All Balcones whiskeys are pot distilled in batches and bottled without chill-filtration or added coloring. This particular bottle (which sounds downright placid next to siblings like Blue Corn Whiskey and Brimstone Oak-Smoked Bourbon) is distilled from a mash bill of 100% rye, including Elbon Rye from Northwest Texas and crystal, chocolate and roasted rye malts.
Double Rye! is a blend of straight ryes. This means the bottle, itself, cannot be called a straight rye. Aren’t legal definitions fun? The ryes in question are a 95% rye (5% malted barley) mash bill from MGP, and an 80% rye (20% malted rye) distilled by High West themselves at their new-ish distillery in Park City, Utah.
James E. Pepper, an historic brand established (purportedly) in 1780 but mothballed in 1958 was distilled at several sites in Kentucky, including the now-abandoned James E. Pepper distillery in Lexington, KY. In 2008 the rights to the brand were purchased by the Georgetown Trading Co., and re-launched using sourced whisky from various distilleries.
When a bottle label says that it was a “small batch” of whiskey “aged in 5 different barrels” my mind automatically Google Translates that into “made from leftover barrels that we didn’t know what to do with.” That may or may not be fair but I just write a blog so I don’t have to be fair. Apparently the blend started as a personal project for the owner…
The Pikesville brand was a pre-Prohibition (and post- until distillation ceased in 1972) Maryland rye. The brand now claims the distinction of being the last Maryland rye brand to fall, despite the category’s once prolific market presence. Heaven Hill brought the brand (although not the Maryland origin) back to life in 2015, using stocks of 6 year-old rye.
…what Brown-Forman realized is that by taking their standard 72% corn, 18% rye, 10% malted barley bourbon and re-casking it into one of these brand-new casks for a little under a year, you restart the process and get a double dose of those “early” readily-available compounds into the whiskey. Further, by heavily toasting and lightly charring (instead of the usual heavy charring) the second barrel, you encourage a slightly different set of compounds to develop in the charred surface of the oak. Brilliant.
According to the marketing spin on Forgiven, a warehouse worker accidentally blended some Wild Turkey straight rye into some Wild Turkey straight bourbon, which automatically made a blended American whiskey that can’t be called “straight” anymore. Presumably the accident tasted pretty good so Wild Turkey bottled it as a limited edition, small batch blend at 45.5% ABV…
This review is for the Straight Bourbon (not the Alabama Style), which is sourced whiskey from an undisclosed Kentucky distillery. The Internet suggests Heaven Hill is likely, although KBD (now MGP) sourced the whiskey for the first couple of runs of Conecuh Ridge Alabama Style whiskey, so it’s also possible that Clyde May’s continues that practice…
Ghost Hill is a “wheated” Texas bourbon at 2 years of age using 53% Texas No. 1 corn, 36% Texas wheat, and 11% American barley all milled at nearby Barton Springs Mill. The corn and wheat are heirloom grains grown by Texas farmers. The grains are mashed, fermented, distilled, barreled, aged, and bottled on-site at the company’s ranch in Dripping Springs, Texas.
… what we have here is no-name bourbon from somewhere. Where? The back of the bottle says “Distilled in Virginia and Indiana”, so if we take this at face value it’s probably MGP bourbon with some of the distillery’s own (very young) output mixed in? There are a number of other distilleries in Virginia, so it could be sourced from any of them. The website suggests that this “less than four year old” (uhh… so two year-old, the legal minimum) straight bourbon is from a mixture of old and young casks with an average age of 4-6 years. …