This is “small batch” Kentucky straight bourbon made in Bardstown, Kentucky by Willett (DSP-KY-78). It’s bottled at 45% ABV. The label manages to use a lot of words to say basically nothing about the whiskey or how it was made, so that’s par for the course. It’s not clear whether this is sourced bourbon or if Willett is distilling it, but my guess is…
Apparently running with the “awkward naming convention” thing, “Big Level” is named after West Virginia’s local mountainous terrain. The bourbon is made from a mashbill of 71% corn, 21% wheat, and 8% malted barley, making it a wheated bourbon in the style of Maker’s Mark, Weller, or yes, Pappy Van Winkle. The process water is local West Virginian Appalachian spring water, and some of the grain comes from both local West Virginian farms that produce non-GMO grain. The rest of the grain…
This one is a blend of bourbons from unnamed sources, although the label indicates that they originate from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. The last one suggests MGP bourbon, but there is a growing list of Tennessee producers and Kentucky could mean anything. Trying to guess the components is probably an exercise in futility. The marketing materials indicate that this is actually a blend of…
So here we are, today, once again taking a look at a well-marketed bourbon without the faintest clue to where the liquid is actually distilled. At least Infuse Spirits, makers of the Broken Barrel brand as well as a slew of – hah – infused spirits, is trying to do something innovative. They are doing something similar to what John Glaser of Compass Box wanted to do with the original Spice Tree…
Knob Creek, a Beam brand, was created by bourbon legend and Beam master distiller Booker Noe in 1992. It’s aged longer than most bourbons (9 years), and bottled at a respectable 100 proof. It’s part of Beam’s “Small Batch” collection. In this review, I revisit the whiskey seven years later after buying a 1.75L bottle of it at Costco.
This is 5 year-old bourbon which was previously sourced and blended but is now all made with a four-grain mashbill distillate from OOLA’s own small distillery in Seattle. They’re using locally-grown Washington State soft white winter wheat and organic corn from Waitsburg, WA, along with locally-sourced barley and rye. The mashbill, which probably changes based on grain availability, is around…
For less than 40 bones you get 8 year-old Wild Turkey Kentucky Straight Bourbon, which has been mellowed using a similar process to Jack Daniel’s and other Tennessee Whiskies. Instead of filtering it through 10 feet or whatever of sugar maple charcoal, Longbranch is circulated first through American white oak charcoal (the same oak used for barrels) and then through Mesquite charcoal from McConaughey’s native state of Texas.
Old Tub is what Jim Beam used to be called a century ago when it was first sold in bottled form. The name changed to “Jim Beam” in 1943 and the previous brand name was relegated to a Kentucky-only low-volume release. Now, in 2020, Beam has released a limited edition renewal of the Old Tub brand. It’s still bottled-in-bond, and in an effort to lend the release some authenticity the whiskey is not chill-filtered and also not charcoal filtered. Honestly, I don’t know why in 2020 any whisky company still…
…Cathead has taken three straight bourbons and blended them together, so the term is apropos. The first two (totaling 90% of the blend) are 4 year-old MGP sourced bourbons and the third (at 10% of the blend) is Cathead’s own 2-year-and-1-month-old Mississippi bourbon. It’s not specified on the website, but I’m guessing there’s not much of the own-distilled juice to go around so they decided to…
First in the series, we have Very Old Barton 86 Proof. The whiskey is all from the Barton distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky which is owned by Sazerac (Buffalo Trace), and was renamed to the Barton 1792 Distillery in 2009. Very Old Barton (which is not old, and certainly not Very Old) used to have a “6 years old” age statement on the bottle, which was changed to a lonely misleading “6” on the neck, and then dropped altogether. The company claims…
