When I purchased a bottle of Macallan 15-year bottled by little-known independent bottler Alchemist, I was somewhat skeptical. I had tasted independent bottlings before, but this would be the first time I would pony up the sum to acquire a full bottle of one. In fact, based solely on the bargain pricing and the rave reviews of the retailer, I also purchased a bottle of Highland Park 16 finished in a Calvados (French apple brandy) cask, by the same bottler.

The Macallan 15 was just OK. Its interesting notes (jerky/teriyaki and a certain oiliness) are readily available (for less money) in GlenDronach 12. This is often the case with independent bottlings – you pay more… sometimes for cask-strength or non-chillfiltered bottles of your favorite distilleries… or perhaps for non-standard ages (extra young like an 8 year-old Ardbeg or extra old like a 35 year-old Macallan). Or, sometimes, you pay less, likely for a slightly inferior cask or somewhat failed cask experiment, or maybe for a surplus cask of a less-popular distillery. Either way, it’s a crap shoot. Are you paying more and getting less for distillery throwaways? Or will you get lucky and pay bargain dollars for something fantastic that will be gone forever once the last drop is consumed? For some (including me), that’s a lot of gamble for upwards of $50 to $80. On this particular day, I got lucky.

As I said, the Macallan 15 was just OK. The Highland Park 16, however, was glorious. Thus far in my whisky-drinking career, this Alchemist Highland Park 16 finished in a Calvados cask remains my favorite whisky of all time. I nearly shed a tear when I finished the final glass, tonight. I honestly raised a salute to the whisky gods that saw fit to bless me with this unbelievable bottle, for as long as it lasted. Sweet and fruity but not cloying, tart and bursting with green apples and earthy, raw oxidized cider. It retained the Highland Park character with spikes of citrusy peat and heather, but totally without the bitterness I associate with the 12 year. Several times, I’ve overheard or participated in conversations at K&L Wine Merchants in Redwood City, CA, where the Alchemist Highland Park 16 came up. Hardened scotch connoisseurs and picky whisky geeks alike nodded sagely, rolled their eyes skyward, and uttered phrases like “yeah… that was a good ‘un.” I mean, what better praise?

Here are my notes, for all the good it will do you. The best I can say is – if you see this bottle anywhere, buy it without a moment’s hesitation. It’s worth whatever they’re asking.

Alchemist Highland Park 16
46% ABV
~$70 at K&L in Redwood City, CA.
16 years old, last 2 in ex-Calvados
June 1992 – September 2008

Nose: Ripe red apples, with a lemony twist. Perfect peat integration – that Orkney style of peat intertwines magically with the tart cider notes, at once fruity and tangy, with wisps of ethereal applewood smoke. The sweet & sour interplay keeps coming, with apple cider vinegar and honey, late harvest wine and sour apple candy.

Palate: Medium bodied, with nice smoothness. Minor tongue burn. While there is a little bitterness – bitter almonds? – the sweet & sour motif returns in force. Here the apple is coated in caramel, and the sour note is green apple skins and sour candy (Sour Patch Kids).

Finish: The peat shows itself, turning smoky and dry. Some wood tannin, and a trailing note of apple wine.

Overall: You rarely (if ever?) see a Calvados-finished whisky. I don’t understand why not, this stuff is magic. Something about the Highland Park style of peat plays perfectly off of the sweet/sour effect of the apple brandy. Everyone I’ve asked to taste this has fallen in love with it. Too bad there’s no more around. If you happen to see this in a leftover bin, grab it. I can’t recommend it enough.

With Water: Heightens the sour notes in the nose, lemongrass, grapefruit, and turn the red apple into green apple. On the tongue, it’s somewhat maltier – more cereal grains, butterscotch, and actually less cider. There may be less bitterness. On the finish, the malty notes remain, and you lose some of the sour/peat elements. Not what I’d expect the water to do. I wouldn’t bother with it.

Sometimes, however, even the most carefully-made whisky goes awry. Recently, a shop-exclusive bottling of a cask-strength Bruichladdich chenin blanc finish, imported by a certain *cough* local store, dismayed its retailers and purchasers alike by turning sour… in the bottle. The spirit buyer had tasted the barrel sample when picking the cask and sampled it again several times when the beautifully-packaged bottles arrived. It wasn’t until the first pre-orders were filled and customers began drinking the contents did it become clear that the whisky was tainted somehow. It wasn’t just a few of them, either. Every last one was nigh undrinkable, including the bottle that the spirit buyer had already opened and which had tasted fine previously. Like a time bomb, set to explode after nine years of aging in ex-bourbon, seven months in ex-chenin blanc barrels, and six-odd months of bottling, packaging, shipping, and stocking, it just fell apart in the bottle.

As curious as I was when I heard about Loch Dhu, I had to experience this train wreck for myself. Luckily, I got a sample of the recalled spirit. Here’s a “tasting note”, although it won’t do anybody much good:

Nose: At first, there is freshly-squeezed lime, kiwi, and acidic fruit. Suddenly, a waft of acetone crawls up the nose. This is 59.8% ABV, after all, so I continue. The acetone becomes more and more gluey, becoming unmistakably like the rubber cement I remember from my elementary school days. Weird. Underneath the industrial sealant smell, there is a nice undercurrent of green grapes, honey, and unripe green plums.

Palate: What the…? The mouthfeel is gentle at first, with almost no sign of the 59.8% ABV punch I was prepared for. After several seconds, the alcohol burn appears, and grows, until my tongue is truly on fire. This is… *backwards*! Alongside the reversed alcohol burn, there is a great deal of acidic fruit, almonds, green grass, and a mouth-puckering dose of grape skin tannin. It actually makes my teeth itch.

Finish: Evolving again, the finish begins sweet, like muscat grapes, and then goes sour, with elements of white wine vinegar, glue, and grappa. The finish is actually quite short.

Overall: What a strange whisky. It almost does tricks, first inverting the natural order of things by growing more alcoholic on the tongue, then shifting flavor profiles (between sweet, sour, and industrial) several times on the finish. One can almost tell that this used to be a beautiful, fascinating whisky with clear French wine influences, until something went horribly, horribly wrong.

Check out a similar experience here: Scotch and Ice Cream, where poor unfortunate soul Tim paid for a bottle. (Hope you got your refund, Tim!). It should be noted that the fault for this lies somehow in nature, not with the retailer, nor with Bruichladdich. The retailer quickly recalled and exchanged all bottles from this cask with something else.

So what happened? The cork doesn’t smell rancid or mouldy (It just smells like the whisky). The bottles apparently all went sour at the same time, so it’s unlikely to be caused by individual mistakes in bottling or sealing. They were only bottled 7 months ago, so it’s unlikely that enough of it could have oxidized, even if every single bottle had a broken seal. The only likely explanation is that some chemical compound, formed by the very slow interaction of chenin blanc, oak, and Islay whisky and catalyzed either by the turbulence of shipping or the introduction of air into the freshly-opened bottles, transformed this beauty into a beast. Pity, that, but it goes to show that even something as frozen in time as bottled whisky is still a living thing with a spirit all its own.

We’ve already smacked the Black Label with a “Mediocre”. Now let’s see how the Single-Barrel fares. It’s aged for closer to nine years, bottled from hand-selected barrels, and vintage-dated and hand-labelled. Who pioneered the practice of bottling special-edition whisk(e)y from single barrels to showcase the diversity and uniqueness of each cask of matured spirit, the Scots or the Americans? I have no idea. Probably the Scots. But either way, I think it’s a fantastic way to offer whisk(e)y fans an ever-changing taste of the nuances of barrel aging. My bottle is from Barrel #1033, and according to the label is exactly 9 years, 11 months, and 17 days old. I love knowing these kinds of details! On to the tasting.

Nose: Somewhat muted nose, without even much tickle. Candle wax (seems to be an Evan Williams signature?), pumpkin-spice, sweet corn. A dash of water wakes it up a little, yielding some caramel and hard candies.

Palate: Smooth and silky mouthfeel. Loads of coconut up front, with some yeasty sourdough bread, campfire ashes, toasted marshmallow and hazelnut. The water also brings out the sweeter notes without compromising body.

Finish: Medium-length and tame – coconut and vanilla, very slight oakiness with a fading hint of charred wood and roasted nuts.

Overall an extremely smooth, unchallenging dram. After a week drinking fiery young bourbons, I find that this one is miles ahead in sophistication. Although it doesn’t yield many exciting flavors or anything unexpected, it is eminently drinkable and very satisfying. While I would definitely drink this again (a good thing, since I have a whole bottle), it still doesn’t wind me up like an excellent Scotch. Still, at $25, it’s a much better value. Try it with a few drops of water.

To answer my original question, is the extra cost of the Evan Williams Single-Barrel justified? Yes! In fact, I would recommend skipping the Black Label entirely and always going with the Single-Barrel.

First, we take a look at the cheapo. At $10 a bottle sale-price, it’s hard to beat the Evan Williams Black Label bottling for value. Aged around 6 years (likely a vatting of product aged minimum 4 years and up to 7 years) and bottled at the slightly-higher 43% ABV, you simply can’t get a better American whiskey if your budget is $10. That’s not quite enough to recommend it, however, so let’s do a tasting:

Nose: Candle wax, cantaloupe, burned marshmallow, butane lighter fluid.

Palate: Sweet white chocolate and maple sugar candy on the entry, resolving into a typical bourbon profile of corn syrup, wood char, and neutral spirit. A little too sweet and cloying. The alcohol burn is brash and vodka-like.

Finish: Vanilla, creme brûlée, blackstrap rum, and candy corn. Medium-length, but marred by that “impure spirit” aftertaste.

Overall: Not impressed. It has more flavors going for it than your average bottom-shelf whiskey, but its brash young grain and overbearing corn sweetness are just too much to recommend it anywhere but the cocktail glass. Normally, as this is not something I would ever drink neat again, I would give it a “Not Recommended”. However, the effort displayed by the extra aging and ABV, and the phenomenally low price tick it up to the “Mediocre” level. Sorry Evan Williams fans. However! Scroll up to see my opinion of the Evan Williams Single Barrel (2000 vintage).

Bulleit (not ‘Bullet’ – it’s named after Augustus Bulleit, who created the first recipe in 1830) is owned by Diageo and distilled at the Kirin company’s plant in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Kirin’s Four Roses Bourbon brand is made at the same facility. Bulleit is characterized by a higher-than-usual percentage of rye (28% according to Wikipedia), and a maturation of around six years, which is long for an American whiskey.

Nose: High-fructose corn syrup. The alcohol fumes have a turpentine quality. Deep in there are some brighter notes, like fresh raspberry and cotton candy. A dash of water seems, paradoxically, to heighten the nose tickle – a first for me.

Palate: The attack is very warming – you can taste that extra proof. Once it settles in on the tongue, there is a nice oakiness, plenty of vanilla, and a continuation of those processed corn syrup notes. The body is medium, with a nice heft to it. Water does not improve.

Finish: Lots of oak tannins and a wave of vanilla. Pretty long. Fades out with the tannins turning a little bitter.

Tasty in its way, and (I would hazard) better than some cheaper bourbons. However, with those fake corn syrup flavors – almost reminiscent of aspartane or other non-sugar sweeteners – I can’t say I would ever be in the mood for it. This is unfortunate, as the longer aging and higher percentage of rye in the mashbill had sounded like a good combination for me (I like rye, and I’ve always thought American whiskey was underaged). Oh well – on to the next one!

A further note on my ratings: If I rate a whiskey like this – which is generally well-thought-of – as “Not Recommended”, I am not discouraging the purchase of this product. I am telling you that I do not recommend this whiskey for drinking neat. I imagine it would make a fabulous Sidecar.

But you’re the “Scotch Noob”, right? What gives? I considered “The Whisk(e)y Noob” when starting my blog, but it didn’t have the same ring. Frankly, the whole whiskey/whisky terminology thing bums me out anyway. So while I focus on the whisky of Scotland on this blog, I will continue to post my experiences with any of its ilk: whiskey, whisky, bourbon, rye, new make (white dog), whatever. Call me egalitarian.

So when I see a 50ml sample of Jack Daniel’s “Single Barrel” at the local Beverages & More, it sets me back on my heels. My impression of Jack Daniel’s is rooted in my college party days, and the concept of drinking “Jack” out of anything but a shooter or a glass of Coca Cola is foreign to me. The product is just what it sounds like: Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey (not bourbon, as kindly pointed out by James K. in the comments), from hand-picked barrels (generally those higher up in the warehouse, where they supposedly get a more ‘intense’ maturation, if you can believe the marketing line). Filled into bottles at 47% ABV, without vatting. Like any Single-Barrel product, the quality and characteristics will vary from one bottling run to the next (each barrel yields approximately 240 bottles). At its heart, though, this is the exact same whiskey that goes into those ubiquitous black bottles. Is it worth the *gasp* $45 price tag? Let’s find out.

Color: Amber

Nose: Corn syrup, candy corn, almonds or peach pit, brash alcohol, turpentine, green apple.

Palate: Initial rush is sweet, cake-y. Body is thin and the burn is moderate. On the tongue there is sweet corn, some ash and wood char. A dash of water opens up the flavor a little, yielding more toasted oats, malted milk, and brown sugar.

Finish: Longer than expected, with some butterscotch or caramel notes and a lot of dark brown sugar or molasses, with a lingering hint of marshmallow and spun sugar that lasts several minutes. Unfortunately, it is accompanied by that “impure spirits” aftertaste you get with cheap vodkas, like mineral oil and cough syrup.

Overall not as harsh and young-tasting as the principal Jack Daniel’s bottling. Whatever happens to those barrels up in the upper floors of the warehouse, it makes for a better product in the bottle. However, in my totally biased opinion, this is not $45 worth of whiskey. It also doesn’t change my mind about American whiskey or bourbon. Oh well. More to come when I find a way to taste some!