If You've Had...the Very Old Barton Edition

July 16, 2019 Eric Burke

I’m having a very hard time believing that it has been over two years since I last did one of these posts. It has been so long that I’m thinking a little explanation is in order.

I think that one of the best ways to really learn the differences between bourbons is to compare them head-to-head. That's the theory behind the If You've Had... series. The setup is like this: "If you've had Whiskey A then Whiskey B is..." hotter, spicier, sweeter, more floral, etc. Each section is written as compared to one of the whiskeys. So if you've had that one, but not the others, then that section will be of the most use to you. I try to write this so that there are no value judgments. This way you get to decide based on what you know of Whiskey A if Whiskey B sounds like something you'd want to try.

Up tonight is the family of Very Old Barton bourbons. I’m featuring the 80 proof, the 86 proof, the 90 proof and the 100 proof versions. The 100 proof was until recently a Bonded bourbon, but is no longer. So without further ado, I present the seventh installment of the If You’ve Had… series.

If you’ve had the 80° proof, then the...

86° proof is: similar on the nose, spicier and sweeter on the mouth and spicier on the finish.

90° proof is: sweeter on the nose. It is sharper and shows more caramel on the mouth. The finish is warmer and more flavorful, showing more spice, mint and sweetness.

100° proof is: sweeter and more fruity on the nose. The mouth is much spicier and shows more caramel. The finish is warmer, spicier and has more lingering caramel.

If you’ve had the 86° proof, then the…

80° proof is: more grain forward and shows more cinnamon on the nose and mouth. The finish has less heat but shows more cinnamon flavor.

90° proof is: much sweeter on the nose showing more vanilla sugar cookie. The spice levels on the mouth are similar, but the 90° proof has more concentrated vanilla and caramel. The finish has a hint more spice, but otherwise is very similar.

100° proof is: sweeter on the nose. The mouth and finish are warmer, spicier and sweeter showing more cinnamon and a bit more fruit.

If you’ve had the 90° proof, then the...

80° proof is: more grain forward and shows more cinnamon on the nose and mouth. The finish is drier and more grain forward.

86° proof is: similar, though less sweet on the nose. The mouth similar though the caramel and vanilla flavors aren’t quite as pronounced.

100° proof is: very similar on the nose. The mouth and finish are warmer, spicier and show more fruit.

If you’ve had the 100° proof, then the…

80° proof is: drier and shows more grain on the nose. The mouthfeel is thinner and the mouth shows more grain and less spice. The finish is muted by comparison.

86° proof is: drier on the nose. The mouthfeel is thinner. The mouth is less warm. The finish is less sweet and shows a touch more grain.

90° proof is: showing less wood and less caramel on the nose. The mouth and finish are similar in flavor but less concentrated.

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

July 2, 2019 Eric Burke

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.

Bernheim Original: Revisited

June 27, 2019 Eric Burke

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

IMAGE: the front label of a bottle of Bernheim Original Kentucky Straight Wheat Whiskey

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.

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

June 20, 2019 Eric Burke

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.

Rebel Yell 100 proof

June 18, 2019 Eric Burke

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

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.