits appear as well.

Mouth: Soft in the mouth. You could easily hold this in your mouth for minutes. Notes of floral oak and vanilla predominate.

Finish: Medium length with a strong floral oak presence.

Thoughts: I like this, though not as much as others will. It is very, very, far out of my price range, but it also has a much more prominent oak presence than I prefer. Because of that, I'm going to let my wife, who is a fan of old and oaky bourbons take over from here.

"If given this blind, I would have guessed it was in the late teens, maybe low twenties in age. Honestly, before I tasted it, I was expecting it to be an oak bomb. There is a lot of oak, but I don't think it is too much. This is a good bourbon for those who love older bourbons and are lucky enough to have both the means and opportunity to buy it. The floral notes remind me of some of the old dusties we've found. I love it."

Elijah Craig: Cox's and Evergreen Hand Selected

August 7, 2018 Eric Burke

IMAGE: A bottle of Elijah Craig. This one a hand selected barrel by Cox's and Evergreen Liquors in Louisville, KY

Last week I was on a family vacation to the Outer Banks area of North Carolina. As we drove home, I was able to finagle an evening in Louisville, one of my favorite cities to visit. Which reminded me that I should probably get around to talking about a bottle that I picked up on my last trip to Louisville back in May.

It was on that May trip that I remembered that there was such a thing as a private selection of Elijah Craig Small Batch. Well, one that wasn't the Barrel Proof version, that is. I was sitting at the bar of the Silver Dollar having a drink with one friend while waiting to have supper with another. My friend and I both ordered one of their private picks of Elijah Craig, erroneously thinking it was the barrel proof version of the product. It was not.

It was, however, delicious. Which meant that when I hit up all my favorite stores to do a little whiskey shopping, I needed to keep my eye out for it. And I found it at a store that had been recommended to me by a reader called Evergreen Liquors. It was only my second stop there, but I had really enjoyed the private picks I'd picked up there the September before. And so with those two thoughts in my head, I picked up tonight's bottle.

Elijah Craig: Cox's and Evergreen Hand Selected

Purchase Info: $29.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Evergreen Liquors, Louisville, KY

Details: 47% ABV

Nose: Worn leather, cotton candy, vanilla, and nutmeg

Mouth: Nice and spicy. Sweet with a good hit of baking spices and vanilla with fleeting hints of fruit.

Finish: On the longer side of medium with lingering notes of oak tannins, mint, and sweet fruits.

Thoughts: This is a very good selection from a store where I've been happy with previous picks I've purchased from them. Two data points are not yet a trend, but it might be a trend forming.

Compared to the standard release, this bottle is spicier in the mouth with a warmer and oakier finish. The noses are very similar.

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Malted Red Wheat Bourbon

July 26, 2018 Eric Burke

Have you ever been so busy that you just forget to eat? You wouldn't know it from looking at me, but it happens to me all the time. I'll get so into working on a project that all of a sudden I'll look up and it's four in the afternoon...and it's right about then that I realize that I am really hungry and end up eating a little too much to compensate.

This is the probably the reason you wouldn't be able to tell that I frequently forget meals.

Anyway, that's the sort of passion that I expect most craft distillers have. Not the gorging after unintentional fasting part, but the getting so into a project that you forget about everything else part. The distillers that I've met have all really loved what they are doing and loved the experimentation that they could do.

Which brings us to the second of three bottles of Limestone Branch's Experimental Collection that I picked up in May. This one is named Malted Red Wheat and is made up of a mash bill of 60% white corn, 28% malted wheat and 12% malted barley.

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Malted Red Wheat Bourbon

Purchase Info: $22.99 for a 375 mL bottle at Total Wine, Louisville, KY

Details: 47.5% ABV. Single Barrel. Barrel 114. Mash bill: 60% white corn, 28% malted wheat, 12% malted barley. Barrel Entry ABV: 50.63%. Barrel Char level 3. Aged 20 months.

Nose: Toffee, floral, gentle baking spices.

Mouth: Generic Sweetness, malted milk, cinnamon spice.

Finish: Youth shows up on the finish bringing cinnamon spice and dried grain notes along with it.

IMAGE: a hand-drawn face with a neutral expression

Thoughts: I have a feeling that when it grows up, I will like this much better than the first bottle in the series that I reviewed. For right now though, this one is quite a bit too young for my palate.

Hey folks, no plug for the store tonight. I'm taking off next week for a family vacation to North Carolina and would be unable to fulfill the orders anyway. That also means no posts next week. Wish me luck, it's a road trip with a 13 year old, a 7 year old, and a 4 year old...they may just drive me to have an extra bourbon when we stop for the night. 😉

Blog

Crown Royal Noble Collection: 13 Year Old Blender's Mash

Four Roses Single Barrel Private Selections: Binny's OESQ and OESF

Arok's Cherry Limeade

Arok's Orange Spiced Cherry Syrup

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Red Wheat Bourbon

OZ Tyler Bourbon and Rye

Heaven Hill 27-Year-Old Barrel Proof Small Batch

Elijah Craig: Cox's and Evergreen Hand Selected

Limestone Branch Experimental Collection Malted Red Wheat Bourbon