Dovetail, poetic carpentry allusion aside, is a blend of two sourced bourbons: A 10 year-old Indiana (I assume that means MGP) bourbon finished in Dunn Vineyards Cabernet wine barrels (French Oak), and an 11 year-old Tennessee whiskey (could be Dickel, could be Nelson’s Green Brier, could be some small craft distillery…) finished in both blackstrap molasses rum casks and LBV aka Late Bottled Vintage aka sweeter port pipes. The result is bottled at cask strength of…
Smoke Wagon, a sourced bourbon from Las Vegas distillery Nevada H&C (founded in 2010), uses a batching technique to combine older and younger barrels of MGP bourbon from Indiana – both high-rye mash bills – aiming for youthful rye spices paired with the richness of older bourbon. In this particular bottling, the bourbon is bottled at batch strength and is not chill-filtered. Normally at this point in the review I would…
Doc Swinson’s is a brand owned by Distiller’s Way LLC, an independent bottler aka NDP (non-distiller producer) specializing in selecting, blending, and finishing sourced American whiskey. They kind of burst onto the scene in the last two years, suddenly winning a number of awards. They’re probably best known for their “Alter Ego” series of finished bourbons, but I first truly considered them when I noticed this single barrel of rye at my local Costco…
This is a distillery-exclusive (plus a handful of Tennessee retailers) bottling of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee rye at barrel proof (in this case, a whopping 63.8% ABV). It’s bottled from barrels located on the highest floors of the Jack Daniel’s rickhouses, and since heat rises that means the barrels at the top experience the highest temperature fluctuations and thus age the fastest. The rye in this case is distilled from…
Instead of an innovative cask finish (like last year’s funky rum), this year Talisker simply selected the 8 year-old warehouse casks that were in refill (re-used) casks and which showed the heaviest peat character. Diageo would like you to think of this as maturing in “ex-Talisker” casks, or perhaps as a “Talisker finished in Talisker”, but refill casks are hardly new, and honestly that sounds a bit…
Rare Breed is Wild Turkey’s approach to the fairly-standard “Small Batch, Cask Strength” expression that you’ll find in most distillery lineups. Rare Breed is made from a batch of Wild Turkey Kentucky straight bourbon aged in number 4 char bourbon barrels for 6, 8, and 12 years and bottled at cask strength. While a lot of bourbon distillers these days (especially the trendy ones) are marking up their cask strength bottles to portray them as…
Sherry aging is uncommon at Bruichladdich unlike other distilleries, and it was refreshing for me to hear the reason out loud from head distiller Adam Hannett on our group call for the Octomore Twelve campaign. He said that Bruichladdich decided to discontinue sherry aging years ago when they found they couldn’t get any true sherry casks from the open market. Everything they received was sherry “seasoned” (meaning some sherry-like liquid was…
This is not the first Octomore finished in Sauternes: The famed “Octomore 4.2 Comus” release was finished in valuable Chateau d’Yquem casks. Also like 4.2, this year’s 12.2 will be available in regular retail outlets in the United States. The last 7 editions of X.2 were only available in Travel Retail (‘duty free’). … The whisky was vatted together and transferred into first-fill French Sauternes casks for an additional 2 years (total age: 5). Although it is cask strength, Bruichladdich mixes in a “just a drop” of spring water from Octomore Farm’s natural spring, which
12.1 this year was distilled in 2015 from the 2014 harvest of Scottish-grown (not on Islay) Concerto barley. The barley was malted by Bairds in Inverness to 130.8 ppm and was aged for 5 years in first-fill ex-bourbon American oak casks from a variety of bourbon distilleries. Although it is cask strength, Bruichladdich mixes in a “just a drop” of spring water from Octomore Farm’s natural spring, which does not…
This “Barrel Proof” edition is a small batch release (just like Larceny’s non-cask-strength bottling) of Kentucky straight bourbon bottled at a whopping 61.1% ABV from casks aged between 6 and 8 years. The producers did not use chill filtration, according to the back of the bottle, which is rare to see on an American whiskey label. Heaven Hill releases a new batch of Larceny Barrel Proof…
