If you’re taking all the bourbon, then I’m taking all the Irish.
I enjoy malted barley whiskey, as long as it doesn’t stink of peat.
I spent a few weeks traveling through Scotland several years ago, and made a point of sampling the local product every evening. Scottish barkeeps LOVE talking whisky. I was able to enjoy the urbane eastern whisky in Glasgow and Edinburgh, less so as we headed west, where the peat predominates on Skye and in the highlands. But some of the best whisky I got was in the remote Orkney islands to the north.
Yeah, I really wish I could stand the scotch from the area that my Scottish ancestors came from. But everyone there grabs big handfuls of the local bog and squeezes it into their whisky kettles.
Somewhere in this thread, someone should mention Monkey Shoulder. I call it the “Scotch for Bourbon Drinkers”… very smooth, very tasty. Thirty-three bucks.
Heh. Booker Noe, great grandson of Jim Beam, had an ad for his own brand that went ”If you are unsatisfied with Bookers Bourbon for any reason, return the unused portion and I’ll drink it!”
Bookers is good stuff but man, it is pricey. Also it’s strong, the ABV fluctuating between 120 and 138 proof.
I have been enjoying different versions of Old Forrester lately. Great neat or on the rocks.
Yeah, I would say many of your Speyside malts would work for bourbon drinkers, like The Macallan, for instance. I started with Glenlivet 12, and then worked my way up. That was a pretty decent entry whisky for somebody who wants to avoid some of the “rougher” flavors like peat and iodine and should not be too challenging for someone used to American whiskeys. (Monkey Shoulder, if the context isn’t clear, is also Speyside, though a blend. Very good entry whisky, as well.)
If you were able to try the Scapa 16 year old while on Orkney, I consider you blessed. One of the best whiskies I have ever tried. I have a bottle put up for my retirement day.
Yeah. I got a taste of it at a supper club in Hales Corners earlier this year. Booze is fairly cheap in Wisconsin. But it was pricey, like 12 bucks for an ounce and a half. Worth every cent.
I haven’t been able to find it in the wild for a couple of years. Got hooked on it early, before everybody discovered how good it was. My sole source of booze hipster street cred, I guess.
Just to give our good readers a little back-story on bourbon…
Bourbon is pretty highly regulated as booze goes… To be labeled as such, it has to be:
[ul]
[li]Made from a mashbill of at least 51% corn[/li][li]Distilled at no more than 160 proof[/li][li]Aged at least 4 years in new, charred oak barrels at no more than 125 proof[/li][li]Bottled at no less than 80 proof. [/li][/ul]
The new charred oak barrel requirement means that bourbon typically has a LOT of flavor and aroma from the barrels themselves, unlike spirits not aged in new barrels such as rum, tequila or scotch. That’s not to say they don’t have some barrel character, but it’s more subtle and less prominent.
Most bourbons are a bit more than 51% corn, and the remainder is some combination of other grains- barley is common in small percentages for its enzymatic action, and generally speaking, either wheat or rye is the primary other grain. Wheat doesn’t impart a whole lot of flavor of its own, unlike rye.
So a “wheated” bourbon like Maker’s Mark or WL Weller is going to be mostly sweet from the corn and the barrels themselves, which impart a sort of vanilla/sweet flavor and aroma. Rye-heavy whiskies have a different layer of flavor along with all that as well.
Over-rated. It’s good, don’t get me wrong. But people build it up so much in their minds that the actual booze can’t measure up. Back in the day you could get a good approximation of Pappy by drinking Old Weller Antique. Same stuff, just not quite good enough to go into Pappy.
That’s another aspect of bourbon and American whiskies in general that people often aren’t aware of.
In many cases, multiple products produced by a single distillery aren’t even distilled as say… Evan Williams, Elijah Craig or Henry McKenna. What the distillery does is to mash, ferment, distill, barrel and age a batch of nondescript whiskey. Then, at bottling time, they select specific barrels of certain ages to comprise that particular product.
So in Heaven Hill’s case, they may barrel up and age a batch, but when they’re barreling it, they don’t know whether a specific barrel will end up as dirt-cheap Evan Williams, or expensive(ish) Elijah Craig 21. That’ll all depend on where, how, and how long that particular barrel is aged. Some are aged a relatively short period, and end up in Evan Williams. Some are aged longer and end up in Elijah Craig. Some are put high in the rick house, some are low. Some are on the inside, some on the outside. All these things contribute to the whiskey aging and play a role in the blending process- I wouldn’t be surprised if something like Evan Williams was a bunch of relatively young bourbon tempered with some older barrels, for example.
So along this line, Weller and Pappy Van Winkle are the same thing… right off the still. But they’re aged differently, which makes all the difference. Lots of people don’t know this though, and assume that Pappy Van Winkle is some sort of magical product. Similarly(in increasing age order), Old Crow, Jim Beam, Bookers, Baker’s and Knob Creek are the same off the still, as are Old Taylor, Buffalo Trace, Charter, Eagle Rare and George T. Stagg. Same for Old Grand Dad and Basil Hayden’s. And for Ancient Age, Elmer Lee, Blanton’s and Ancient Age 10.
Another more potentially shady thing is that some bottlers buy commercial distillates from large industriall distilleries like MGP in Lawrenceburg, IN and custom-age them. That’s why you see so many 95% rye whiskies these days- MGP makes a 95% rye unaged whiskey which many brands buy and age/finish themselves. For example Bulleit Rye, Dickel Rye, Redemption Rye, Templeton Rye, Willett Rye, Angel’s Envy Rye, James E. Pepper Rye, Rebel Yell Rye, Whistlepig 12 Yr World, etc…
ALL are MGP products that are aged/finished by their bottlers- Dickel, for example, puts theirs through the Lincoln County charcoal filtering process used for Tennessee Whiskey (which is legally bourbon as far as the Feds are concerned). Others dilute, age, etc… differently from each other.
Yep, Bulleit bourbon is distilled and made by Four Roses. Bulleit rye is instead purchased from MGP and finished in-house.
Add to 3 posts ago that bourbon’s other requirement is that it needs to be made in the US. Most are in Kentucky but that’s not required. MGP is in Indiana but it’s right over a river to Kentucky.
Rum distillers buy them too. Essentially the fact that bourbon is required to be aged in new charred barrels means that for other liquors, there’s a ready-made market in getting once-used bourbon barrels and using them for their own spirits.
Indeed. I’ve had Pappy a few times and it isn’t worth the insane hype. A friend of mine had a whisky tasting party - I believe Pappy ended being like 3rd or 4th out of 10 for the bourbon. If you can get it for list price (about $100), it’s worth it. Not for aftermarket price. The friend of mine who did the whisky tasting party is a guy who waits in line at 5am for releases - he has gotten quite a few Pappy’s. One time he bought two for $100 each. He kept one, and re-sold the other online for $1000!!
