A few months back, my wife and my good friend Ben Johnson came in to visit from Vermont. His company would have been gift enough, but he did us one better: he brought with him a Vermont bourbon named Smuggler’s Notch. Jen and I sampled it then, but now that the blog is up and running, we went back and tried it again, to see if our initial feelings were the same. They were – it is great!
Dan’s Bourbon of the Week: Smugglers’ Notch Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Smugglers Notch looks a little lighter than most in color, and to be honest, it is a little lighter. But something about it is so fresh and clean tasting, it is truly unique.
The nose is sweet and has notes of vanilla, corn, grains and nuts. The taste, Smooth (with a capital “S”), with a bit of spice but more notably, vanilla, chocolate, even a tiny bit of mint. The finish is relatively short, but with something this smooth, I say just pour another.
This week’s bourbon and circumstances are pretty special. I am in Chicago to celebrate my first wedding anniversary to my wife Jen. We’re here for a long weekend, and living it up – hotel in the loop, meals at great restaurants like Everest and the Signature Room. Perhaps most fantastic, we’ve gone to two days of Riot Fest, an outdoor music festival at Chicago’s Humboldt Park featuring some of my all-time favorite bands, including (most importantly), the first American concert by The Replacements since 1991.
On Friday, we went to US Cellular Field and saw a White Sox-Indians game, which I will detail further in the future. Then, it was to Everest, where I knew we were going to have a wonderful meal when the drink list included my all-time favorite bourbon, Jefferson Reserve 18 Year. Saturday, it was all day at Riot Fest, where we took in Mephiskaphales, X, The Selecter, Dinosaur Jr, Guided By Voices, Blondie, Rancid and The Violent Femmes. Set after set, we had a fantastic time on a uncloudy, beautiful day. Jen was particularly fond of DeVotchka, a great gypsy-latin-eastern-european band that put on a particularly wonderful performance. It’s not everyday you get to see the hora danced at a punk rock festival! We closed the night on a Ferris Wheel, watching the Femmes perform their first album in it’s entirety. It was a wonderful day.
Day three was wet. Wet and rainy. We had a delicious brunch at the Signature Room, then we headed to Warehouse Liquors, which Yelp had advised us was one of the best bourbon shops in Chicago. Yelp told no lies – this store is truly fantastic. Their selection of liquors – not just bourbons – was amazing, and with so many new sights and bottles to choose from, it was hard to pick one. After chatting with the man at the counter for at least one half hour, we settled on a bottle of Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel, selected by and bottled for the store.
Back to Riot Fest, and the rain. Bob Mould has been one of my favorite musicians for many many years – since his days in Husker Du and Sugar – so it was well worth getting a little wet to see a personal legend play. Best Coast was another new band I wanted to see and despite the cold and rain, they did not disappoint with their reverb drenched surfer songs. Then, back to a rollicking set by Rocket From The Crypt. We decided to stay at the Replacements stage to guarantee a good vantage point, so we watched the goth-punky AFI before the rain stopped, and The Replacements utterly rocked our world. They played a set drawn from their whole repertoire, old to new. So many of my favorites were played I couldn’t have been more pleased, from “Bastards of Young” to “Achin To Be,” “Hold My Life,” and “Takin A Ride.” And all of it with my beautiful wife by my side. It couldn’t have been better.
Dan’s Bourbon of the Week: Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel, Warehouse Liquor (Chicago, IL)
Now, for the bourbon – the nose on this bourbon is full of rich, aromatic spices. Cinnamon, allspice, apples, it has it all.
The taste follows this with a spicy punch. Tasty, and clean, this is a great bourbon. Pepper, oak char, that cinnamon, and a bit of vanilla helps with a long finish to boot. This is the kind of bourbon my wife particularly likes. We did notice one unique thing though, neither of us liked the changes adding ice chips made to it. Instead of mellowing it a bit, it made the pepper pop more, and lost some of the sweeter notes. Still, an absolute winner.
Well, a new NFL football season is upon us, and I’m an unrepentant Detroit Lion’s fan, so who knows what this year holds in store. The team hasn’t looked great in preseason, but adding Reggie Bush in the offseason can’t help but make us better, and we still have Stafford, Suh and Megatron, so I suppose hope springs eternal!
For this week’s bourbon, I tapped a local resource. A few years back, when I decided to take my bourbon fandom up a notch, my family jumped in to help me try to find some good selections. In her endless calling around, my mother stumbled upon a store in Birmingham, MI called Kakos Market. The people at Kakos were wonderful, talking with her for long periods of time and making recommendations for other bourbons that might fit her son’s flavor profile. They pointed her toward some absolute winners, which I will reference at another time.
I dropped into Kakos myself last week, looking for a few specialty bottles, and while in the store, they showed their own small batch barrel of Elijah Craig 12 year. I had a taste in the store, and took a bottle home for myself, to try today.
Dan’s Bourbon of the Week: Elijah Craig 12 Year Small Batch
Every once in a while it happens where I can taste a good bourbon, know it’s a good bourbon, but just not feel it myself. This is exactly what happened here.
My take: This is a spicy bourbon. The nose was full of autumnal scents – apple, corn, nutmeg – a lot of fruit and nuts. And wood, lets of wood.
The taste carried this over. The flavor popped with spicy oak, corn and fruit. It fills the mouth, and has a pleasant taste, but as you may know by now, I like sweeter bourbons, and this one has some burn. It’s dry, and has a long, strong finish.
I know it’s a quality bourbon, but (and maybe it was just my mood that day) it was too harsh for me.
Ahhh, Blanton‘s. This is the granddaddy of the Single Barrel bourbon craze. They started releasing it in single barrel form in the 1980s, and it is still produced from barrels in Buffalo Trace warehouse H. One of the cool things about Blanton’s is it’s unique bottle, and the tops. There are eight different horses on the top of Blanton’s bottles, representing a jockey and horse coming to the gate, running a race, and winning – how very Kentucky! I picked up this bottle from the Buffalo Trace Distillery when we were there in June. It didn’t disappoint.
Dan’s Bourbon of the Week: Blanton’s Single Barrel (Barrel no. 328, 5-9-13). The granddaddy of the single barrel bourbons.
The nose was fantastic – corn, apples, cinnamon, rye, and a hint of…apricot? But the taste – so smooth, so clean. It’s has a nice mouth coat – soft and buttery. It’s got a bit of wood char bitterness, but is as smooth as almost any I’ve tasted. You can taste the corn, and there’s a sweet detection of summer fruits, like apples.
The finish is mild, not overwhelming. I love this bourbon.
Sometimes the most fun a bourbon enthusiast can have is hunting down a hard to find libation. Now, obviously this can stop being fun and get to frustrating when it’s a Pappy Van Winkle. But when it’s something still obtainable, the thrill of the hunt is on!
This summer, I have heard from several people how the Woodford Reserve Masters Collection ‘Four Wood’ release was both hard to find, and terribly mediocre. I scouted out a few stones, but couldn’t seem to find it here in Michigan, so I went to the next level. The state of Pennsylvania state controls all liquor sales, and state-runs the stores (rather than independent retailers). On top of that, they have a great, robust web site and mobile app so that you can easily purchase your booze online. I searched, and quickly found the elusive Four Wood, and the game was afoot. Only one problem – they don’t ship to Michigan. How to solve this? Well… my wife is a former Pennsylvanian, a native of the Philly suburbs. And her mother, my mother-in-law, still lives there. Even more serendipitous, she was coming to spend some time with us this very weekend. So, I purchased the bottle online and shipped it to her! It took a bit of convincing that she wasn’t breaking any laws in bringing it to me, but a two hour plane ride later, and here she (and said bottle) is!
Dan’s Bourbon of the Week: Woodford Reserve Masters Collection Four Wood
Now this is an oddball. Matured in oak and finished in maple wood and wine barrels, this selection takes the finishing process to a new level. Which is exactly what made it less popular with bloggers on the interwebs – it was described as a schizophrenic flavor profile, too wildly veering between tastes to be satisfying. Would I agree?
My take: Yes, the naysayers are right…sort of. It had a very strong nose and a loooong, strong finish, but a few too many flavors keeps it from having a clear taste profile. Fun for a try, but not as nice as other Woodfords.
Last Christmas, I received a gift from my sister Denise that keeps on giving. The Grand Traverse Distillery in Traverse City, Michigan produces a great line of spirits, many of which I have had the opportunity to try before. In particular, their Cherry Whiskey is a favorite of mine, sweet and smooth. But for this week, it is the Grand Traverse Distillery Bourbon that tempts my palate.
Dan’s Bourbon of the Week: Grand Traverse Distillery Bourbon
The Grand Traverse Bourbon is a higher percentage of corn – 70% – than I usually like, but it is aged for 3 years and 3 months, and according to their website, “blended to 92 proof with Pure Michigan glacial water from the Great Lakes without cold filtering it.”If that sounds refreshing, it should, because this bourbon is, but it drinks like a tough old gal too.
My take: Grand Traverse does a fine job with this bourbon. The nose has tang, with hints of cigar box, corn, oak char and cinnamon. The taste is very similar, a smoky wide flavor with a smooth medium finish. Notes of vanilla, oak and a good amount of corn are present, and the finish is crisp.
The downside is that, while it is smooth, it’s not as flavorful as our Kentucky friends. Still, a quality selection, and Michigan made.
Last Christmas, I received an interesting gift from my mother – three unique bottles from the Buffalo Trace ‘Single Oak Project.’ I was intrigued immediately, and the explanation she had printed off to go along with the beautifully wrapped gift explained just how unique this was:
“…It all started with 96 individually selected American oak trees that differed according to the number of growth rings per inch and growing location. Each tree was then cut into two parts – top and bottom – yielding 192 unique tree sections. A single barrel was constructed from each unique section. Prior to construction we varied the stave seasoning times. The 192 barrels were then charred differently. These single oak barrels were then filled with different recipe whiskeys, at various entry proofs and aged in a variety of different warehouse styles.
We believe that this experiment will allow you to directly compare the impact of 7 different critical variables across 192 bottles for a total of 1,396 taste combinations. None of the 192 bottles in the complete set are exactly alike….” (from the Buffalo Trace Single Oak Project website)
After several months of admiring the bottles and project, we finally decided to take one out for a test spin!
Dan’s Bourbon of the Week: Buffalo Trace Single Oak Project Barrel number 72
So what did we find?
My take: The nose said this one was going to have some flavor. The sweet smells of toffee, caramel and maple syrup meshed with the tangier notes of baking spices, nutmeg, and a slight smell of oak.
The taste was dry and thick, certainly a mouth-coater. It tasted full bodied, and the taste agreed. Again, sweet tastes of honey, caramel and toffee mixed with the nutmeg and oak, and I dare say there was a peak of mint in there as well!
With a long, lingering but smooth finish, this was a good glass of whiskey. So why not a higher rating? While flavorful, there was nothing truly outstanding about this glass, no real standout characteristic. I’m very enthusiastic about trying the others though!
So as I mentioned last week, one of the highlights of this summer has been my visit to some of Kentucky’s finest bourbon distilleries: Woodford Reserve and Buffalo Trace. I cannot say enough about the beauty and enjoyment we experienced at Woodford Reserve – from the copper kettles to the shaded storehouses, it was a great time.
One of the extra bonuses we got by serendipity was the opportunity to meet Woodford Reserve Master Distiller Chris Morris. We chatted with him for a few minutes in the gift shop about Woodford’s history, and the unique Master’s selections Woodford puts out yearly (more on that in the future). The Woodford Reserve Distillery gift shop also engraves bottles on site so, after purchasing some gifts for good friends, my wife and I chose a bottle of the Woodford Reserve Double Oaked for ourselves and had it engraved to remember the trip. Mr. Morris signed it as well!
Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, engraved, and signed by Master Distiller Chris Morris
What makes the Double Oaked unique is the finishing process. At it’s heart, it’s Woodford Reserve, distilled in copper kettles and with the same sour mash recipe. But after it spends its time in the charred oak barrel, it is transferred to a second, more toasted but less charred barrel, for 9 months. This allows for a whole new set of flavors to come out, and it shows in both the sweetness of the nose and first taste, as well as the bitterness on the finish.
My take: From a nose perspective, this is a winner for me right from the get go. The sweet sticky smells of toffee, molasses and butterscotch are evident, as well as wiffs of…vanilla.
The first taste belies that sweetness, as I tasted cinnamon, allspice and clove – a spicier blend than I anticipated. Then, the warm bitterness of oak took over, through the finish. Other reviewers noted the sweetness came back in the finish, but I didn’t experience that.
My flavor profile is sweet, where as my wife Jen veers toward the spicy, and that was exactly how this played out. I loved the nose, but was not crazy about the woodiness and spice of the sip, where as Jen loved all the above. A very unique try, and with some rich characteristics, but not cracking my top five.
Dan scale (1-10): 8.3
Dan’s Bourbon of the Week: Four Roses Single Barrel
Last month, I received a wonderful birthday gift from my family. Knowing what a fan of bourbon I was becoming, they purchased my wife and I tickets to a private dinner and bourbon tasting with none other than the Van Winkle family, or Pappy Van Winkle fame. We trekked down to Kentucky, and made a bourbon day of it – first we visited the Woodford Reserve distillery, pictures of which will be coming shortly. Then, it was on to Buffalo Trace, where some of the absolute best bourbons – including Pappy Van Winkle, as well as Blanton’s, Eagle Rare and others – are produced.
The dinner was great and the tour fun, but the highlight was sampling the 10, 12, 15, 20 and 23 year old Pappys. After wards, in a Q&A, I asked Preston Van Winkle a question I was dying to know the answer to: knowing how very very hard (read impossible) it is to get one’s hands on a bottle of PVW, what was his other favorite bourbon? His answer was Four Roses Single Barrel. And so with that, I bought a bottle to try for myself.
Four Roses Single Barrel Bourbon
I tasted the bourbon in the way I have seen other connoisseurs on the web do it, as well as that way I had been taught to by the guides at Woodford Reserve.
My take: Very nice. Smooth, hints of clove, mint, nutmeg. Good nose, warmth from the finish. I liked it even better with an ice chip. Jen was particularly fond of it as well. Spicier than I like, but definitely a treat.
Baseball and Bourbon 