(the)ryeborg

(Yes, I’ve left this blog unattended for too long... sigh)

What’s in a name, after all?  Who can own an idea?

As some of you know, on a misty drunken hill in the Berkley/Sunnyside/its-not-all-called-the-highlands neighborhood on the eve of the year 2012, Jordan Elliot Weinstein and I decided to start a “whiskey club” with our friends.  I don’t know who coined the name (and long, protracted, asinine fights over who owned the term aren’t worth the Watts to display), but we picked (for sake of alliteration) “Whiskey War.”  (Hell, we even got a “club tattoo.”)  The general notion was a DIY (excuse me whilst I forage for more hipster ipsum), once a month meet up where we would all chip in a paltry sum (it started with BYOB to share, then evolved into a “structured” bring-a-little-scrilla to the party, sort of thing), drink fine whiskey, listen to music, dance, drink, and screw (kidding: apologies for the Pulp reference).

Ah yes, the halcyon days of yore.  

This morning someone showed me of a new “whiskey” event which shares our name, entitled, ahem Whiskey War.

“Posers! Larceny! Rum, Sodomy, and... the... shit.”

Meh.

That’s about the best reaction I can come up with.  

I don’t own the name “Whiskey War” and, after all, it’s a private group.  It’s not advertised, other than word of mouth, for a reason.  This event is everything WW is not: sponsored, expensive, in a public place, pushing certain brands, crowded, ugly, littered with cargo shorts and tribal tattoos and men with goatees.

So what if we share a name?  Band and artist names constantly do (Bryan Adams, Ryan Adams; La Peste, La Peste; Deicide, Stryper...).

Our members have fluctuated over the years, but we’re still going strong.  We’re all getting older, more mean spirited, and fatter.

I can guarantee that this public, expensive, horridly branded (by jingo, that site is ridiculously bad: throw all the patriotic, vaguely hipster tropes you want in one, messy, unorganized soup, and you’d do better), expensive, and unrelated event will never be as good as WW.  

Off the top of my head, here are some of the whisk(e)ys we’ve had over the years:

EH Taylor Fire Survivor

EH Taylor Tornado Survivor

2012 William LaRue Weller

2012 George T Stagg

2011 Old Forester Birthday

High West 16 yr Old Rye

Elmer T Lee (several times, including some barrel picks)

4 Roses Barrel Strength (OBSQ, OBSK, OBSV, and some others)

Prohibition Bourbon (as in, actually from)

Real Moonshine (illegal and... strong)

Smooth Ambler Cask Strength Rye and Bourbons

Older WT Rare Breed

A 70s bottle of WT

WT Diamond

Fireball

Even going through the thirty-seven (yes, we have done thirty-seven of them) write ups for WW, I felt the old pangs of nostalgia.  I remember walking into liquor stores four years ago and finding things like Old Rip and BTAC bottles just sitting there.  Those days are no more.

But WW, our WW (your WW), is so much different than some corporately organized piece of shit.  We do it ourselves, so we aren’t beholden to some schill who’s just trying to sell you on “the next big thing” (and there is more bullshit in the whiskey world now than there has been since whiskey drummers were using “recipes for rotgut” to stock 19th century bars).  We will keep on doing it, as we can, and even if some other shmuck chances upon the same name (really, it’s not like it’s not hard to stumble across by chance), we will keep doing it.

Ownership over a name, especially one that is not a brand (I get it, if some asshat opens up a store with your name), or an idea such as this is not worth getting upset over.  You could let yourself get angry and cry “posers!” but why?  In the long run, we will all remember our drunken nights at WW, while some chaps who briefly sported waxed mustaches and bacteria riddled beards may, perhaps, remember that one day they paid $200 for a souvenir Glencairn, a cigar (bleh), and some over salted hors d'oeuvres (”Sir, please try our artisinal Slim Jims on unleavened, four grain Ritz short-bread.  The cheese is a pressed milk solids product, hand strained by virgin baristas.”)

Give me my drunken years of memories any day.

(And Alex taking his shirt off and starting non-fights, always.)

Many years ago (say, oh I don't know, twenty-six), in a land far far away (or Kentucky), there was a distillery in Louisville that had been around since 1897 that had been originally opened by two brothers, Bernard and Issac Wolfe Bernheim.  This distillery would go on to produce many notable bourbons, I.W. Harper chief among them.  This building stood until United Distillers (part of Guiness), replaced it with a new distillery in 1992 (at a different location).  The old distillery made classic Bernheim products, like I.W.H, which was a low rye bourbon.

That bourbon is no more.

In 1997, United merged with (or more accurately acquired) Grand Metropolitan to form Diageo.

Ah, Diageo.

Diageo is the largest producer of spirits in the world (or so I read), so you'd think they'd be doing good things with their American whiskey brands.  The list sounds fairly impressive:

Bulleit

George Dickel

Orphan Barrel

Uh...

Hmm.  That's a rather short list.  A short list that has one NDP in it.  This begs the question, "how are they so big (and why am I not drinking whiskey RIGHT NOW)?"  How are they so big and yet they don't appear to make much American whiskey.  Oh wait, other than Dickel, they don't really make any American whiskey.  Zero.

But what about the "new Bernheim" distillery?

Ah, well the new Bernheim did make some whiskey you might see on shelves: Rhetoric and Barterhouse.  But that distillery isn't making whiskey for Diageo anymore.  It's been owned by Heaven Hill since the late nineties.

What about that other "Orphan Barrel" that's out now, Old Blowjob Blowhard?

Well, seeing as that's twenty-six years old (e.g. distilled before 1992) that came from the original Bernheim distillery, meaning it was probably I.W. Harper.  Diageo says, when pressed (of course), that Rhetoric is a mixture of the new-old Bernheim barrels that made up Barterhouse and the old-old barrels that made up Old Blowstuff which would account for the 20 year age statement (being the age of the youngest barrels).

Ah, so maybe we can drink a bit of history!  The Bernheim distillery was probably even running during Prohibition as it was acquired in 1933 by two chaps from Chicago (Leo Gerngross and Emil Schwarzhaupt) who owned the "American Medical Spirits Company".  There's even a forest in Kentucky named for Bernheim (where I.W. is buried)!  Such legend!

Oh, but wait... no, no.  This is Diageo.

Diageo makes a great deal of whiskey, in fact they own a bevy of distilleries that make whiskey.  Oh no, sorry, they make whisky.  That's right, they don't make any whiskey in the US (yes they own Dickel, but Dickel calls itself Whisky so I'm kind of right about that).

Let's change the topic a bit.

Recently, bottles of Barterhouse have shown up with "limited" numbers as high as 85,000... which isn't really that limited.

To put it in perspective, the folks at Malt Madness state:

"The average (= 200 liter) bourbon barrel that was filled with fresh spirit at 63% will have some 175 liters of whisky left after 12 years."

(FWIW: Bourbon barrels are 50 gallons, which is more like 189 liters, but these numbers are close enough for our purposes.)

So, doing some barroom napkin math, if they have 85,000 750 ml bottles of "20-ish year old whiskey" at 45.1% ABV (which is much lower than barrel proof or cask strength, which is usually 50-60% or more for that age), let's first come up with a rough number:

85,000 Bottles x 0.750 Liters per Bottle = 63,750 Liters

Then, we should adjust for proof, let's say it was just 60 (FWIW if they were stored at the new-old Bernheim, they were stored in masonary rackhouses, which subject the barrels to far less changes than wooden rackhouses do, so this number may be close):

63,750 Liters x 45.1/100 ABV = Barrel Liters x 60/100 ABV

Or:

100/60 ABV x 63,750 Liters X 45.1/100 ABV = ~47,918 Barrel Liters

And then, we can "guess" at a number of barrels:

47,918 Liters * 1 / 175 Barrels/Liter = ~273, let's round up and say 274 Barrels

So, we could guess that 274 barrels of this new-old Bernheim stuff was used to make what we roughly know of for Barterhouse.  These numbers are guesses (and with Rhetoric coming out and one more "orphan" there are probably more), but as this is a problem in the vein of the classic job interview "How many piano tuners are there in New York?", we probably are not too far off.

So, with all the bottles coming out, it's conceivable that we are talking about 500 barrels of whiskey.  Maybe more.

Well that's a good bit of whiskey to "orphan"... wait, a note on that: if you paid attention to the "history" of Diageo and their "mergers" (ahem, acquisitions), this whiskey was not "lost".  In fact, as Chuck Cowdery has stated, it's sort of always been Diageo.  This wasn't like some great distillery was covered in vines and the Bourbon equivalent of Indiana Jones unearthed this lost treasure.

No.  These bottles are not orphans.

So what exactly is going on?

Marketing.  Plain and simple.

Diageo seems to have a certain level of contempt for the American whiskey drinker.  First they come up with clever labels and silly logos for whiskey that arguably has a better history.  Sure, they don't own the rights to the Bernheim or IW Harper names, but they could talk about them.  Then they stress the age.

Pappy Fever!

I've heard/read/anecdotally picked up in bars and tried not to laugh out loud, statements regarding how good "old" whiskey tastes.  Does age matter? Yes.  That's not really in question, but "is it all that matters?" is much better.

Take for example, the fine folks at Four Roses.  That's a foreign owned company (Kirin) that truly loves American whiskey.  They make ten varieties of bourbon, changing only the mash bill and the yeast strains and if you find the Limited Edition and Barrel Select versions of their Single Barrel, you are in for a treat.  They are wonderful whiskeys, but they probably don't age much longer than ten years.

The kicker?  The OESK I had right after a sample of Barterhouse blew it away.  It pretty much kicked it's ass and spit it out.  That's subjective, of course, but as it was cheaper I can't help but say, "yeah this whiskey isn't that good."

Remember too that old barrels can taste outright bad.  Getting into the teens, you can get "woody" whiskey that is unusable.  So it's even possible that there are more barrels that are just not very good.  It's even possible that they might start a new brand that mixes the bad old barrels with younger stock and not have age statements (anything goes with Dodgy-oh).

That leads to the other part of this "Straight American Contempt" (123 proof): how did Diageo lose this whiskey?

Well, as I said before, Diageo is huge.  They are the biggest producer of spirits in the world (well, reselling is included in that claim, but they do have a litany of Scotch whisky distilleries).  It's probable that they didn't lose it, but just didn't find it remarkable, because it really isn't.  But the market for American whiskey has turned around (as you know or perhaps you or I wouldn't be here... er reading/writing this shit) and now an "old whiskey" is considered good, regardless of whether or not it is good.  Consider how many NDP products (it's all LDI or Four Roses, right... kidding) pull the wool over new whiskey fans eyes.

And then there's this "news" about a bourbon/rye shortage!  Oh no!

This seems like Diageo is being rather opportunistic.  

Just as, if not more so, important to taste is not age, but also the conditions in which the whiskey was aged (wooden vs concrete rackhouses), where in the rackhouse it was aged, what was in the mash bill, what yeast strain was used, where the cuts were made in the spirit run (assuming two runs, but that's another discussion), what proof it's bottled at, etc.  This is why 10 year old Jim Beam Black doesn't taste as good as 9 year Knob Creek or why Elmer T Lee doesn't taste quite like Blanton's, etc (I'm handwaving a bit).

Age is not all it's cracked up to be.

I am also inclined to wonder what did happen to these barrels.  It is possible that they were just left unattended, but with the angel's share and barrels occasionally leaking, you have to wonder if they were in some huge rackhouse being monitored, but uncared for.  A sort of "Beware of Leopord" Hitchiker's Guide, situation (apologies if you don't get that joke, but you should have probably read that book by now).  It's a big company, you go in and punch the clock, walk the racks, fix leaks, and go home.  Maybe it was an "Oh shit, man, I gotta work Rackhouse 51?  No one even goes in there!" sort of thing.

I don't know.

And I don't care.

I don't even mean to sound judgmental as to the quality of the whiskey, as taste is subjective.  I don't care for what I've tried from "The Orphan Barrels", but that's just me.

That said, I don't think any of this whiskey is worth what they are charging and Diageo's conduct is insulting.

Diageo, for what it's worth, is opening a distillery that will most likely make the Bulleit products of the future (perhaps severing their ties with LDI for the Rye and, most likely still Four Roses for the bourbon).  So who knows?  Maybe in 2020 or whenever that new make is old enough, we will get something good.  Either way, their disdain for the history of American whiskey is kind of unforgivable.  The "Orphan Barrels" are the Zima of American whiskey.

I won't lie.  I still drink Bulleit on occasion and probably won't stop.  Hell, I like a spot of Dick(el) here and there.  But I am not happy about any of this and I am yet to be wowed by the orphans ("We got a real heavy rep!" - Warriors joke).

There's a world out there that tries to make cola.  Cola, is basically the flavor of the kola nut and the coca leaf (less the cocaine, which is a bit regrettable as, honestly, I've had coca leaf once and it's a much more reasonable version of the cocaine experience) with vanilla and "mystery" ingredients.  If you walk into your local Whole Foods or some other natural(ish) grocer, you'll find a bevy of "colas" that attempt to approximate or improve upon the classic cola taste and for that, you've really got to head to the source (who's nom-de-plume reflects as much after the "new" variety failed): Coca-Cola.

It is, for better or worse, the standard for other colas.  Pepsi, which uses artificial vanilla (amongst other things) is it's biggest competitor (chiefly achieved by being clever and allying itself with "on trend" celebrities from Fred Savage to Beyonce) isn't necessarily inferior (though as someone who cares about calories does not enjoy the "diet" version nearly as much as the "new"aka Diet Coke or "classic" aka Coke Zero varities of the O.G.), but it isn't the "platonic" archetype of cola.

Or maybe it is, but let's be honest and remember that Coke, for it's myriad of faults, is the original and perhaps, definitive cola.  Not "definitive" in the sense of "perfect" or "best" but rather in the sense of the "idea" (and, no it isn't really platonic, but that fucking cave analogy is rather ridiculous... damn greeks).  And that means that it's really where all other "colas" start from.  It is the baseline for colas.

What does this have to do with whiskey?

Simple.

I rarely ask for it, but I won't deny it's reputation as "the" standard for bourbon.  White label Jim Beam.  It is the "Coke" of the bourbon world.

It's a lower rye bourbon and I'd rather drink something from Buffalo Trace, but you have to be fair and remember that Beam has flown the flag for some time.  It is, the Coke of bourbon.

That is both good and bad.

There are better bourbons to be had, but if push comes to shove and you're in that airport bar, if it's "he who must not be named" or white label, you know what you're going for.

Unlike "Coke" the Beam family themselves have worked for nearly every major distillery from Heaven Hill to Beam proper (FWIW: the name was originally Boehm.... yes, they were not the English/Scots/Irish types who normally made whiskey in the New World) and their progeny are still involved in bourbon and rye (American Whiskey!) today.

I won't pretend I'd buy a bottle of white label (though black is a steal sometimes) over a BT standard or Knob over Eagle Rare (I love/hate Buffalo Trace), but we should be thankful that throughout the last 200 years, one company has kept shit legit through prohibition and thru fads and that lineage, that idea of bourbon (and rye... though Beam Rye and Old Overholt are not that fantastic) and really American Whiskey has been kept alive.

Making whiskey is a game of patience.

You know this.  But it's probably not quite for the reasons you think.  Yes, sitting on barrels for ten, fifteen, twenty plus years is a game of patience.  A game of speculation.  A game of risk.  For every barrel that makes it into a Van Winkle's 23, there are some that don't make the cut.

That's not what I'm talking about.

The real challenge, is learning to make whiskey.  It's not just sitting on barrels, it's learning to cook a mash, how to build your mash bill, what yeast to use, how to distill (where to make your cuts is a bit of work in and of itself), how to barrel, etc, etc.  Each step in making whiskey requires one part art and one part science, which is a good thing.  Too much art and you'd have horrible crap (tastes bad, too experimental) and too much science and you might have bland crap (tastes predictable, nothing unique... or just plain wrong, like Cleveland Whiskey).

This is why I'm going to go out and say it:

Don't buy from non-distiller producers.

Now there are a few exceptions.  Bulleit being the low hanging fruit here: yes, they're an NDP, but it's cheap and you know who did make it (Four Roses for the bourbon and LDI for the rye).  High West gets a wee pass because they are creative in what they blend and tell you (sort of) what's in their bottles (it's still a bit overpriced, though I have a strange love for the rye-bourbon-peat bastard that is Campfire).  The others?  Mostly glorified consumers.

Yes, they go to one of the big eight (or is it nine now) distillers and say "show me your wares", pick barrels, maybe sit on them and then rebottle them using clever names, fancy labels, and "interesting stories" to sell a product.  (Hirsch, Michter's, Noah's Mill, Black Maple Hill, Rowan's Creek, Templeton, Whistle Pig, Angel's Envy, etc, etc.)

Then there are the in-betweener NDPs like High West, who distill other things (GNS products like gin, vodka, etc) but buy barrels from the big boys (Breckenridge, Smooth Ambler, and so on).  And there are the ones who promise "we're buying it now, but we will one day make it" of only which Willet has actually started distilling (though not selling any of that, yet).  (Correction: it appears that Angel's Envy might be doing this too... but we are years away from seeing any of that.)

The bottom line is that if the bottle doesn't say "distilled by" not "bottled by" or even "bottled by XYZ distilling company" (you can call yourself that even if you've never done a run), you shouldn't buy it.

"But Matt, XYZ tastes so good, they know what they are doing!"

Okay, fine.  Like I said, there are some exceptions, but... think about why you are drinking whiskey.  Yes, you like the taste (as do I), but I also like the history and I like the human hands involved and... well, I've come to the conclusion that I'd rather either stick with the big boys (Buffalo Trace, Beam, Heaven Hill, etc) or go with the true DIY crafters (Peach Street, Corsair) and pay more for something that's "in process" (meaning maybe they don't make a "straight" aka aged for two years bourbon or maybe they have plans to sell a super aged product later) than to give money to someone who's a crass, glorified consumer.

Imagine if I went to three great restaurants and picked out an appetizer ("oh this foie gras is amazing"), an entree ("duck confit with garlic potatoes and crispy brussels sprouts"), and a desert ("Twinkie creme brulee") and then presented them at my restaurant, with new names, made up stories, and an increased markup.  But I bought them all in bulk and dress them up at my fancier restaurant ("look at our hand screened menus, our sans serif fonts, our parchment, our hand painted plates, etc").  If you found that out... well, you'd probably be a bit weirded out ("my that seems like a great deal of work"), but you'd also feel cheated.  Especially if I bragged about my family's palmares with regards to cooking ("trained at the Sorbonne, worked in Michelin star restaurants"), but then didn't cook a damn thing.

That's sort of what NDPs like Hirsch and others are doing.  Yes, you're getting something that tastes good, but one, you are paying for labeling, and two, there's probably a hard working "I barely make pocket change after recouping expenses" local company that is better deserving of your money (and your mouth).  Maybe the local distillery doesn't last too long, but they are trying to do something that's more in the spirit of those Irish, Scottish, and English chaps who came to places like "the Kentucky frontier" two or even three hundred years ago.  Hell, those people tried to start a war to prevent from being over-taxed for making whiskey in their barns.

Learning to be a distiller takes time... years of trial and error on your own or years of working at an established place.  Yes, barrel selection is important, but a bunch of rich assholes with some investor capital that don't know jack about the difference between "distilled on grain" or "distilled on wash" or a pot or reflux still, haven't put in the craft hours to make it worth your time.  Now, this isn't some request to return to Ricardo's (and later Marx's) "Labor Theory of Value", but a statement about what I want the whiskey world to be like.

My alacrity for whiskey consumption is akin to the waste of anticipation as often I find that the first dram isn't quite enough and that it takes subsequent visits to the bottle (or bottles, not that my capacity for spirit is such that I can consume whole bottles at a time) before I am assuaged.  That is perhaps not totally unusual... the "lust for liquor" is a fine line between need and want.  At which point does one "have a problem" or is that such a misleading term fraught with preconceived notions exacerbated by your arm-chair teetotalers who've never had the luxury to imbibe or felt that mask of difficulty slip away that it's not worth addressing if you've not reached the level of draining fifths on the train to work...

This is not, however, an ode to the notion of in vino veritas as if some finer truth of man is revealed by inebriation.

What this is, or what I intend it to be, is an ode to the source of my liquor lust induced ennui.  Or, to put it into really simple terms:  when the hell can I get my hands on a bottle of Sazerac 18?

It is that time of year, dear reader, when the folks at Buffalo Trace taunt and tease the fans of fine American whiskeys with two sets of releases:  the far over-rated, but still excellent, collection of wheated Bourbon and Family Reserve Rye that flies under the auspices of the Pappy Van Winkle brand; and the far, far more interesting Antique Collection.

If you've encountered me, leaning across the bar, spilling my spirits mid-foaming tirade, no doubt I was incited to this riotous state by merely overhearing someone praising a Van Winkle product (that or I was upset about the estate tax...).  I do enjoy the Van Winkle brand, though Preston (the current heir to the name) has admitted that the 2013 bottling of the 23-year old strain will probably be the last of the old Stitzel-Weller stock.  Even then, the math seems a bit off as the Stitzel-Weller distillery proper closed in 1972, but not totally impossible as the age statement must legally refer to the youngest barrel used in the blend.  Van Winkle is good, but as Mr Cowdery puts it, mostly over-hyped and favored heavily in magazines who's names are too gauche to mention other than to refer to them as either "Safeway porn" or "stuff to purchase and/or masturbate to".

What interests me far more than paying too much for an unpopular style of bourbon (in general, I am a fan of the kick of rye over the nutty taste of wheat in my bourbon) is straight American Rye and that, friends, is why I have a bit of a whiskey boner with regards to the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection Sazerac Rye 18.  Granted, I still have some William LaRue (a more affordable expression of wheated bourbon from Buffalo Trace) and a half a bottle of the Thomas Handy Rye from last season, but the Sazerac Rye puts all to shame.

In all fairness, all of the Antique Collection products are excellent: George T Stagg and Eagle Rare 17 being the others in that short list.  They too, though, are subject to this cat and mouse game of demand.  Today I am on the "wait list" at three different liquor stores, expecting a call at any moment which will have me spill my bowl of Spaghetti-Ohs, shut off the Clear Channel Communications "rock radio" station, hop into my auto-gyro and make all haste to empty my bank account for at least one of those bottles of sweet, sweet nectar.

But when?  But where?

As Mr Tom Petty put's it, "the waiting is the hardest part."

Anecdotally, autumn and winter are a type of holiday for me... I don't give a damn about religion/fairy tale inspired holidays (the sky-god is a foolish concept, but all thanks to Gore Vidal for the legacy of that language), possession acquiring (I need not gifts, I can buy shit I don't need for myself), and all that rot.  I do, however, enjoy the startchy waistline expanding comfort foods of post-harvest, the increased time spent indoors for naval gazing/masturbation/crying, and, of course, the release of the best fucking whiskey you will ever taste.

So I sit.

I wait.

And I wait.

Will all this anticipation aid that first taste of my own bottle of Sazerac 18?  Gods, I hope so.

The last pinch of orange sun drops like a golden egg yolk over the black silhouette of the horizon as you sit in your tufted overstuffed chair, resplendent in your velvet smoking jacket, sipping from your Glencairn crystal snifter.  "My goodness!" you say.  "But my goodness this is a fine malt."  As you ease another sip down, feeling the caramel flavor coat the inside of your mouth, tasting that spice of rye, you reach for the bottle.

Old Dominion Bourbon is made from a family recipe handed down by my great great grandfather, an abolitionist and whiskey runner who's whiskey was as great as the tales of his frolicking with Harriet Tubman who often proclaimed his spirit as 'the spirit of freedom'.  A recipe discovered in an old trunk, hidden away in the cellar of the family cabin in the mountains of Virginia.

You say, "My what a wonderful story!"  And you scroll down further.

Bottled by Old Dominion Distillery in Bardstown Kentucky.

It's the story I (and others far more eloquent than I) have often ranted about.  "Bottled by XYZ Distillery/Distilling" which is not the same as "Distilled by...".  This is, of course, the same old saw (SSDD).  Someone bought whiskey from LDI (now called MGP) or Heaven Hill or whomever, perhaps let it sit a bit longer (though I suspect this is a lie), threw it in a bottle with a fancy label and a cute, though mostly fictitious story, about the history of the brand.  In truth, the mash bill only tells part of the story and as I've mentioned before, distillers were once known as "yeast masters" because it was the strains of yeast in combination with the mash bill and malting process, aging, etc that really made the difference in whiskey flavors.

This comes to light again as a few have sent me the link to this article in Slate which talks a little bit about this.  

This, of course, is not news to members of our whiskey club nor readers of this blog or the writings of Chuck Cowdery.

What is interesting about this article is that it perpetuates a bit of the lie about "well we bought this aged stuff while we worked on our own" which is an old saw in the microdistillers/ndp whiskey game.  

As it turns out, more often than not, this is just a lie.

I actually got into a wonderfully asinine "I win at teh internets" argument with Mat Garretson of High West regarding a new NDP, Smooth Ambler.  The interesting part of this was where Mr Garretson said that they (High West) will always source their aged whiskey.

This flies against what the Slate article mentions:

Craft brands like the Michter’s labels, Belle Meade Bourbon, and Smooth Ambler’s Old Scout are all sourced from other distilleries while the companies build their facilities or age their own stocks, and all are balanced and flavorful products. 

This, despite their claims to the contrary, is a lie.  The Michter's brand is especially heinous as that distillery (which is long closed) did make the legendary AH Hirsch many moons ago but has nothing to do with the old name and even won "Distiller of the Year" when they don't distill anything. High West and some of the others do distill other spirits, including High West's unaged "Silver Whiskey" (aka an Oat "White Dog").

What this article hints at is where micro distillers try to compete: there's the "let's try unusual techniques to age it" space (which Buffalo Trace insists doesn't work, read "Small Barrels Produce Lousy Whiskey" for more on that) and the other space, interesting flavors or local ingredients.  This is where my local favorite, Peach Street, gets it right.  They use as many local ingredients as possible and make a young tasting, but interesting in it's own right bourbon.  Leopold's is in a similar boat (and go a step further with plans to open a giant malting house as soon as they get approval from the city of Denver).

That's the place to compete, in my opinion.  Do different things with ingredients, don't lie, and make it as local as possible.  Don't be like Breckenridge and play the "word game":

Besides our unique high-rye mash bill we owe our success to careful mingling of casks at each bottling and the perfect Breckenridge snowmelt water used for proofing. The natural minerality of our water source ensures the luscious mouth-feel, depth of flavor, and long finish making Breck Bourbon one of the very best Whiskeys in the World.

The telling bit there being that the bottle says nothing about where it was distilled and just talks about "Colorado water" used in proofing.  E.g. they bought the barrels from someone else and add Colorado water ("tapping the Rockies" and such).

Why tell a lie when you can just be honest?

That's the tack that two labels have taken of late, which I find refreshing: St George's Breaking and Entering and Spring 44's (a local company) new bourbon.  Their copy admits (St George even makes reference to it in the name) that they picked out barrels.

We stole this bourbon, yes. But we did it because we see blending as an art form in and of itself, and we think we've got a pretty good knack for it. Breaking & Entering is not a St. George distillate, but you can taste our influence in every sip. 

However, they don't quite have the same skills (or perhaps luck) as High West does with Bourye and their extra old Ryes.  Breaking and Entering is the better of the two, though you can taste a wheater in there.  Spring 44 tastes too much of sweet corn and for that, I'd rather go with Peach Street.  That said, I've only had Spring 44's "Straight Bourbon" and not the "Single Barrel Straight Bourbon" which may be better.

The article makes much reference to Maker's, which is odd as no micro-distiller is selling a wheated bourbon (that I know of).  That's the foray of all those Sitzel-Weller spin offs (see my last post on that).

At any rate, the Slate piece is a digestible bit of info that hints at what everyone rants about on StraightBourbon.com and such.  FWIW, if you like Templeton, Willet, Whistle Pig, or any of the other NDPs, don't let my bitchiness stop you from enjoying it.  That's what it's really about.

Where Slate gets it right always sits with this: for around $30 you can buy a bottle of something like Buffalo Trace's Eagle Rare and it is, in my opinion, a better tasting bourbon than anything craft distillers are churning out.  That's hard to compete with, but price/taste ratio is not what this is all about and you need some variety (I know I do) or I'd get bored.

I must admit I rather loathe the lie of the Non-Distiller Producer (or, NDP, as they are commonly called), but I am in that uncomfortable position of admitting that I actually like some NDP products (I do find the use of the acronym "NDP" rather gauche, so let's substitute something a bit less vulgar: non-distiller shall work for our purposes, or mine at least).

I mean, that shit looks cool and sounds impressive, and that's why I drink it... to impress orange skinned girls while I'm playing shuffleboard.  That and my thick, manly biceps and/or my jaunty hat that doesn't at all make me look like a jackass.

After an arduous day of exercising the wonderful "prickliness" of my personality (let's just say "arrogant prick" and be done with it), I reach first for the "slug" of whiskey.  I want to say that I arrived at this conclusion on my own, for whiskey is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy (per Benjamin Franklin's "beer" quote of which I doubt the veracity)... except of course that I don't believe in god, but I do believe in the sublime power of whiskey.  Hmmm.

At any rate, I won't pretend that I was not won over by the eloquent, dry wit of Bernard DeVoto who's book "The Hour" is essential reading for anyone with a modicum of interest in liquor, drinks, and the history of it all. The book that was so influential that Wicker Park's "The Violet Hour" takes its name from his apt prose.

For those of you who are familiar with my screeds, I apologize, as there is perhaps little new here... other than a slight variation in the arrangement of 26 characters and a handful of punctuation symbols.  

I digress.

But I share DeVoto's opinions on drinks.

When the sun came shining as I was strolling,

And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,

As the fog was lifting a voice come chanting:

This land was made for you and me. - Woody Guthrie

I miss your musk. The sweet fruity spice that washes over the sweet flavor of corn. When this is all over, we should move in together. Get some alone time.

For me, it’s always “rye rye rye”.  I prefer rye whiskey over all others and I like my bourbons to be spicy, fruity, and rather high on the rye.  But is wheat a bad thing?

The path untrod.

Wheated bourbon dates back to a Sitzel family recipe (the Sitzel-Weller distillery was eventually closed and the brands were sold to the winds) but was appropriated by others.  It should be remembered that the Van Winkle bourbons have largely been wheated and contain no rye (now they do have a Rye whiskey, but that is another matter).