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…
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…
Contradiction is a blend of the sourced bourbons, similar to those that go into Old Scout blended with the wheated bourbon made at Smooth Ambler’s distilling facility in West Virginia, which is what goes into Big Level. The sourced components are both straight bourbons: a high-rye (21%) MGP bourbon and a low-rye (8%) Tennessee-distilled bourbon (not a Tennessee whiskey!) from…
Old Elk Blended Straight Bourbon is a blend of sourced straight bourbons, with the youngest aged 5 years. As for the mash bill, Old Elk is once again an outlier: A whopping 34% malted barley, 51% corn, and 15% rye. I’ve never seen that much barley used in a bourbon before. They say it makes the whiskey extra smooth. The bourbon is bottled at an acceptable…
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…
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…
The Horizon is a blend of straight bourbons, mostly (94%) 4 year and 11 month-old bourbon with a mash bill of 21% rye, 75% corn, and 4% malted barley, plus a bare 6% of 6 year and 8 month-old bourbon with a mash bill of 36% rye, 60% corn, and 4% malted barley. The barley is in there to provide enzymes that kickstart fermentation. I’m not sure whether the difference between these two parcels of bourbon is enough to warrant such a…
Just like Very Old Barton and 1792, this Kentucky Straight bourbon was distilled at the Barton 1792 distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky. It’s a bottled-in-bond straight Kentucky bourbon which means it is at least four years old and bottled at 50% ABV. … it was an easy decision when I saw they had the Bottled-in-Bond expression on the shelf during my last shopping trip. It was only a week later after recommending it to a friend that I learned it had sold out of every Costco store within 100 miles…