Breckenridge is located so high in the mountains of Colorado that it is the highest-elevation distillery in the world … this Flaviar blend chooses four blends of straight bourbons with high-rye mashbills and bottles them at 43% ABV. Yes, you read that right. This is a blend of blends. Luckily, everything involved is a straight bourbon, so it just comes down to percentages
The Balvenie PortWood is a marriage of casks of The Balvenie aged for 21 years in ex-bourbon barrels, which have been finished for an additional period – likely a few months – in port pipes. The bottling strength depends on where you buy it. In the UK, it’s 40% ABV. In the US market (at 750ml size), it’s 43%. In Duty Free aka Travel Retail, it’s 47.6% and non-chill-filtered. It’s probably safe to say that Balvenie is using fairly inactive refill…
Fast forward a scant few years, and while Willett aka the “Old Bardstown Distilling Company” is still producing their own whiskey, some of the bottles in their lineup are still sourced. This “Estate Bottled” (to distinguish from “Estate Distilled” I guess) bourbon is a “High Corn” (aka low rye) mash bill straight bourbon sourced from some Kentucky distillery (the rumor is that it’s…
The blend itself is made from a “high proportion” of malts – something every blend claims, these days – primarily from Diageo-owned distilleries Glenkinchie and Linkwood, and probably uses grain whisky from Cameronbridge distillery which aptly used to be called the Haig distillery. All components are at least 15 years of age.
My favorite retailer and all-around whiskey personality, David Driscoll, recently offered a package deal at Mission Liquor in Pasadena, California, to showcase New Riff’s flagship bottled-in-bond range … He suggested we do a comparative tasting to see how New Riff stacks up against the Biggest of Boys in the whiskey game: Buffalo Trace. This week: Bourbon.
New Riff was founded in 2014 and already has a massive following. All of its flagship bottlings – rye and bourbon – are bottled-in-bond and also bottled without chill filtration. This is a “high rye” Kentucky Straight bourbon with a mash bill of…
Blanton’s is a storied bourbon named after former distillery president Colonel Albert B. Blanton. The brand was created by legendary master distiller Elmer T. Lee in 1984 when he selected so-called “honey barrels” from Warehouse H and created (purportedly) the first single-barrel bourbon label. Obviously the idea of bottling bourbon from a single barrel was not a new concept at the time, but marketing a brand around the idea was…
My favorite retailer and all-around whiskey personality, David Driscoll, recently offered a package deal at Mission Liquor in Pasadena, California, to showcase New Riff’s flagship bottled-in-bond range … He suggested we do a comparative tasting to see how New Riff stacks up against the Biggest of Boys in the whiskey game: Buffalo Trace.
New Riff was founded in 2014 and already has a massive following. All of its flagship bottlings – rye and bourbon – are bottled-in-bond and also bottled without chill filtration. This rye is 100% rye (95% rye, 5% malted rye for enzymes), which is unusual although not unique. It’s aged for…
Sazerac is one of the industry workhorses, fueling many a bar’s rye-based cocktail menu. Normally that would be a mark against it, but Sazerac (distilled by Buffalo Trace) still manages to be one of the best quality-to-price options on the bloated rye whiskey shelf. Amazingly, it can still be found for…
