Single Barrel, Small Batch and Small Scale Bourbon

[Zeno Marx]

I like this neat with a small splash of water

There's a lot of confusion about this. I thought neat meant by itself. Adding water or ice is not neat. Even professional bartenders in high-end bars cannot seem to agree. It's why I never use the term when I order outside the home.

 

[glpease]

Go to kentucky, bet on some horses, drink some bourbon, smoke a pipe in a tobacco field. It feels right....

That sounds like an ideal prescription to me. I'll have to arrange that one of these days. I haven't had a holiday in ten years...

Been sipping through a bottle of Buffalo Trace recently, and finding it delightful. It's also, I think, one of the best values on market today. Very, very good, and priced moderately. (The George T. Stagg that comes from BT, on the other hand, is unobtainium as soon as it's released, and almost instantly commands nearly double the retail price on the secondary market. I guess these guys know how to make 'spensive bourbons, too.)

1792 Ridgemont Reserve. If I had to choose one and only one sipping bourbon to keep in stock, this would be it, though BT gives it some competition. The nose alone makes me happy, and the taste is exquisite. It's not cheap, but it's not expensive, and I actually prefer it to many more expensive bourbons. Personally, I think it deserved far better than the silver medal it won in 2010's spirits competition in San Francisco, but I wasn't voting.

Angel's Envy. Cool name. Pretty bottle. Tasted this at a friend's house again, and quite liked it. It's unusual, and the additional aging in Port casks give it some out-of-left-field flavors, but the bourbon backbone is nevertheless clearly present. The price, though, keeps it in the category of interesting, but not a must have for me.

Bulliet Rye, I'm still on the fence about. It's nice, and actually makes a very good Manhattan with the right proportion of vermouth, but for sipping, there are certainly better and more interesting ryes.

I tasted something at a friend's house the other night that was nearly orgasmic, and I didn't take note of what it was. I do know that it was one of his special "you can't get this" bottles that he somehow has the uncanny ability of being able to get. This, of course, makes it completely out of my price range, so its really academic, but next time I'm over there, I'll figure out what it was, just for the information's value.

Interestingly, I started out as a scotch guy exclusively. My early experiences with bourbon were dreadful, because it was dreadful bourbon. It was only a few years ago that a friend convinced me to taste what a truly good bourbon could offer, and I've been exploring the stuff ever since. Still a scotch man, but I'm now a bourbon man, too.

 

[Zeno Marx]

Been sipping through a bottle of Buffalo Trace recently, and finding it delightful. It's also, I think, one of the best values on market today.

Cosigned. I believe it is $18.79 here. At less than $25, I don't think you can beat it or WT Russell's Reserve ($23.79). And honestly, I'd take either of these before many whiskeys in the $20-35 range.

This weekend I grabbed some of the newly formulated Four Roses Yellow Label (regular) for $16.79. I'd never tried any Four Roses. I'm still undecided on the flavor. I didn't have the best type meal to be drinking whiskey after it. I will say it is incredibly smooth; possibly the smoothest whiskey I've had sub-$20. Some reviews talk of oak and leather, and besides smoke (peat), those are at the top of my flavor desires. I definitely didn't catch any leather, and if any oakiness, it was very mild. I know. I know. What can I expect at $17? I was reminded that you have to pay for bold flavors (Rare Breed is my next purchase). I'll come back with a secondary report when I get the chance to visit the bottle again.

My 8th grade English teacher used to profess, "You haven't read it once until you've read it twice." When it comes to drink, tobacco, and music, I've adopted the rule of "you haven't heard or tasted it once until you've tried it thrice." I'm probably repeating myself. I'm getting deja vu.

 

[ArleighBerg]

I like this neat with a small splash of water

There's a lot of confusion about this. I thought neat meant by itself. Adding water or ice is not neat. Even professional bartenders in high-end bars cannot seem to agree. It's why I never use the term when I order outside the home.

Neat does mean by itself. I should have been clearer in my description. I order my scotch neat every time. I also get a shot glass with either a few ice cubes or some water, then I add it myself. Thus when the sweet nectar is served it is truly neat. When I drink it, I have changed it into something else.

I read a quote from one of the old Jack Daniels' family codgers who has spent a lifetime making and drinking fine bourbon. He said he sits on his front porch every evening and enjoys a couple of fingers of whiskey. He considers what he makes to be one of the finest liquids one can put in one's body, and has a philosophy that supports this; by starting with a small amount of water in the glass and adding the bourbon, one is only improving what's in the glass. The other way around would be diluting a fine drink. I need to learn to live by that rule.

 

[puros_bran]

Greg if you come and don't tell me I will kick your ass.

On the other hand if you give me a day or two notice I will get you on Churchills backside and onto some of the nicest farms on the planet.

 

[wintermute]

What's all this noise about bourbon not being bourbon unless it's made in Kentucky (What if it's made in Kentucky but outside the boundaries of the defunct Bourbon County?). It that's the case, then I posit that rye is not rye unless it is made in Maryland, Pennsylvania, or New York. So that damn fine stuff I'm drinking made by Templeton (although it WAS made in Iowa prior to Prohibition, so it may count as a rye...judges?) and Bulleit are not ryes! Sazerac? Not rye either!

Although very expensive, when I'm gifted a bourbon or rye from Tuthilltown Distillery in New York, I'm very appreciative. Very good stuff. Their bourbon reminds me a bit of a Buffalo Trace product, but a (definitely not unpleasant) piney taste.