Tastes

Do you like pancakes? Nice, fluffy ones with plenty of butter and real maple syrup, but with enough whole wheat in the batter to give a light bitterness to the finish? Then drink some of this. The maple syrup character is on the nose, along with an herbal quality and a touch of caramel and spice. Maple is, again, on the fittingly thick palate, with red berries, spices, a doughy note, and a lingering bitter (but not astringent) nuttiness at the finish. That being said, I'm just left a little cold. Maybe I'll just stick with the pancakes when I'm in the mood for this kind of experience.

The two adjectives in the flavor profile generated by Distiller are bang on here - sweet and rich. If this were a wine, it would be an oaky California chardonnay - ripe, buttery, and round. The nose is classic, but with a twist as it's clearly dulce de leche instead of generic caramel alongside the vanilla and spice notes...the milky, buttery quality is discernable. The palate is rich and coating, with plenty of sweet vanilla, dulce de leche, cinnamon, and a hard-to-peg fruitiness. Quite nice!

I'm what you might call a bit of a whiskey stalker. I make the rounds pretty regularly at the liquor stores around me; Binny's dominates the Chicagoland market, but each location has its own distinct personality, and you never know what the store manager will pick up. I was making my monthly reconnaissance of the location nearest the church yesterday, and I spied the unmistakable tall, yellow-ish khaki canister that Colonel EH Taylor bottlings come to the shelf in. I went to investigate further. There were TWO separate EH Taylors...but Binny's website only lists the standard bourbon bottling. Intrigued, I realized that one was in the rye section...and suddenly, recon shifted into search-and-rescue, as there was no way I was leaving a bottle of this lonely on the shelf or, worse, in the hands of someone incapable of appreciating its glory. I babied this bottle - kept it with me in the AC at church so it didn't bake in the car, the whole nine yards. And, sweet mother of God, it was worth the hassle. This is not your normal rye, from the mashbill on. There is no corn or wheat to be found here; the only other grain in the mash bill is malted barley. Not surprisingly, there is a certain scotchiness to the dram - while the new oak barrels give plenty of caramel and vanilla notes, there is a rich, dark undercurrent of dried figs and plums, a nuttiness, and a fudgy chocolate from the malt. The rye contributes the spice and dramatic punch you'd expect, but the dill and vegetal notes have all aged away, leaving Christmas spices and cayenne pepper. The finish is long and luscious. I have no idea how the Binny's in this little suburb came to possess four bottles of this treasure of a rye, but my whole seminary education and four years in this parish may have all been worth it just to find this bottle. Really wonderful stuff.

I've become a fan of the Scotch Test Dummies over the last year so, and they were fairly impressed at the quality of this young, high proof rye. I have to say that I am, too. The nose is classic rye - fresh cut dill, rye bread, baking spice, and some caramel. The palate is both spicy and sweet, with BIG notes of rye bread, cinnamon, clove, and a sweet caramel and vanilla finish.

I heard Michael Swanson, the distiller/farmer who makes this whiskey, on Whisky Cast a few weeks back. He's a fellow Lutheran from the sound of things, so I simply had to check out his juice. The verdict: not bad, but not great, either. This is the most vegetal rye I think I've tasted - carrot, dill, parsley, some nuttiness from the sherry, and a little bit of spice. There's just something not quite right, though - my money is on age of the spirit, with cask selection being runner up. They make a couple of other ryes that I'd like to try; I get a sense that the basics for good whiskey are present here, but just need a little more time and nurturing to really live up to their potential.

With a 5 star system, it's probably necessary to say that this is a low 4 stars as opposed to a high 4 stars. Why 4 instead of 3? Simply because this is the best mouthfeel I've ever encountered in a bourbon. It's rich, buttery, creamy, and insanely smooth - the tactile drinking experience alone is worth the price of admission. But, how's it taste? Good, but I wouldn't call this exciting. If you've ever had banoffee pie (graham crust, banana, toffee, whipped cream, all that kind of stuff), then you have a sense of the notes found here. It's a sweet, smooth bourbon that goes down crazily easy, but I get the sense that there could be a few more fireworks. On the other hand, I suppose we all need the friend who's reliably pleasant, if not a particularly interesting conversationalist.

We went out for burgers earlier, and our favorite burger joint down in Wicker Park had this behind the bar. I had to try it since it gets carried infrequently by my local liquor store...and when it does, it probably has the price jacked up because anytime your juice can be compared to Pappy, the sellers start seeing dollar signs. On its own merits, it's a fine bourbon. The nose is both sweet and punchy - light caramel, a little bit of apple, and a sparky cracked black pepper. The palate is a little more simple and sweet, easygoing with just a little hint of that pepper. It's good, if not great; this was my Mema's go-to bourbon back before Buffalo Trace bought the name and decided to turn this into a "rare" product line. Just as a tangential aside, I HATE HATE HATE it when distilleries play these kinds of intentional scarcity to drive up demand games. It just makes it harder for appreciative drinkers to get the stuff at a fair price because of gouging and stockpiling. Off my soapbox. At any rate, its MSRP is a fair enough value for a bottle - it's good, and goes down easy. That being said, I'm not going to stand in line, pay 5 times the distillery's recommended price, and then punch out somebody in the parking lot for trying to take the bottle out of my cart.

Two years ago this summer, I was in the wedding of my college roommate to one of my seminary best friends. Since the ceremony was in Nashville, I drove down and made a little pit stop on the way in Louisville to do some bourbon exploration. The Bulleit tour was neat (getting to be in the old Stitzel-Weller facility is alone pretty cool for a whiskey lover), but the real highlight was the Evan Williams Experience. Most especially the part where we got to try the Single Barrel, which they conveniently sell in the gift shop on your way out from the tasting room. I loved it then, and having recently bought another bottle...I'm still a fan. It's a friendly, easygoing bourbon - ripe apple (almost apple pie, really), cinnamon and nutmeg, peaches, vanilla, caramel, and buttery pastry on the nose, with a palate that matches up nicely. I'm struck, actually, at how much this reminds me of Clyde May's Bourbon, except better aged, smoother, better integrated, and $10 less a bottle. If I were to have a complaint, it's that the finish is a little shorter than I'd like...hence how this wound up a 4 star rather than 5 star rating, but don't let that deter you. This is a steal at under $30, and one of my go-tos for a good, quality sipper.

This was out at a friend's as a mixer. When the best part of the whiskey is that it makes you think of the commercials with Mila Kunis, then you know you're in trouble. It's not bad per se, but I'd stop well short of calling it good. It's bourbon purgatory, basically - enough Beam funk, vanilla, and caramel to be palatable, but a little too simple, one-note, and rough around the edges. I'd put it in a mixed drink if there weren't anything more interesting around, but it's nothing I'm ever going to crave.