Tastes

Following up on my review of Pikesville Straight Rye is this review for its younger cousin, Rittenhouse Bottled-in-Bond Rye. The information I could find for this Heaven Hill offering seems to vary a bit depending on where you look and I couldn’t locate an official Heaven Hill specifications page for it. In any case, feel free to chime in if you are aware of one - this is the best I could find for now. Mash Bill: 51% Rye, 37% Corn, 12% Malted Barley Age: 4 years ABV: 50% Price: $19.99 (typically seen for $20-$25) Nose: Surprisingly soft and mellow. Dusty cherries, malty grains, breakfast cereal. Buttery oiliness. I wish it was socially acceptable to have this for breakfast. Palate: Rich, oily mouthfeel with gentle rye spice. Peaches and cherries, vanilla, nutmeg, smokey char, and little bits of flake salt. Finish: Medium length. Sweet and fruity, with mild spice, smoke, and amber maple syrup sweetness. Overall Impressions: Not quite as intense or complex as the Pikesville, but still very good in its own right. I think this bottle has either softened a bit since I first first opened it or I have been drinking too much rye lately. It doesn’t seem nearly as spicy as it used to be so I’m curious how the next bottle I crack open will compare. In any case, this is a remarkable bottle for the price (~$20) and something that will always be in my home bar. It is excellent neat or as a mixer. I highly recommend this take a place on your shelf too! 3.75 ~ 85 ~ Good

You know those drams where you wonder what it would be like if you could bump the ABV up to 46%, or the drams that make you wish they had a bit more depth of flavor, or the drams you wish you could turn the intensity up a few notches? This is not one of those drams. Enter Pikesville Straight Rye. There’s been a lot of chatter about this rye recently, and even I had seek out a pour of it before hunting down a bottle (I previously reviewed this on the fly). When I found it on special for $40, I couldn’t resist. Let’s see this bottle’s specs. Mash Bill: 51% Rye, 35% Corn, 14% Malted Barley Age: 6 years ABV: 55% Price: $39.99 (typically seen for $40-$50) Nose: Rich and sweet. Red vine licorice, candied cherries, vanilla, rye spice, and burnt caramel with a bit of the accompanying smoke. All of this is enveloped in the aromas of a walk-in cigar humidor. The proof is suspiciously concealed. Palate: Rich, full-bodied, fruity, and spicy. The sweetness is definitely there but it’s almost an afterthought because there’s so much else going on. Woody cigar tobacco, more red vine licorice, cherry syrup, and burnished crème brûlée crust. A tiny bit of balancing salt. Dangerously drinkable at full strength, water is unnecessary. Finish: My goodness, this is long and it hangs around afterwards. I’m curious if it smells like I was steeped in tobacco after drinking this. More spice and oak, leather, and burnt caramel sweetness. Overall Impressions: Highly enjoyable dram. I tasted this alongside it’s younger cousin, Rittenhouse Rye Bottled-in-Bond (review for this forthcoming). I’m finding conflicting information on Rittenhouse’s mash bill (I also found conflicting information on Pikesville’s mash bill until I confirmed it on a Heaven Hill page) and after tasting these side-by-side, it’s hard to imagine it’s just 2 years of age separating them. So I’m calling them cousins instead of brothers until this is clearer to me. Verdict: This begs the question - if you could only have 1 rye....? I’m unabashedly loyal to Rittenhouse for the balance of price, quality, and adeptness as a mixer. I imagine Pikesville could also be a great mixer, but at $40+ and with all these rich flavors, it would be remiss of me to cover them up. So I’d want to keep Rittenhouse around for my Manhattans and Pikesville for my sipper.* For now, I’m feeling pretty good about sticking with my original rating of 4.0, but I’m very curious how this will evolve over the course of the bottle.** 4.0 ~ 88 ~ Great *As a little tasting experiment, I also poured myself some Michter’s US*1 Single Barrel Straight Rye, a bottle Distiller describes as “Rich & Full Bodied”. Now, I know full well that this was a bit of an unfair comparison given how intense I knew the Pikesville was, but I did it any way for curiosity’s sake. The Michter’s transformed into a light, herbal, floral, and fruity dram, attributes not typically ascribed to it en masse. I won’t be writing up a review of this tasting of the Michter’s because it was a bit unfair, but it just goes to show you how powerful and rich the Pikesville is. **I’m also curious to see how Pikesville stacks up against its up-and-coming NAS brother, Elijah Craig Rye, which will launch with a limited release in January 2020 and is confirmed to share the same mash bill as Pikesville. Here’s to hoping I can get my hands on some to compare!

This review is for the standard bottling of Four Roses Single Barrel (OBSV Recipe). It should be noted that Four Roses offers up to 10 different unique bourbon recipes (2 different mash bills x 5 different yeast strains and profiles) and releases the non-OBSV bottles as private selections and store picks. I also find these private picks typically come with age statements that the standard bottles lack (typically aged between 8 and 14 years). So if you’re adventurous and patient, in theory you could hunt down all 10 recipes and find your favorite. It’s also likely to be more rewarding than grail hunting. Like other single barrel offerings, this is expected to vary a bit from barrel to barrel. And it does. Mash Bill: 60% Corn, 35% Rye, 5% Malted Barley Four Roses Recipe: OBSV (High Rye + Light, Fruity Yeast Strain) ABV: 50% Price: $34.99 Nose: Spicy, fruity, and sweet, but fairly subtle. Lightly syruped cherries dominate, with lots of rye and wood spice. Soft herbal notes reminiscent of dill and anise. A little bit of brine and char hidden in there. Palate: It immediately becomes apparent how misleading the nose was. There’s nothing subtle about this dram once it greets your tongue. Spicy white pepper leads the charge, followed by a medley of herbal notes and woody spices. Queen Anne cordial cherry candies and salted cream hide behind the initial wave of pepper. A splash of water tames the spice some and does bring more woody notes forward while the cherries morph into more of a cherry syrup thing. I prefer cordial cherries to the cough syrup. Finish: I get more cherry on the finish than on the palate, but it is eventually replaced with more spice and oak. A nice, leathery, warming end that stays away from any bitter notes but it is a little simplistic. A splash of water brings a little more distinction to the spice, fruit, and oak elements. Overall Impressions: I find myself wishing for a bit more richness to accompany this dram. I know it’s described by Distiller as being rich, but for this bottle, I’m not getting that to the degree I’d hoped. I’m finding the mouthfeel a bit lacking this time around so this doesn’t rise to the echelon of 4+ drams. But I will say this current bottle is much better than my previous one - the last one was so spicy, it had that wild, burn-your-lips-it’s-so-spicy spice to it. And I like spice. Verdict: For about $10 less, I find Eagle Rare 10 to be a safer bet. This is probably why I’ve never taken the risk of spending $60-$90 on a Four Roses Single Barrel store pick, even though the idea of trying other mash bill and yeast strain combinations is enticing - it just seems too risky to me considering the variation I’ve experienced in the standard OBSV bottles. That said, as soon as I tell myself I’m quitting this bottle when I get a dud batch, it seems to find its way back on to my shelf. $35 is still a good value for this classy looking, high-rye single barrel and this particular bottle was pretty tasty. 3.75 ~ 85 ~ Good “Oh, here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again!”

This tasting of Aberlour A’Bunadh follows my review of Aberlour 12 Year Double Cask Matured. It comes from a bottle of Batch 61 (most stores currently have Batch 64 on the shelves) which rings in at a hefty cask strength of 60.8% ABV. This is a NAS whisky, aged in Spanish Oloroso Sherry casks and reportedly drawn from barrels ranging in age from 5 to 25 years. It’s NCF and NCA (thumbs up) and while A’Bunadh used to be matured exclusively in first-fill casks, there’s no mention of it here. Regardless, come to this expecting the qualities of a “Sherry Bomb”. I purchased this several months ago on recommendation, but I have to admit, I did not fall in love with it like so many others have, even when experimenting with water. I legitimately thought something was wrong with my bottle. Let’s see how it did with time and oxygen. Nose: It’s a bit closeted at full strength, with aromas of stewed plums, glacé cherries, and spicy date-maple-oak staves. Less ethanol than you’d expect but it’s lurking beneath the surface. If you could detect astringency with your nose, I swear this smells astringent. Hydrate this dram to mellow the wood notes down to a satisfying toasty oak, with stewed dark fruits, faint orange zest, cinnamon, and dark chocolate. Palate: Typically I give cask strength drams at try at full bore for reference for where I started. This comes across as sweet, raisiny-plum, astringent black tea with oak and oak and more oak. With water, it’s more tolerable to my palate than I last remember but it’s still has powerful, oaky, Sherry influence. For those who love Sherry bombs, this is nearing oak-infused Sherry territory. I think the sweet spot to aim is somewhere around 45-48% ABV. The sweet plum-prunes, raisins, dark cherries, and dates are still there, along with vanilla and cinnamon, oak and spiced orange. Rough tannins smooth out and the mouthfeel improves dramatically. Finish: As can be imagined, at nearly 122 proof, it is long and warm and keeps crawling back up your throat. Watered down, it’s drying and astringent, with surprising amounts of oak still. As it fades off, it gets a bit creamier. I think my biggest beef with this dram is that I have to work with it so much (and I’m not referring to having to add water). My problem is that this bottle requires me to search for things I like about it, rather than these attributes coming naturally, which is annoying (I also felt this way about The Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask). And because it’s a pricey bottle, I think there’s a tendency to want to find those exceptional notes to justify the purchase price. I don’t feel like being generous for the sake of justifying. All in all though, I do think this has more to offer than the standard Aberlour 12yo, I just think it’s poor VFM (dare I say overhyped?) and I don’t think I’d ever buy a bottle again (especially given that the murmurings say the quality has been in decline the past few batches). I’m giving this a 3.25 because it is better than the Aberlour 12 Double Cask, and because it is a bit above average, but it is a very pricey, above average bottle. Not recommended. 3.25 ~ 80 ~ Above Average

Had a doubleheader tasting of Aberlour 12 Year Double Cask Matured and Aberlour A’Bunadh to confirm (or reconfirm?) my suspicions. Nose: Oak and creamy sherry casks are evident. Strong red apple - very akin to the red delicious variety. Ripe plums headed toward prunes. Lots of Christmas baking spices - cinnamon, ginger, allspice. Cake-like vanilla and butter. Hints of semi-sweet chocolate. The malt and oak really power through the longer it has to open up. There’s a faint bit of oiliness like starchy French fries. Palate: Thin, sweet, and buttery fruits hit first, then the heavy raisins and plums kick in followed by waves of spice and oaky astringency. It’s a little light-bodied in mouthfeel but manages to be somewhat rich for 40% ABV. I feel like the palate slightly under-delivers given what the nose has going on. Finish: Medium length and warming. Lots of baking spice and oak, and astringency almost to the point that some people might wonder if it’s healthy to be drinking this much oak tea. Thoughts: My bottle is about half full so I’ve definitely had opportunity to visit with this. I just feel like this dram is a bit disjointed - I don’t think the knowledge that this comes from a mixture of casks is coloring my impressions, it’s just missing the integration I’d like to see. I wondered if I would enjoy Aberlour 16 more until I saw @jonwilkinson7309 ‘s enlightening review. Still a fairly solid dram and a reasonable value if you can find it sub-$40. It’s just lost in a very crowded field competing for your attention at this price point and I’m more inclined to spend a few dollars more to get a better integrated Balvenie 12 Doublewood. 3.0 ~ 76 ~ Average

I never do this but I couldn’t help myself - the suggestion seemed so outrageous. Distiller recommends Balcones Baby Blue Corn Whisky if you seek a more floral version of The Macallan 12 Year Old Double Cask (previous tasting). Let’s see just how odd this lineup is. Balcones Baby Blue is a corn whisky made from roasted heirloom blue corn and aged a minimum of 6 months in some sort of oak. It used to be aged in new, lightly charred American oak but I don’t see that on the bottle anywhere. Bottled at 46% ABV and features a curious, faintly green-tinged gold color. (The green is readily apparent if you hold it up to a light.) Nose: Buttered corn. Loads of it. I’m tempted to double check that there aren't actually buttered corn kernels resting at the bottom of my glencairn. You can smell the corn cob, dusty husk, and all the rest. After wading through the corn maze, you are greeted with loads of vanilla and honey-drizzled bread. Palate: Holy buttered popcorn, Batman! Rich and oily mouthfeel with surprising amounts of spice and oaky astringency considering how little time this has spent in a barrel. Lightly salted, buttery nuts and spicy baked apple - I’m not sure how’d you’d prepare this kind of spicy baked apple, but it’s there. A floral and herbal quality so faint, it could just be mistaken for more corn notes. Finish: Starts sweet and a little leathery, but quickly returns to tannic oak. Somewhat reminiscent of a darkly roasted coffee but without the coffee’s overwhelming acidity. Very young and a bit harsh. Warming. Empty Glass: Buttered popcorn jelly beans. I know Distiller is just generally plotting the flavor, but I don’t see how the profile of Baby Blue is remotely close to Macallan 12 Year Old Double Cask. I won’t bother comparing and contrasting them here. In any case, while this is certainly an interesting dram to visit occasionally, I’d get bored of it quickly. It would be like ignoring all the other jelly beans and just seeking the buttered popcorn flavor. For the rest of your life. I can’t handle that much diacetyl (and it’s not because of my fears of popcorn lung disease). This is right around a 2.75 to 3.0 for me but I don’t like it as much as the other drams I’ve rated 3.0. I’m putting 2.75 but it’s more like a 2.9 from me. 2.75 ~ 74 ~ Below Average

Following up my previous tasting of Macallan 12 Year Old Sherry Oak Cask with a review of the Macallan 12 Year Old Double Cask. The Double Cask is aged in a combination of American and European Sherry oak. It uses more American oak than the 12 Year Old Sherry Oak, and leaves out the ex-bourbon casks featured in the 12 Year Old Triple Cask. It’s also presented with its natural color at 43% ABV. Nose: Soft and subtle. Vanilla, cream, raisins, faint cinnamon, and floral wisps. The nose of this dram is so surprisingly reserved, it almost behaves as if it’s too refined to come out and play. Palate: Silky, sweet, but not syrupy. Vanilla, warm cream, medium-grade honey, cinnamon, and oaky green apple skins. Still has the dried fruits, but not to the degree of the Sherry Oak. Less shy than the nose, but still rather subdued. I will say the mouthfeel is very good. Macallan gets a really unique tannin profile for this bottle, almost like something akin to rounded, velvety, “micro” tannins. Finish: Medium length and sweet, with a profile similar to a raisin cookie. The oaky tannins drag a bit. Pleasantly warming. Overall impressions? I’m a bit torn. First, there’s the price, which also seems to divide the whisk(e)y community. Are you getting enough VFM?* The VFM is subjective and debatable, but not completely outrageous at the lower end of Macallan’s offerings. Second, (to me) there’s something almost artificial about this dram, as if it was so meticulously crafted to check the boxes of a flavor profile, it lost its character in the process. Is it possible to craft robotic-tasting whisky? So, the verdict. I previously described this pour as something similar to vanilla ice cream or mashed potatoes - it works but it’s kind of boring and leaves you wanting more. At this price range, I expect it to stand out more and mouthfeel alone is not enough to justify it having a permanent place on my shelf. While I don’t want price to unfairly factor in to my rating (if it did, my score would be lower), it’s solidly average because while the mouthfeel may stand out, I don’t find the flavor or character that remarkable. If I was really yearning for the Macallan experience, I would try to purchase the half-sized bottles because I can’t justify a whole bottle of this sitting on my shelf for the prices I usually see it going for ($60-$80). 3.5 ~ 81 ~ A Bit Above Average *TL;DR Epilogue: Ultimately, the issue with whisk(e)y pricing and whisk(e)y quality is that there’s a certain expectation that this should be a fairly linear relationship. Less money, lower quality; more money, higher quality. In the real world though, this doesn’t hold true. You could make arguments for it being a skewed bell curve or logarithmic relationship, but ultimately the amount of money you pay is no guarantee or promise of quality. And that is what can be so frustrating with drams like Macallan - you pay the premium and want to expect the high quality they claim to deliver but there’s no indication they can (or will) make good on it. In any case, I’ve clearly pondered this too long and should probably pour myself a dram of something else.

What better way to cleanse the palate of overpriced, industrial-grade cleaning solvent than with some luxurious, debatably-overpriced Macallan? Macallan’s core range got a makeover in 2018. The Macallan 12 Year Old Sherry Oak Cask is aged exclusively in European Sherry oak. It uses no American oak, in contrast to the 12 Year Old Double Oak (American + European oak) and leaves out the ex-bourbon casks featured in the 12 Year Old Triple Cask. It’s also refreshingly presented with its natural color at 43% ABV. Nose: Sweet honey and chocolate. Vanilla, bits of ginger spice, and dried figs ride an assortment of chocolate and fruity aromas. I find Macallan noses to be a bit mild-mannered and subdued, but it’s a pleasant nose nonetheless. Palate: Fruity and sweet (of the red and dark, dried fruit variety). Figgy. Cassia bark and ginger. Not quite as rich and full-bodied as I want to be based in the nose. Lots of chocolate (right around the 50% cacao variety) and tannic oak. A bit of cream, but not enough to fill out the palate fully. The mouthfeel of the tannins is nice, but not as nice as I find the Double Cask tannins to be. Finish: Medium length, with creamy chocolate, followed by spice and rounded, drying oak tannins. The oak definitely fills the majority of the finish and trails off a bit bitterly. In this instance, I find the exclusive use of European oak to be a bit too tannic and bitter for my liking, and (shocker!) I actually think I prefer the Double Cask to the Sherry Cask. Why? Neither of them are impressive to me - the Sherry Cask seems a bit over-oaked (read: bitter) and the Double Cask is so plain/vanilla ice cream/mashed potatoes (read: very close to sleep-through-it boring). But, the mouthfeel and tannic quality on the Double Cask is actually quite impressive to me (and frankly, the only thing that stands out). So I think the Double Cask wins here, particularly in the VFM category, but that’s not saying much. Side note: while this may not seem like a very natural head-to-head comparison, I put the Macallan Sherry Cask up against anCnoc 12 (I was curious to compare two equally-aged, sweet and fruity malts but with different casks makeups; i.e. European oak v. American and Spanish oak). Results? The Macallan Sherry Cask served the purpose of making the anCnoc 12 more interesting while the (European) Sherry Oak diminished. The caramelly smokiness of anCnoc 12 became even more prominent and enticing while the Sherry Cask seemed more bitter. So, this serves to reaffirm that a less prestigious bottle of anCnoc 12 is a better purchase for me than the Macallan 12 Sherry Oak Cask. I give this a 3.25 based on its overall profile and a nod to its pedigree, but if I was taking cost into consideration, I would score it lower. I was lucky this bottle was “on sale”. 3.25 ~ 79 ~ Average

First, let’s get one thing straight, this was clearly a giggles purchase. Or more like the aftermath of a whisk(e)y aficionado losing a bet. Needless to say, I was very amused by a bottle of bourbon that had nothing better to say about itself on the label than “individual barreled”. How bad could something worse than the bottom of the barrel be? Black Eagle is labeled “bourbon whiskey” so I’m assuming it meets those most basic requirements. Aged 3 years, bottled at 40% ABV*, and produced in Minnesota. Packaging: The bottle is so cheap I had to cut the bottom of the screw top off. It’s like the whisk(e)y gods are begging for me to spare myself. Keeping an open mind is going to be more difficult than opening this bottle. Appearance: I gotta be honest, the first thing that popped into my head was dehydrated urine. I hope that’s not what’s in here. Also, a quick Google search of “black eagle” informs me that a black eagle is in fact a real species of bird native to Southeast Asia. I’m not sure how it relates to a bottle of bourbon from Minnesota. Nose: What nose? It’s all ethanol. Ok, grainy, fruity ethanol. At least it’s not laboratory-grade ethanol. I don’t know if I’ve ever smelled something more non-descript. Dewar’s and JW Red have more going on. Palate: Did I just drink recycled heads and tails? Probably. That is sweet, grainy, and harsh, with a bit of charred, metallic vegetal funk. Finish: Whiskey flavored mouthwash. Now with added char and bitterness for dental health. Ok guys. Steer clear. The only thing I can assure you of is that they promised they aged this in some sort of individual barrel instead of a gasoline tanker truck. And that this is why I’m not a betting woman. There must be better whiskey produced somewhere in the state of Minnesota. 1.0 ~ Doesn’t Matter ~ At Least It’s Not Urine *Is it a joke that Distiller says this is 10% ABV? That’s probably appropriate because that is the ratio of mixer you’d need to make this remotely palatable.