A BourbonGuy Look at Random Gins

Two of the gins featured in this article were sent along by the producers as part of a previously disclosed review sample. They are Filibuster Dual Cask Gin and Tommyrotter Cask Strength Bourbon Barrel Gin. I would like to thank both companies for providing these samples with no strings attached.

View fullsize

So. Gin?

Gin?

Yeah. Gin.

Do I know anything about gin? Not really. I know that last summer I read an old article by David Wondrich on the origin of the Gin Rickey. I know that gin is neutral spirit (essentially vodka, don’t @ me) flavored with juniper and other botanicals. I know that gin cannot legally be “aged” or have an age statement, though it can be “rested” or “finished” in a barrel for an undisclosed amount of time. I know that a lot of my non-whiskey drinking friends tend to favor gin. And I know that last statement is why I had a few different bottles in my house last year when I read that previously mentioned David Wondrich article and decided that a Gin Rickey sounded like a fantastically refreshing summer drink.

So I made one using the gins I keep on hand for friends. I loved it. Of course, I’d already made the occasional gin and tonic so I wasn’t a stranger to the combination of citrus and gin. But something about the dry quality of of the Rickey struck me as exactly what I would want on a warm summer afternoon. It is actually now my go to drink when I’m sitting on the deck in the warm summer weather.

Ok so here I am with a gin drink that I really like. As you do, I decided to expand my uses for gin. First I moved over to a Tom Collins. Super tasty, but I liked the Rickey better. Then I tried a Negroni, I’d made one before and found it kinda meh, but fell in love with a riff where I swap the vermouth with Averna. (I’m thinking that maybe I just don’t like vermouth.)

Of course, being the obsessive geek that I am, I needed to find out which gins I liked best. I mean how could I live with myself if I was enjoying a decent gin in my rickey when an amazing one was out there for the drinking? And just for the hell of it, I decided to bring you along for the ride.

A BourbonGuy Look at Random Gins

The ones I ended up with were a mixture of gins I had on hand because of friends, those I ran across at craft distillers and a couple that had been sent to me by craft distillers who had provided them to me along with whiskies that they wanted me to review. The lineup is as follows.

Beefeater

Details: Owned by Pernod Ricard. Flavored with: juniper, lemon peel, coriander seed, almond, seville orange peel, orris root, licorice root, angelica root, and angelica seed according to the Beefeater website. 47% ABV. Can be purchased locally for $15.49 for a liter bottle.

BourbonGuy Notes:

Nose: Juniper, Lemon zest, mint, faint baking spice.
Mouth: Lemon Zest, mint and spice, juniper.
Finish: almost sweet, after a bit a hint of lemon.
Thoughts: Not nearly as juniper forward as I would expect from the nose.

Beefeater 24

Details: Owned by Pernod Ricard. Flavored with: Japanese sencha, Chinese green tea, grapefruit peels, juniper, lemon peel, almond, seville orange peel, coriander seed, orris root, licorice root, angelica root, and angelica seed according to the Beefeater website. 45% ABV. Can be purchased locally for $24.99 for a liter bottle.

BourbonGuy Notes:

Nose: Juniper, mint, lemon zest. (softer than Beefeater)
Mouth: Mixed citrus, mint, there is an herbal note.
Finish: Minty with a little juniper.
Thoughts: Considering how similar the nose on the 2 Beefeaters are, I'm actually surprised how different they are. I like how spicy this one is.

Hendrick’s

Details: Owned by William Grand & Sons. Flavored with: orris root, yarrow, angelica root, orange peel, juniper, caraway seeds, cubeb berries, lemon peel, chamomile, elderflower, coriander seeds, rose petal, cucumber according to the Hendrick’s website. 44% ABV. Can be purchased locally for $21.99 for a 750 mL bottle.

BourbonGuy Notes:

Nose: Juniper, mint
Mouth: Spicy with a lot of juniper
Finish: long juniper finish
Thoughts: This is my least favorite so far. It is very juniper forward and I don't care for the spices I'm getting. I don’t get any cucumber.

Bombay Sapphire

Details: Owned by Bacardi. Flavored with: juniper, lemon peel, coriander, angelica root, orris, grains of paradise, cubeb berries, cassia bark, almond and licorice according to the Bombay Sapphire website. 47% ABV. Can be purchased locally for $23.99 for a liter bottle.

BourbonGuy Notes:

Nose: Savory, Coriander, old dry wood, hints of juniper.
Mouth: lemon, cinnamon, Coriander
Finish: mint, hints of juniper. after a while-distinct lemon
Thoughts: This is a tasty gin. Not the "pine trees" stereotype of non-gin drinkers at all. I could almost drink this one straight... almost.

Vikre Boreal Juniper Gin

Details: Craft distillery in Duluth Minnesota. Flavored with a combination of foraged wild botanicals and traditional gin botanicals according to their website. 45% ABV. Can be purchased locally for $32.99 for a 750 mL bottle.

BourbonGuy Notes:

Nose: Black pepper.
Mouth: Flat and muted in the mouth.
Finish: Mint, juniper, lemon.
Thoughts: This is pretty flavorless until the finish. It isn't unpleasant, there is just little to draw me in when tasted neat.

Filibuster Dual Cask

Details: Craft distillery in Maurertown, Virginia. Finished in both American and French oak casks. 45% ABV. Cannot be purchased locally. This was a review sample.

BourbonGuy Notes:

Nose: Savory, Rosemary and a touch of juniper
Mouth: Thin mouthfeel. Savory Basil.
Finish: Long-lasting lemon, oak, hints of juniper.
Thoughts: This isn't bad at all. The basil notes are interesting (in a good way).

New Riff Kentucky Wild Bourbon Barreled Gin

Details: Craft distillery in Newport, Kentucky. Flavored with: angelica, orris and licorice root, and three kinds of citrus, wild juniper berry, American Spicebush, goldenrod, Rye Whiskey New Make. Finished in used bourbon barrels for 5-7 months. 47% ABV. Cannot be purchased locally. Can be purchased in Kentucky for $31.99 for a 750 mL bottle.

BourbonGuy Notes:

Nose: Juniper, orange peel , just a hint of smoke
Mouth: Sweet, juniper, orange
Finish: lemon pledge
Thoughts: I want to like this a lot more than I do. That lemon pledge finish kills it.

Tommyrotter Cask Strength Bourbon-Barrel Gin

Details: Craft distillery in Buffalo, New York. Finished in new, charred American White Oak barrels. 61% ABV. Cannot be purchased locally, this is was a review sample.

BourbonGuy Notes:

Nose: Mint, caramel, ginger.
Mouth: Cinnamon, lemon, ginger,
Finish: ginger, molasses, touch of juniper
Thoughts: This is really good. As a bourbonguy, this is the only one I would drink neat.

Cocktails

So, now that we have the tasting notes out of the way, let’s get down to the reason why I actually had them in the house to begin with: cocktails. My wife and I tried each of these in three cocktails. A standard Negroni, a Tom Collins, and of course my beloved Gin Rickey. It really shouldn’t be, but I found it a bit interesting to see the differences in each of these. Especially when comparing tasting notes (neat) to the flavors I got in each cocktail. But instead of going over all the tasting notes again, I’m just going to give you our “rankings” for how much we liked each spirit in each cocktail.

Negroni (equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari)

Eric’s: Tommyrotter, New Riff, Beefeater, Vikre, Bombay Sapphire, Beefeater 24, Fillibuster, Hendrick’s

My wife’s: Bombay Sapphire, Beefeater 24/Beefeater (tied), Vikre, Tommyrotter, New Riff, Filibuster, Hendrick’s

Thoughts: Not at all surprising that I preferred the aged spirits in this cocktail, the barrel aging makes it taste like a cross between a typical Negroni and a Boulevardier. A bit surprising that my wife preferred the London Dry style since she was very resistant to participating in this tasting at all based entirely on previous experience with that style when she was younger.

Tom Collins (gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and soda water)

Eric’s: Beefeater, Beefeater 24, Bombay Sapphire, Vikre, Hendrick’s, New Riff, Filibuster

My wife’s: Beefeater, Beefeater 24, Bombay Sapphire, Hendrick’s, Vikre, New Riff, Filibuster.

Thoughts: we basically agreed here. The London Dry style was our favorite.

Gin Rickey (gin, lime juice and soda water)

Eric’s: Beefeater 24, Beefeater, Bombay Sapphire, Hendrick’s, Vikre, New Riff, Filibuster

My wife’s: Bombay Sapphire, Beefeater 24, Beefeater, Vikre, Hendrick’s, New Riff, Filibuster.

Thoughts: The two Beefeaters were my winners. Which is awesome since Beefeater is the cheapest one in the lineup. My wife has more expensive tastes and preferred the Bombay Sapphire. Neither of us were high on the barrel aged versions.

Conclusions

So based on these “oh so scientific” tests, it seems that in the summer I need to keep only a Beefeater or two and a bottle of Bombay Sapphire on hand. I’m going to pass on the Hendrick’s from now on. I was not a fan. It also seems that for these summer drinks there is little to be gained from venturing into Craft territory as any differences they are playing with are lost in my favorite cocktail. On the other hand, when the weather starts to cool and I am looking for a more spirit-forward cocktail, I should certainly venture over to the Craft gins and look for a barrel aged version to use in the occasional Negroni.

There you have it: A BourbonGuy Look at Random Gins. Will gin fans agree on my conclusions? Maybe, maybe not. I admit, I am a total gin novice. But honestly, I found it too interesting not to share. Especially with other bourbon lovers who may be looking to expand their range into a refreshing long drink for summer.

---

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!

Scrappy's Bitters

A couple of months ago, I got a bottle of Legent™ from Jim Beam. Among the marketing materials that I received with the bottle was a book of cocktails that featured Legent™ as their main ingredient. As you might have guessed, I was intrigued. There was a problem though. I like cocktails, but I really only keep the ingredients on hand for those that I really like. Ones that I will make often. Unfortunately, the cocktails that come in marketing materials need to be unique in order to position the brand’s…

Ugh, I hate marketing speak so let’s just say they use a lot of ingredients that a normal person would not have on hand. Hell, many bars wouldn’t have some of these ingredients on hand. So when I decided that as part of the review I was going to try one of their featured cocktails, I chose the one that involved the least amount of spending on my part.

I chose the Kentucky Kyushiki mostly because the only thing I needed to buy was a bottle of bitters. That particular cocktail is basically a riff on an old fashioned. Just bourbon, flavored simple syrup and lavender bitters. Now, I had no idea where to find lavender bitters, but a quick search of the Total Wine website showed me that they had a sampler pack from Scrappy’s Bitters that had a bottle of Lavender Bitters in it. Yay!

So there went twenty dollars toward a half-ounce bottle of bitters that I wanted and three more that I really didn’t care about. And so, of course I decided to spend another twenty dollars on the other four pack so I could try their entire line. You know, for science. Or something.

When I test bitters, I tend to do it in the most reproducible way possible. Namely I make my favorite non-alcoholic drink (bitters and soda water) and then an old fashioned. Both are very simple drinks where the differences from drink to drink are solely from the bitters. I used Maker’s Mark as it is a pretty plain palette to paint the bitters across. The impressions below encapsulate both testing methods.

Scrappy's Bitters

Purchase Info: $20 each for two sample packs of four half ounce bottles each at Total Wine, Burnseville, MN.

Orleans: Strong anise notes on nose and mouth. Brings out a lot of spicy notes to a Maker's Mark old fashioned while maintaining the anise notes.

Aromatic: Cinnamon and clove flavors at the forefront, not as richly flavored as Angostura at the same dilution. Adds a little baking spice to the old fashioned. I'd choose Angostura over this.

Orange: Jellied orange slice candy, hints of spice. Maintains the orange candy flavor in the old fashioned. If you choose this over Regan's or Angostura orange, use it sparingly. The orange flavor easily overpowers Maker's. Though I wouldn’t choose it over either of those unless you really like orange candy flavors in your cocktail.

Celery: Strong celery notes on the nose and mouth. Almost salty tasting along with fizzy water. Adds an interesting herbal finish to the Maker's Old-fashioned. I mean that in the most minnesotan way possible. I do not like celery and this has a lot of celery. However in a rye old-fashioned, this sings. Really good pairing with the herbal notes of a good rye.

Grapefruit: Sweet Grapefruit on the nose. Generic citrus on the mouth. This reads as orange in the old fashioned. It actually works better as an orange bitters than the orange did.

Chocolate: Dark Chocolate nose. Milk chocolate and caramel mouth. This turns the old fashioned into a liquid candy bar. Nice dark chocolate notes on the finish.

Lavender: Floral lavender on nose and mouth. Mouth brings lemon zest. as well As to be expected, this adds a floral note to the Maker's old fashioned. Honestly this works better with Beam-branded products than it does with Maker’s.

Cardamom: As to be expected, cardamom notes predominate on both nose and mouth. This brings out a lot of baking spice to the old fashioned. Including a nice "Christmas note". Not sure I’d want this all the time, but I can see uses for it occasionally in the right cocktail.

Thoughts (After fizzy water): Most of these are fairly straightforward. For the most part these are pretty one-note affairs. For example the Orleans is just anise. As opposed to Peychaud's which has anise and other herbal and bitter notes, or the Orange which is just an orange candy flavor as opposed to the orange and spice melange of Angostura's Orange Bitters. In fact it seems many of these are lacking in much bitter flavor at all. They remind me of Fee Brothers in that respect. Great for use as a flavoring, but not really as a bittering agent.

Thoughts (After use in a Maker’s Mark Old Fashioned): Overall, I think the Orleans is my favorite. It takes your typical aromatic bitters note and adds a hit of anise which really elevates the drink. I like the lavender in the Kentucky Kyushiki and it works very nicely with Beam-branded bourbons. It also works nicely in a gin and tonic. Other than that, most of these I don’t know that I will find a use for. The orange and aromatic aren’t as good as the two big guys and the rest I’d only use every once in a while. As far as I'm concerned, the Orleans and the Lavender are the two I will continue to buy full bottles of, and the rest I’ll struggle to finish the half ounce bottle. As always your milage may vary.

---

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!

Knob Creek (2019) vs Knob Creek 9-year-old (2016)

Last month, news broke that Knob Creek Bourbon, which had lost its age statement a few years back, would be regaining its nine year old age statement “sometime early next year.” In honor of this very welcome news, I've decided to pull out my last bottle of nine-year-old Knob Creek to compare to with the current release.

So, first things first, why do I have a bottle of Knob Creek with an age statement just hanging around? Honestly, just for this. If I see a significant change to any particular bourbon, I try to pick up a bottle so that a few years down the line, we can all see what, if anything has changed in the flavor. I also do this for the first batch of things that might be interesting down the line. This is the reason why there is a bottle of the first batch of Willett-distilled Old Bardstown Bonded, the first release of Maker's Cask Strength, one of the last bottles of Elijah Craig before they removed the age statement, and others on the top shelf of my whiskey closet. I figure I'll give each of them a few years and go back to see if anything has changed.

Ordinarily, I would still be sitting on this bottle of Knob Creek as I've had it less than three years (according to the dates for the contest on the neck tag that I apparently never took off). But since the reason I was keeping it is going away soon, why not pull it out. Maybe we'll see a glimpse of what is to come and what we've been missing.

I did the comparison blind, hopefully, I don’t catch too much flack if I end up liking the non-age stated one better.

Knob Creek NAS (2019) vs Knob Creek Nine-Year-Old (2016)

Purchase Info: $24.99 at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN for the non-age stated one. After almost three years, I have no clue for the nine-year-old.

Details: Both are 50% ABV.

Bourbon A:

Nose: Dusty oak, caramel, ripe fruit, nutmeg, hints of mint

Mouth: Caramel, mint, cinnamon

Finish: Dry and warm, medium length. Lingering oak and caramel

Bourbon B:

Nose: Mint, bubblegum, nutmeg, oak

Mouth: Spicy, dry, cinnamon, vanilla, oak

Finish: Warm and spicy with lingering chocolate and dried grains

Thoughts: These are both very similar. I guess that is a testament to the blending skills of Jim Beam. Bourbon A is softer in the mouth while B is drier and spicier. That said the underlying flavors are close enough that I don't know if I'd notice too much of a difference if someone blindly handed me a glass of one versus the other. Bourbon A has more flavor while it is in the mouth, while B is spicier and the flavor really kicks in at the finish. Personally, I'd choose A over B, but it's pretty close.

Reveal: Whiskey A is the 2016 nine-year-old. Whiskey B is the 2019 NAS. I guess I dodged a bullet on that one. But seriously, I found this super interesting. There were differences, but they were not as big as I would have assumed. They aren't as big as the differences between Elijah Craig's 12-year-old versus their current NAS bottling.

I can't wait to compare both of these Knob Creek bottles to my first bottle of 2020's new nine-year-old.

---

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!

Bernheim Original: Revisited

I’d like to thank Heaven Hill for providing this review sample to me with no strings attached.

It has been one thousand, seven hundred and fifteen days since I last did a tasting of Bernheim Original Kentucky Straight Wheat Whiskey. It was purchased right after they added the seven year age statement to the bottle. That age statement addition was the reason that I purchased my first bottle of Bernheim, but sadly that was also the last bottle I purchased of Heaven Hill’s Wheat Whiskey. Not because I had some strong feeling toward it. But precisely because I turned out that I didn’t have a strong feeling toward it. I just sort of forgot it existed.

Now, I can be excused for that, at least a little bit. I do tend to reserve a majority of my whiskey budget for the site and it can be hard to remember to go back to something once I’ve written about it. In this case though, it just didn’t make that strong of an impression on me to warrant a second look.

And so it stood for almost five years. Until one day a couple weeks ago, a package came from Heaven Hill. They tend to send things unannounced so I was interested what new thing it would be this time. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found this bottle of Bernheim. At first I thought, “well…cool!” and was happy. Then I thought, “oh, I’ve reviewed that” and I had a bit of a sad. Not because I had free whiskey, mind you, just that I wouldn’t be getting content out of it. Of course, once I looked up how long ago I’d reviewed it, I got happy again because it was a prime candidate for revisiting. Especially once I remembered that I hadn’t even had a sip of Bernheim since that bottle five years ago.

At the time, I’d summed up my feelings like this:

This is pleasant though uninteresting. It can take a little water, but not much. I like it but wouldn’t want it for every pour. I’d love to see that age statement creep up even further.

I said that last bit partly as a bridge to the whiskey I was comparing it with that night. See, I’d decided to pair the Bernheim review with the Parker’s Heritage Wheat Whiskey that had also been released right about that time. And honestly, I think the presence of the same juice, but at an older age and higher proof sort of set Bernheim up for failure. Parker’s Heritage cast a long shadow. So now many years removed from its limited edition brother, I think I am prepared to take another look at it and judge it on its own merits.

Bernheim Original Kentucky Straight Wheat Whiskey

Purchase Info: This review sample was graciously provided to me by Heaven Hill for review purposes. It retails locally for between $24.99 and $34.99 for a 750 mL bottle.

Details: Wheat whiskey. 45% ABV. 7 years old.

Nose: Bubblegum, black pepper, black tea

Mouth: Sweet and nutty with caramel, black pepper and bubble gum.

Finish: medium length with" just enough" burn. Peanut and cinnamon fade to reveal a lingering bubblegum note.

Thoughts: I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I will often take a glass of bourbon to bed with me to sip on while I read a book or watch a little tv. Sometimes, my wife is nice and will get it for us. When she does, she likes to not tell me what she brought. Sometimes this is a scary thing (especially around Bottom Shelf Bracket time) but most of the time it is fun to see if I can figure out what she decided on. After we got this bottle of Bernheim, it was her go to pour. And I realized that I really enjoyed it. It made a nice “end of the night” drink.

---

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!

Stolen X Rock & Rye

I’d like to thank Ro-Bro Marketing & PR, Inc. for providing this review sample to me with no strings attached.

View fullsize

I knew next to nothing about Stolen Spirits when I accepted the request to send me a sample of their new Stolen X brand of rock and rye. I love rock and rye. It is one of those things that I love to have around for when I want a cocktail, but I’m feeling too lazy to make myself one. Unfortunately, if I have it around, I’m always too lazy to make a cocktail and just end up drinking the bottled stuff instead. One of these days I’m just going to have to make my own. I already make my own boozy cherries and my own orange bitters, why not a bottled cocktail too?

So even though, I knew next to nothing about the brand that was putting out this particular rock and rye, I did know enough about rock and rye to take a flier on it. I mean, I’ve had plenty of bad liquor that is marketed for consumption as a shot (most of it, I’ve poured straight down the drain), but I’ve seldom had a bad rock and rye. So after I said yes to the sample, I got down to Googling.

That’s one of the services we at BourbonGuy.com provide to our readers, we Google so you don’t have to. Here is what they have to say about themselves on their Facebook page:

“Our history is simple and grounded in one fact: We like to party. Our brand was born from two Kiwis sick of their day jobs, a need to escape and the love of a good time.”

And in the press release for the Rock and rye they say:

“Humans have been drinking horrible shots since the discovery of fermentation,” said Marc Bushala, CEO of Spirits Investment Partnership. “There has not been much evolution from the swill that we hoisted in college to what people are shooting today. I don’t really recall why we did shots of a certain herbaceous concoction that looks and tastes like shoe polish, but I remember that we drank a lot of it. The main difference with the popular shot brands today is the use of artificial flavors and sweeteners to make bad booze more palatable - we think that people will love great rye whiskey blended with all natural ingredients that actually tastes good.”

I don’t know about you, but I can get behind all of that. So now that we know just a little about the product, we should probably focus on the most important thing: how does it taste?

Stolen X Rock & Rye

Purchase Info: This review sample was graciously provided to me by Ro-Bro Marketing & PR, Inc. for review purposes. Suggested retail price is $24.99 for a 750 mL bottle with plans to release a liter bottle for $29.99 and 100 mL cans for $2.99 this summer.

Details: Rock and rye bottled cocktail, 40% ABV.

Nose: A lot of orange on the nose plus cinnamon.

Month: Orange oil, cinnamon and honey.

Finish: Lingering orange

Thoughts: You can tell this was intended to be served over ice. I tasted it neat in a Glencairn first just so that there would be a baseline between this and other reviews. On its own it is very sweet and orange forward. But, when you serve it over ice as they recommend, the rye notes move more to the forefront and the finish is more enjoyable as the dilution allows a bit more spice to show. This is a pretty delicious orange cocktail. I'm a fan.

---

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!

Woodford Reserve Master's Collection: Batch Proof (2019)

This is very good. Warm and thick with a wonderful sweet spiciness. I love this one. Don't love the price and doubt I'll be buying another, so I'll just enjoy this one and see if I can make it last a little while.

So said me, just under a year ago. And at the time, I certainly meant it. I mean $130 is too much to spend on one bottle of bourbon. It really is. So why do I have this bottle? In a word: vacation. Specifically, vacation to Kentucky.

Let me set the scene. It was two days before I was going to hop in the car and make the 13 hour trek to Louisville. On this day, I get a marketing email from Woodford Reserve announcing the release of this year’s edition of Batch Proof. Now, I’d had my Kentucky shopping list done for a while. I knew which things I was going to be looking for and which I would certainly be coming home with. On neither of those two subsets were anything from Woodford Reserve. Well, until I got that dang email.

I was already mentally on vacation. And while I am on vacation, my inherent frugalness is relaxed in favor of having fun. And when I am in Kentucky, “fun” means going bourbon shopping. And since I was planning trips to both Maker’s Mark and Four Roses, it seemed silly not to add a stop at Woodford to the itinerary. Since I’d be in the area. “Maybe they’ll have something fun,” I told my wife.

And low and behold they did. Sitting right on a table in the center of the gift shop were numerous bottles of Batch Proof. Who would have guessed? Now they were priced right at the $130 Suggested Retail Price. I started to wonder if I could get it cheaper at a store, but my wife told me that since I see it here, I might as well get it so I don’t miss out. (Yeah, she got the email too and knew what my scheme was.) And good thing I did. Last year I got it about $10 under SRP. This year every store I saw had it higher than the distillery.

So, last year I loved it, but didn’t think I’d buy it again due to price. This year…?

Woodford Reserve Batch Proof (2019)

Purchase Info: $130 for a 750 ml bottle at Woodford Reserve Distillery Gift Shop

Details: 61.6% ABV. Non-Age Stated

Nose: Brown Sugar, black tea, nutmeg

Mouth: Cola, cinnamon, almond, leather

Finish: Sweet, warm and long. Lingering toffee, almond, black tea, cinnamon

Thoughts: This is delicious. The black tea notes along with the sweetness really bring this one together nicely. It drinks nicely neat but takes water well too. I'm a big fan. In fact, I wish I would have grabbed a second. I was on vacation, after all. Now that I’m home again? It’s probably a little out of my price range unless I find it on sale somewhere.

---

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!

Rebel Yell 100 proof

I’d like to thank Common Ground PR and Luxco for providing this review sample to me with no strings attached.

View fullsize

It feels as though every single time I start a review of something in the Rebel Yell line, I trot out my old story about how when I first had the brand, it lost horribly in my first ever Bottom Shelf Brackets. And how through the power of brand revitalization and line extensions, I was convinced to give it another chance and ended up thinking it made a decent cocktail bourbon. It’s all very heartwarming.

Today however, I want to talk about something else. Well actually, someone else. That someone is me…well and you. First: me. “Me” is honestly my favorite subject. There is a reason that instead of rehashing dry details on the production or retyping the back of the bottle or the press release, I try to start each review with a bit of a personal anecdote or a tale of how I came to find the particular bottle that we are discussing. Years ago, I found out that if I wrote a personal blog, literally ones of people would read it. Later I found out that If I wrote almost the same blog and added a whiskey review to the end, then all of a sudden (over the course of 8 years) it would gather an average monthly readership of over 15,000 people.

Which brings me to you. Thank you. Thank you for all the emails, the questions, and the kind words. But most of all, thank you for hanging out with me and listening to me tell stories, be they about myself, dogs or whiskey. So let’s all grab a drink and learn about Rebel Yell 100.

Rebel Yell 100 is a new 100 proof variant of, you guessed it, Rebel Yell. It is the same wheated bourbon as the original Rebel Yell, just with more proof. And boy, what a difference that added proof makes. Where the 80 proof version makes a good cocktail bourbon, this 100 proof version can stand on its own when sipped neat. In fact, I’m having a little right now as I write this.

Rebel Yell 100

Purchase Info: This review sample was graciously provided to me by Common Ground PR and Luxco for review purposes. Suggested retail price is $19.99 for a 750 mL bottle. This is (or will be soon) available nationally and at the Lux Row Distillery.

Details: Wheated Bourbon, 50% ABV.

Nose: Cinnamon, mint, vanilla, chocolate.

Month: Spicy tingle on the tip of the tongue. Cinnamon red hots, brown sugar, mint, lemon custard

Finish: Warm and medium length. Lingering chocolate, cinnamon, and vanilla pudding.

Thoughts: I'm very impressed with this one. I've documented my turn around on the Standard Rebel Yell. I went from disliking it to realizing it made a fine cocktail Bourbon. This 100 proof version is a fine cocktail ingredient but it also works great as an everyday sipper. And at a suggested price of $20? This is a no brainer of a pickup. And this is coming from a guy who normally isn’t a wheated bourbon fan. Yep, as soon as I see it on the shelf, it is coming home with me.

---

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!

Updated Statement Of Ethics - 2019 edition

I’ve been thinking a lot about the ethics of my bourbon reviews and myself as a reviewer lately. Specifically the implied “endorsement” I give to specific brands by saying that I love or like a product released under that brand. As Americans we are conditioned from a young age to connect to brands. I remember my first Transformer toy and my first Nintendo. I argued which brand of game console was better between the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis with my friends (a lot of times it came down to whether you liked the “branding elements” that were Mario or Sonic better). And honestly, I’m still that kid on occasion. I describe myself as a "Four Roses Fanboy” in numerous posts on this very site.

With the advent of social networks, marketing and branding have gotten so personal that we feel like we know these #BRANDS as people. We know what politics and policies that brands like Apple and Google stand for. It’s as though these companies are a single person with values and not a collection of people just trying to make a living by selling you something. It gets even worse in the whiskey world (though this is not exclusive to whiskey). Brand Ambassador is an actual title that employees have. People interact with the Ambassadors and feel like they get to know the #BRAND. They feel like they should support the #BRAND because they “know” it, when in reality all they know is the company’s carefully crafted marketing presentation.

This past weekend, I came across a Facebook post by Hollis B Worth (formerly Hollis Bulleit). It was a long and hard read. In the post she made allegations of mental and physical abuse at the hands of her father due to her sexuality. Now, I am going to keep saying “allegations” because I have no idea if these allegations are true, I obviously wasn’t there. Heck, I don’t even know any of the people involved. But I do find them credible. The language she used is the language I used myself when I processed something very similar that happened to me, though nothing quite as serious or prolonged as Hollis is alleging.

I’ve always been a bit, shall we say, effeminate in how I carry my body. Not to say I can’t be as manly as the society of my Northern Wisconsin birthplace needs me to be, but I’ve always had a bit more “flourish” to my personality than your usual Northwoods boy. So much so that when I was a teenager, and long before I knew I was bisexual, my father once threatened to “cut off that little faggot pecker” if I didn’t start to “man-up.” Needless to say, the fact that I happened to fall in love with and marry a woman has made him much happier. I hate to think how he would have reacted if that girl in the KISS shirt who gave me the “come fuck me eyes” the day I fell in love with her had been a guy instead of a girl. I guess I got lucky, no one other than my wife ever needed to know about my sexuality. It literally isn’t visible from the outside. And she only knew because it came up in conversation.

So that is a very long way to say that I take LGBTQIA+ issues very seriously. I take abuse very seriously. And just for good measure let’s just say that I also take racism and xenophobia very seriously as well. One of the downsides to #BRANDS working so hard to connect with their audiences is that when the brand—or one of their spokespeople—do something wrong, it feels even more wrong than it used to. No one used to care if their preferred soda company hated gay people. But today, these aren’t companies, they are #BRANDS. And we’ve been repeatedly asked to #JoinTheConversation and conditioned to connect to them in a very different way than we used to. It’s hard on an emotional level to figure out how they could act in a way that is so unlike how you thought they would. It’s like finding out that your friendly neighbor likes to rape puppies.

In short, I do not want to be associated with homophobic, racist, or xenophobic words, thoughts or behavior. And honestly, I don’t have to. This is my site. I run it for fun, not profit. I’m beholden to no advertisers. If I don’t agree with a brand’s stance on something or the spokesperson does something I find repugnant, I’m not going to cover the brand. As such, I have updated my Statement of Ethics to include this. I’ve included the revised statement below, changes are in bold.

---

This is document will be kept up to date. Things will be added to as things come up. Edits will be made if circumstances change.

1. I will not allow a comment that disparages women, men, minority groups, or homosexuals (or anyone else for that matter). I will not allow xenophobic or racist comments on the site.

2. I will not review or endorse brands where I find that there are credible accusations of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, misogyny, other repugnant behavior, or ideals not in line with my own by the company, its officers, or spokespersons. If accusations come to light after reviews have been published, those reviews may be altered, amended, or removed from the site at my discretion. If alterations or amendments occur, that will be noted at the beginning of the article.

3. In order to avoid comment spam, I will not approve comments that include a link to a different site or email address.

4. I do not accept advertising or paid posts/content.

5. I try to purchase much of what I review, but will accept review samples.

6. When a review sample is accepted, I will disclose it at the beginning of the article.

7. Beyond the sample policy above, I do not accept trips, gifts, or other compensation in return for posts or reviews.

8. When I visit a distillery or whiskey event, I usually pay for my ticket and take the same tours everyone else can. In instances where this not the case, such as a Media Event or a “Sneak Peak,” I will disclose that fact at the beginning of the article. This does not mean I won't set up a private tour/visit if the distillery agrees and it will make a good article.

9. There are spirits industry people who I consider friends. If I ever review one of their products, I will disclose that fact at the beginning of the article.

10. Though I try very hard to get my facts straight, errors happen. If I make a factual error in an article, I will happily update it if notified and will make note of the change at the end of the article.

11. In return for the above, I ask that you respect the license that the reviews/posts/images were released under. I release all works on this site under a creative commons license unless otherwise noted. This means you are basically free to do whatever you want with them provided you do two things: use it for non-commercial purposes and give credit back to the site/leave on the watermark. Commercial uses are anything that make money such as a blog that accepts advertising or a presentation that people pay to attend, etc. If you want to use it for purposes outside the license, just send me an email and we'll work something out. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

If you have any questions, click the contact icons at the bottom of any page to get in touch with me via email or your favorite social medium.

---

BourbonGuy.com accepts no advertising. It is solely supported by the sale of the hand-made products and bourbon-related craft supplies I sell at the BourbonGuy Gifts store. If you'd like to support BourbonGuy.com, visit BourbonGuyGifts.com. And hey, if you are an iOS user, look for Bourbon Guy in Apple News. Thanks!