Tastes

This review may ruffle a few feathers, but I could not get into this bottle. I’ve worked through the Makers core line (Makers, 46, CS) and after all those I think I prefer the original Makers. These other expressions are quality offerings, but it also smacks of a brand that is trying to innovate just for the sake of staying relevant in the market. Classic Makers is one of my favorite bourbons, and to me, this Cask Strength version is a classic example of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Let me explain. Picked this up about 11 months ago. When I initially opened it up, the nose was almost nonexistent; obscured by the proof. After some time in the glass and a little water, I’d get some faint brown sugar and grassy notes. It absolutely obliterated my palate upon entry, which is odd given that I’ve had higher proof offerings that don’t behave that way (such as high proof Wild Turkey products or Weller 107). That took away any hope of discerning other notes. So I have a few glasses, get the bottle down past the neck. No change. Into the cupboard it goes. Six months later with time and air. No change. Three more months. No change. Ice and water. Nope. Tried making cocktails with it. No avail. Wheated bourbons make bad cocktails IMO. The lack of rye spice backbone causes their more subtle flavors to be masked by mixers. WTF... I ended up giving the remainder of the bottle away. I’m going with a very patient 2.5 here. At $55, I could have bought nearly three bottles of standard Makers and been much better off for it. I hope your mileage varies with this one and you have a better experience. Have you ever had a dud bottle that you just wished would have been better and kept coming back over time to no avail? Post your thoughts in the comments below. Cheers!

Continuing to go back through old bottles, I found this. I’m fairly certain this was the first Irish whisky I ever purchased. I was given the advice to go with this or Redbreast 12. While I’ve been through three bottles of Redbreast since then and this one is still around, I think y’all can guess who won that shootout, but what’s in this fine bottle after all these years? The Spot series is interesting. Even though it’s made at Middleton (along with Redbreast, Powers, and a lesser known bottling called Jameson), all those whiskies somehow manage different flavor profiles. The Spot series always had a bit more of that pot still spice on the nose than Redbreast, with notes of malt, grass, lemon, and coconut. I think the coconut note was the most offputting for me originally. Seems out of place in any whiskey, but especially Irish. Palate is lovely. Malty. Pot still spices. Buttery smooth. Goes down easy. It’s a middling complexity, inoffensive, bit ultimately a bit forgettable. I’m keeping my old rating of a 4 because 1) It’s affordable for a Single Pot Still bottling at around $50. If that’s a bit too much the might I suggest the Powers Three Swallows. It’s about $10 cheeped and has a more rounded profile to me, albeit younger. And 2) this was a fine introduction to Irish whiskey all those years back. The Single Pot Still style is still one of my favorites. Cheers!

I’ve been revisiting some bottles that I bought earlier in my whiskey drinking days and I was still living in Colorado. This special bottle was a going away gift from an old friend right before I came down to Texas. We had some good times at the Stranahans distillery in Denver. I’m not sure if they still do this, but when they were first starting up, you could sign up to go fill bottles for a day on a Saturday, and as compensation they’d send you home with a free bottle. Good times! This particular bottle was from their first batch of sherry cask finishing. As with any finishing, it takes several batches to dial in just how long you let it cook in the sherry casks. This first batch was a bit overdone, with the sherry overpowering the whisky a bit too much. Fortunately, I like Stranahans profile of oily brown sugar and grilled peaches, and that still comes through on the palate once the sherry calms down. Finish is as long and warming as you’d expect. I’m sure that the folks at Stranahans have dialed in their finishing process by now. Value isn’t great at $92, but it’s downright affordable when stacked against other sherry finished American Single Malts from other heavy hitters like Westland or Balcones. Either way, a tasty bottle and a fun trip down memory lane. The best bottles aren’t always the top shelf pours, bit rather the ones you share with friends and associate happy memories with. Cheers!

It’s a shame that these official ratings don’t get updated occasionally, especially for these craft startup distilleries. This producer has made big waves out west, and produces some damn fine bourbon. I bought this bottle at a roadside gas station in the middle of nowhere off I-80 in Wyoming on my way to a conference and it (Along with the High West Double Rye I found) were excellent traveling companions. This is a wheated bourbon, and honestly, it’s what I wished Makers tasted like. On the nose, it’s got some teeth, almost convincing me there’s rye where there isn’t any. It’s neither flat and muted like Makers, or smooth caramel like Weller. This is a proper western wheater, and it’s kicking the doors to the saloon open. The palate follows, and while it goes down “smooth”, there’s more barrel char and tannins, which make for a more “exceptional mouthfeel” (insert Bobs Burgers meme here). Finish is long and warming. I’ve been watching Fred Minnick’s YouTube channel lately and he talks about what goes into being a professional taster. He says he doesn’t factor price into a review and focuses on the product alone. I get that for the sake of an objective review, but he also gets free stuff and we don’t, so I do think about price. At $40, this isn’t the best value. It’s worth 2 bottles of Makers and it’s more than Weller Special Reserve. It’s also better. If it’s in your market (which since it was acquired by Edrington, it probably is), give it a try. This is a craft distillery that has really come into its own. Cheers!

Before moving to Texas, I lived in Colorado for 25 years. Every spring break, I’d drive out to the western part of the state to hike in the desert and visit the national parks in eastern Utah. On my way home, I’d always stop at a small local candy shop in Grand Junction that made the best toffee available on God’s green earth. This bourbon has managed to capture that in a glass. Well done Russells! This one takes a bit to open up in the glass. The nose, while initially muted, opens up into an amazing bouquet of caramel, brown sugar, vanillas, allspice, cinnamon, and the longer it sits, that amazing toffee note. No hint of the proof, which sets this one apart from Rare Breed. Many of the reviews here describe this as balanced, and I’m inclined to agree. All the bourbon flavors are there in consort, with the toffee note leading the charge. I love the nutty, buttery, caramel, almost milk chocolate notes from well aged turkey. I didn’t get this from 101 or the RR 10 Year (though that one DID have a lovely maple syrup note), and it really helps this bottle stand out as the top of the standard Wild Turkey expressions IMO. The high proof and no chill filtration really help. It’s just packed full of flavor, with no trace of the proof. A rare achievement for a high proof bourbon. I’m going 4.75 here. This is just outstanding. At $50, it’s probably one of the best values for quality in bourbon. This was not a store pick, just the standard single barrel offering. You can bet I’ll seek out a store pick when this one’s done! Cheers!

The final chapter in this week’s Balvenie tasting. This is a spiritual successor to the Balvenie 12 Year Doublewood, with a similar, albeit longer, ageing and finishing process. The nose is surprisingly muted. Even after an hour in the glass, I can only detect the slightest hints of malt and sherry. Indeed, the first thing I got was a blast of ethanol. If I dig real deep in the cookie jar, I literally get chocolate chip cookies. Interesting start... The palate on this one really opens up! Vanilla, oak tannins, slight fruit from the sherry (I get bing cherry and raisin, but your mileage may vary), malted milk balls, toffee, all enveloped in creamy milk chocolate. For you bourbon drinkers reading, this is very much the Single Malt companion to Woodford Reserve Double Oaked. The medium length finish is reminiscent of these milk chocolate bars with toffee pieces that my wife and enjoy after dinner occasionally. Nice! So this retails for around $150. Unlike the other Balvenie core offerings, I would consider this a fair price in line with many 18 year single malts. Given the age, I can only see a bottle of this getting better with time and oxidation. I’m putting this on the list, and you should too. Cheers!

Round two of the Balvenie tour. This seems to be a popular offering, and one I’ve been looking forward to trying for a while. What shall we discover? I don’t always agree with the official Distiller reviews, but this one is spot on. The nose is tropical fruits like mangos, papaya, pineapple, and bananas, along with malt, honey, and toffee. All of that is wrapped in a big double shot of vanilla from the bourbon and the rum casks. Some rum finishes are over cooked and come across with too much rum funk and saccharine sweetness like Pike Creek 10 Year, but this one is well balanced. On the palate it enters much like the 12 Year Doublewood. Toasty malt and barley sugar. Honey and toffee. All good things. The rum influence doesn’t become apparent until the finish, when there’s a big surge of vanilla that drags out the finish. Balvenie is an oily spirit, and it clings to the glass and your taste buds. So what to score? I would happily drink this if someone offered it to me. The nose is the best part, with the tropical fruits and vanillas, followed by the lovely long vanilla finish. Is it worth $80-90 a bottle? In my opinion, no. I might pay $60-70 for this bottle, but it doesn’t pack enough interesting heft to justify that price point and at that age. I’ll go with 3.5. This is highly drinkable, particularly if you’re new to scotch, but try to find it on sale. This is expensive for Texas and we have pretty low taxes on spirits and therefore pay less overall than many markets. Hope this helps. Cheers!

Revisiting a dram I tried early on in the whisky journey, and I believe one of the first single malts I tried. With time and many malts tried since then, how does this hold up? First pass on the nose offers up malt and honey primarily, with a puff of musty sherry rancio. After so many sherry bombs, this one is downright tame. Little fruit. After letting it sit on the palate for a bit, the nose doesn’t change much. Simple. Inoffensive. Lovely. On the palate I get honey, toffee, Heath bar, a little waxy chocolate like in a Kit Kat bar, the faintest of fruit, and lots of malt. It’s oily. Fat legs in the glass that really coat the mouth and let the flavor linger. One of its best features. The finish lasts surprisingly long for 43%. Quite impressive. So what to rate? This is an easy whisky to drink. No sharp edges or bold flavors. This was suggested to me as a good introduction to single malt, and that opinion still holds. It checks a lot of boxes. For my palate now, I want more. If something is advertised as sherry finished, I want more sherry in the palate and nose. This seems like they were going more for the liquid Whoppers than a sherry bomb. Then there’s the price. Balvenie is one of those distilleries that charges way more than they should because they can. This retails for around $55-65 depending on your market. I’d feel good paying $50 for this, bit not much more. Not for what you can get for $60 these days with a sherry influence. I’m going 3.25 today. Great pour for a friend who’s new to single malt, but a bit one dimensional for the experienced drinker. Cheers!

Last time I reviewed a rye, I compared the style to an abusive ex-girlfriend one keeps going back to. I think that was for a bottle of Pikesville. Here we are again, my getting drawn back to the category, with hopes that a rye offered by one of my favorite bourbon makers, Wild Turkey, yields better results than my previous outings. Nosing this is a wild nostalgia trip for me. When I was growing up, my dad used to take me back to the neighborhood in Queens he grew up in, and the nose on this rye takes me back to the deli he used to frequent. Fast forward to grad school, and I lived down the street and around the corner from a deli in Ann Arbor called Zingermanns which baked all of its own bread and I would wake up to the smell of fresh baking rye bread every morning. The nose on this rye takes me right back to those places, with its bready, yeasty (in a good way), spicy goodness. Good start. As it enters the palate, it's not like other rye's I've tried before that just obliterate your palate with the spice, leather, and tannins found in some other ryes. It's smooth, predominantly caramel on the palate, like a whisky version of a macchiato. Near the finish, there's a surge in spice (baking and pepper) that settles into a coating and warming finish of a moderate length. Color me surprised! I like this one! For $40, it was a good purchase. This is the entry level to Wild Turkey's upper end ryes, and I wanted to make sure I liked this one before shelling out for the RR Single Barrel or the Masters Keep Cornerstone. I'll keep working through this one, but I like what I've got so far, and hope it continues to develop. Cheers!

Of all the Old Forester expressions I’ve tried, somehow I left this one out. What will their entry level bourbon yield in today’s round of sample mania? Nose comes off a bit thin, with standard bourbon caramel, brown sugar, vanilla. There’s also apples and that signature OF cherry note. Lovely and inoffensive. Little to no ethanol even straight from the bottle. It enters smooth and gentle on the palate. If you’re a fan of OF 1920, think of that as a wild tiger, and this version is a tame declawed house cat. The same DNA is there, but way toned down. At this proof, the brown sugar notes really come through. I had the same experience when adding water to the 1920. The return sips, however, are less lovely, and a yeasty astringency starts to emerge. Maybe it’s because OF tends to use a higher portion of malted barley, which also results in a really oily mouth coating. I’ll go middle of the road 2.5 here. It’s an inoffensive introduction to the brand, but the OF signature is like $2 more and packs WAY more flavor, and the whiskey row series isn’t that expensive either, with the 1920 being the most expensive at $60. If you’re looking into Old Forester for the first time, go for the OF Signature or the 1897. If you’re looking to up your OF game, go for 1910, 1920, or a store pick (which I’ve had VERY good luck with over the years). If you’re an collector looking to round out your OF collection, pick this one up. Cheers!