Month: February 2017

Mastering Some Woodford Reserve

It’s easy to write things off, whether it’s because of bad experience, ancillary influences or even just outright familiarity. I haven’t always been as even tempered as I am these days, and there was definitely a time in my career where if I was 10 people deep at the bar and you asked for a big name product I sure as hell didn’t want to sell you that product because haven’t you seen everything else on the bar?! There are so many options and that’s what you’re going with? And because the bar was 10 people deep, and 90% of people don’t care about obscure spirit education, I just stopped carrying those products in an effort to force you to buy what I thought you should be drinking. Woodford somehow ended up in that category.

I’m not quite sure how it ended up there either. Woodford isn’t an old brand name by bourbon standards. It was first released in 1996 by Brown-Forman after they repurchased the mothballed Labrot and Graham Distillery (formally the Old Oscar Pot Distillery) in 1993. Brown-Forman had previously sold off this distillery in 1971 at the beginning of the great bourbon drought where national interest in spirits veered sharply away from what is now so hip. This makes it a brand a good 10 years younger than Blanton’s, Elijah Craig, or even Evan William’s Single Barrel so it doesn’t feel like an issue of over familiarity. If anything it’s just more visible marketing.

For a while I thought it was the rumors that Old Forester and Woodford were the same product. And on a personal level I prefer Old Forester Signature to the Woodford Distillers Select. Both share the same mashbill (72% corn, 18% rye, 10% malted barley) and Brown-Forman is open about the fact that a portion of Woodford is made up of honey barrels from the Shively distillery batched with the 100% pot stilled distillate from the Woodford Distillery, though how much each distillate contributes is unknown. Tasting Old Forester and Woodford side by side there is a clear difference in taste. Old Forester has more of a corn sweetness while there is a metallic quality to Woodford that I’ve always associated, right or wrong, with their pot stills. But this doesn’t hold weight because despite my personal preference for Elmer T. Lee and Rock Hill Farm I’ve never tried to cut Blanton’s out of the line up. I’ve recently come to suspect that the thing I thought was turning me off of Woodford might actually be the thing I actually enjoy: the pot stills.

imgres.jpg            Let me explain. Despite not carrying standard Woodford I’ve always been interested in the Master’s Collection (and the rye but that’s a story for another time). The Master’s Collection is an ongoing series that first began in 2005. It is a once a year release that is always something experimental. It doesn’t always qualify as a bourbon, the mashbill might not meet the required limits or the barrel finishes might be outside the strict bourbon law, but they are always ambitious. And more interestingly they are supposedly whiskey produced only from the pot stills at the prime Woodford Distillery in Versailles, KY.

They might not be everyday whiskies but here has always been some
thing that makes them interesting. This year’s was a brandy cask finish that dialed up the dried fruit. Last year’s was more interesting. Dubbed the 1838 Style White Corn it rather obviously subs in white corn for the more standard yellow corn which ends up creating a softer shortbread cookie, layered under a light lemon with that distinctive metallic Woodford note underneath. And the year before that was a Sonoma-Cutrer Pinot Noir barrel finish that grants a massive tannic, cherry, earthy note.

images.jpg            I’m in love with the idea of all of these yet on the actual liquid hasn’t always lived up to those expectations. But those expectations aren’t always fair. The Woodford name can sometimes influence what you expect to be tasting. For instance, Brown-Forman used to distill the Rittenhouse Rye for Heaven Hill while their production was limited due to a distillery fire in the 90’s. Yet once Heaven Hill moved production back to their own distillery and Woodford released a rye that is pretty obviously a continuation of that Rittenhouse heritage I judged it more harshly simply because of that Woodford name.

So what are we drinking tonight? The standard Woodford Reserve Distiller’s Select. It sits very heavy on the tongue with a rich sense of dry leather, a bit of dark cocoa, definitely vanilla and a hint of cherry. The oak also plays a massive roll lingering on the finish. We’ll stack it up next to a few of the Master’s Collection and see if we can pick out those pot still notes.

Yet if we take all of these experiments side by side with the standard Woodford we can see a distillery, and a whiskey, in a state of constant internal reflection. Despite at one time being the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby Woodford is not stagnant. And while I might have forgotten about it for a time, it is certainly not something to write off. Rather a piece of the puzzle, another tool that leads to what I truly want from any patron at my bar: genuine curiosity and a desire to explore.

Leopold of the Future

Today’s post is a sneak preview of a Whiskey Wednesday of the future brought to you by a trip a few days in the past. And it’s going to be about Leopold Brothers which I know is going to turn some of you off but stick with me.

I know I’ve said it before but Leopold Brother’s is my platonic ideal when it comes to craft distilleries. They have no desire, or delusions about becoming the next Jim Beam, they just want to make good product, sustainably. They have a long term approach both to their product planning and even the build out of the distillery. I’ve written before about my love of their Maryland Style Rye, and in the pre-blog days even waxed poetic about how their fruit flavored whiskies don’t suck and am consistently intrigued by the fact that they’re still experimenting with new products despite having nearly 20 SKUs on the market. And this week we got to take a VIP tour of the Denver distillery.

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In house malting floor


I had been looking forward to this trip for a few weeks now and I was completely prepared to nerd out about the open air fermentation tanks, the in house malting floor modeled after the ones at the Springbank distillery, and the last hand hammered CARL still to come out of Germany. But the thing that I truly wanted to see was the Vendome Three-Chamber Still made specifically for Leopold Brothers. And it turns out it was in full operation under the eyes of Todd Leopold that day.

FullSizeRender-1.jpgIn distilling history isn’t a simple straight line from the old school pot stills to the modern industrial column/continuous stills used in most major distilleries today. One of the most notable steps along that path was the chamber still. The chamber still allows for distilling on the grain and as a large batch as each chamber is refilled from the chamber above. It’s a continuous batching process. And as each chamber is held at a different temperature, different alcohols boil off in each chamber allowing for more concentration of the good alcohols with less of the bad.

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Three Chamber Still In Action

Its also a difference in terms of contact time. In a column still steam is stripping the alcohol off in a matter of seconds where as in the three-chamber still it’s closer to an hour for each batch. You’re getting alcohol either way but the three-chamber is extracting more flavor. And tasting off the still with Todd that massive flavor is immediately apparent with a massive amount of fruit and a viscosity I’ve never encountered in a white dog.  If this was handed to me blind I’d be more inclined to identify it as a fruit brandy than a grain spirit.

And not all of that flavor is coming from the still. It’s also the type of rye being used. After careful research into what the standard mashbill used in chamber stills was (80% rye 20% malt) the Leopold’s also partnered with local farmers to grow Abruzzi rye more consistent with the style grown in the late 1800’s. The key difference is a lower starch content, which means less output but bigger rye flavor because there is less generic starch sugar overwhelming the rye. Combine this with their low fermentation temperatures and you have a mash that is less stressed, with fewer of the unwanted ethyl acetates, with a lower yield but more massive flavor.

So why did this type of still disappear? The simple answer is efficiency. The Three-Chamber still requires constant watch and tweaking during the distillation process. The batch that was running through the stills while we were there had been started at about 5:30 in the morning and Todd would be be finishing it up around 7:00 that evening. And he could not leave the still. Literally.  The output is also relatively low. The still is only putting out about 4-5 barrels of white dog a day, and while the Leopold still isn’t the largest the yield from even the smallest column still will be magnitudes larger.

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Open fermentation

Todd’s worry when they were installing this still though was not the efficiency but the flavor. As Todd said, “If MGP rye flavor is 12:00 and this rye came out tasting 12:05 my brother would have killed me.” What convinced Todd that the experiment would pay off was the historical data. Not only were these stills considered standard for rye making at the turn of the century before Prohibition but also Hiram Walker, the largest distillery in the world at the time, had both a three-chamber and a column still. If they were going through the expense to manufacture whiskey on both types of stills there must be a drastic difference in flavor. And he was right, this whiskey is coming out a 6:00. It is just a bigger whiskey.

Which unfortunately means it going to need more aging. These flavors need more time to mellow, to integrate and mature so we’re at least another 2-3 years out from being able to fully experience this revived whiskey. But I suppose we could still visit the aging barrels to say our respects to the future deliciousness. And in the barrel house one more surprise was waiting.

Bottled-In-Bond bourbon barrels.

This is exciting because the proliferation of anything Bottled-In-Bond is cause for celebration but also because once again Leopold Brothers are doing something different. IMG_2956.JPG Their standard barrel entry proof is barely above the required 100 proof for bottled in bond products and four years is older than any other product they currently have on the market, so this barrels are going to need careful monitoring to ensure they will live up to their name. But these barrels hold a very real possibility of creating an incredibly unique bottled-in-bond whiskey  A whiskey that carries the all of the flavors present in the liquid right off the still, evenly matched up with all of the larger barrel notes. 

One of the things I love most about Leopold Brothers is that their experimentation is focused. They are not doing things the old way simply to do them the old way. They are looking how things were done before the need for maximum efficiency, maximum production and maximum profit. It’s about recognizing what changed because a better way was found to recreate the same product versus what was changed to replace a product. As for me, I’m going to keep drinking the Leopold Brother’s current product not only because of what it is but because of the future product will be. 

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Hancock’s President’s Reserve Single Barrel

I often say that I like surprises, but that’s not really true. What I actually like is discovering new things. It’s safe to say I know a bit about whiskey. Yet I constantly find myself surprised and excited by things that I don’t know. And it is rarely the massive, specialty releases that catch me off guard. It’s the little guys that usually make me sit up and notice. Maybe it’s because they’re unexpected, or maybe it’s just a touch of arrogance. If I haven’t heard of it, who knows what it could be?

It happened just the other week. I got a call letting me know that if I moved fast I might be able to get a case of Hancock’s President’s Reserve. Before that call I might have vaguely recognized the name but couldn’t have told you anything else. So immediately I was intrigued.

The whiskey seems to be named for Hancock Lee, one of the cofounder of Leesburg, Kentucky. But information on Hancock is relatively scarce and the same goes for his namesake whiskey, which is odd in an age where debating the minutia of even the most esoteric of hobbies has become a pastime of it’s own. But what is known is that it’s made by Buffalo Trace using mashbill #2. This put it firmly in the Elmer T. Lee, Blanton’s and Rock Hill Farm family which despite how well known its siblings are the fact that they are related could be part of the reason for it’s obscurity.

When Sazerac purchased what is now known as the Buffalo Trace distillery in 1992 the distillery was already under contract producing whiskey for Age International, a contract that continues to this day. The relationship is complicated but essentially boils down to the fact that Age International owns the labels, and by extension rights to the mashbill, for Blanton’s, Elmer and Rock Hill Farms while Buffalo Trace distills the whiskey and distributes in the Unites States. And the Hancock is no different. So without full control of the label, the success and demand for its sibling single barrel bourbons could be the reason Buffalo Trace doesn’t have much information available.

Incidentally, this arrangement between Buffalo Trace and Age International is why there are two different Buffalo Trace mashbills. Mashbill #2 for the preexisting contracts and mashbill #1 for all their proprietary bourbons and while they don’t publicly disclose the recipes for either they’re pretty similar in the end with mashbill #1 being lighter on the rye.

The liquid itself sits between the taste profile of the Elmer and the Rock Hill Farm. It is lighter in body, and much more mellow at 88.6 proof. There is a nuttiness on the nose that is somewhat overwhelmed by the sweetness of the body with an abundance of vanilla, cinnamon, and oak giving why to a dry, tannic finish. In the end this reminded me more of the now discontinued Ancient Age 10 Year than any of its single barrel counterparts. As it stands there really isn’t anything that differentiates in from the other mashbill #2 single barrels. I’d personally grab it over Blanton’s but with the apparent effort needed to track down a few bottles I’d much rather put in the time grabbing a bottle of Elmer or Rock Hill Farm.

This bottle was a surprise but it doesn’t seem that its scarcity is due to some amazing liquid in the bottle, but rather simple lack of information and knowledge of the brand and with its pricing it certainly isn’t poised to take over the cult following that the Ancient 10 left behind. Then again, it did just win a silver medal at the 2016 San Francisco World Spirits Awards so maybe there’s another surprise around the corner.

History Along the Knob Creek 2001

History is tricky. It’s written by the winners and often overly romanticized by the survivors as they remember the good and forget the bad in the harsh light of present difficulties. And when you throw alcohol into the mix things can get even murkier. Take the modern obsession with all things Pre-Prohibition. From the style of the bar, to the bartenders uniforms, to the whiskey being poured, at every step of the road the booze industry is proud to be returning things to their turn of the century glory.

Yet, despite the romance of Prohibition speakeasies and Pre-Prohibition style and quality, that “style” and “quality” was all over the map. The quality issue was first addressed with the Bottled In Bond Act of 1897, but even though the term “Bourbon” being used as early as the 1820’s, what made a whiskey a “Bourbon” wasn’t truly codified into law until the Bourbon Act of 1964. So what they hell does “Pre-Prohibition style” even mean? Unregulated? Undefined?

While this elusive style might not mean anything on its own it can serve as inspiration. And if anyone should have an idea of what Pre-Prohibition whiskey tasted like Booker Noe would have been the one. The grandson of Jim Beam and the Master distiller at his grandfather’s distillery since the 60’s, Booker’s pre-Prohibition inspired bourbon, Knob Creek, rolled out in 1992.

log-cabin-KC.gifNamed after the stream that ran along Abraham Lincoln’s childhood home in Kentucky, the bottle was modeled after turn of the century apothecary bottles with the label inspired by the tradition of wrapping bottles in newspaper at the distillery. Knob Creek was originally an age stated 9 Year Old bourbon bottled at 100 proof. The age statement has been dropped in the past few years but the brand still claims extra aging compared to the companies other small batch whiskies. So in this case pre-Prohibition style would seem to mean longer aged and higher proof, which is almost the exact opposite of what those early whiskies would have been.

Knob Creek was one of Booker’s babies. He continued to oversee the brand until he continued another family tradition and handed the title of Master Distiller and production of the brand over to his son Fred Noe in 2001. Which is how we ended up with the aptly named Knob Creek 2001 Limited Edition.

The Knob Creek 2001 was made from some of the last barrels ever laid down by Booker and then finished by Fred. It’s a passing of the torch in bottle form. And this excited the Bourbon nerds, understandably so. The other bottling to come out of the last of Booker’s barrels was last years Booker’s Rye, which turned a lot of heads and was named Jim Murray’s Whiskey of the Year. Those are some big shoes to fill.

images.jpgWhat set the Booker’s Rye apart was the age and a unique mashbill. The Knob Creek 2001 certainly has the age, at 14 years old it clocks in a good five years older than the old 9 year, but there’s no variation on the mashbill, simply different batches. This leaves a through line connecting it to the standard issue Knob Creek because no matter what batch you pick up all of these bottles are unmistakably Knob Creek: powerful, with pistachio, walnut, sweet oak and that unmistakable Jim Beam yeast.

As for the differences, Batch #1 dials up the vanilla, caramel, and maple leaving the middle of the palette sweeter with the barrel and age showing up again on the finish. Batch #3 goes the opposite way with massive, dry tannin, heavy oak, and extremely dry mouthfeel. Batch #2 walks the line between the other two rather well.

In the end this is just bigger, larger, and older Knob Creek. That’s not necessarily my cup of tea but as a changing of the guard it makes sense. Booker was a larger than life figure in the Bourbon world and his impact on the modern industry is arguable as big as his grandfather Jim’s. To me whiskey is bottled time, bottled history. And this bottle is a touch of liquid history. Only time will tell how big a piece of history it really is.