Tag: Pappy Van Winkle

Whiskey Wednesday: O.F.C. 1985 Vintage Bourbon

Spontaneity is not my strong suit. 

Example A: my girlfriend swears by the deals emailed out daily by Scott’s Cheap Flights. Yet every time a deal lands, I have to ask about time frame, logistics, check on available vacation days, and generally stressed about the fact that booking this trip means that we won’t be able to book some other hypothetical trip that doesn’t yet exist and just like that the deal, and the moment, is gone. 

Example B: We received a bottle of the O.F.C 1985 Vintage Bourbon a year ago and I’ve been planning to write about it ever since. So, what the hell is O.F.C. and why has it been on my mind for literally a year? 

O.F.C. stands for Old Fashioned Copper and is the original name for the distillery founded by Col. E.H Taylor in 1869. Col. Taylor was an expert marketer and helped establish the concept of a Bourbon “brand” as well as being one of the major figures behind the passing of the Bottled In Bond act of 1897. 

The distillery itself was sold to another legend, George T. Stagg, in 1878. There’s an apocryphal story that one of the conditions of the sale was that Stagg could keep the initials O.F.C. but he had to change at least one of the words it stood. This is why the distillery is sometimes called the “Old Fire Copper” distillery. Regardless of the veracity of this claim the distillery’s name was officially changed to the George T. Stagg Distillery in 1904. It was the first distillery to utilize climate-controlled aging warehouses when Stagg installed steam heaters in 1886 and was one of only four Kentucky Distilleries granted a license to continue distilling throughout Prohibition.

The distillery changed hands a few more times in the 20th century before finally being purchased by the Sazerac Corporation in 1992 and its named changed once again. Now known as Buffalo Trace it arguably produces some of the most sought after American Whiskey on the market, including bottles named after both Taylor and Stagg as well as the much desired Pappy Van Winkle line. 

The distillery clearly has experience with special releases but even amongst the plethora of rare bottles the O.F.C. stands out. 

 The O.F.C. is less a special release and more of a time capsule. These are all single barrel, vintage dated Bourbons. Each bottle is sourced from a single barrel and marked with the year of distillation. This makes each vintage completely unique with the mashbill and age varying depending on the bottling. Another intriguing fact is that this line up was originally produced only for charity. 

A literal Time Capsule.

The team at Sazerac and Buffalo Trace are just as savvy marketers as Col. Taylor was back in the day. I have to imagine that when they see bottles of their whiskey selling for thousands of dollars on the secondary market that they looked for a way to capitalize on that market value yet still offer an added bonus. The original three releases were only made available to 200 charities, at no cost, to auction off and help raise money for their cause. It was a great way to turn the image of limited whiskey auctions on its head and raise $1.2 million dollars for charity. It also immediately established the O.F.C. line as a super limited, ultra premium bottle. I was silently jealous of the fact that I would never see one of these bottles yet still applauded the move to raise money for worthy causes. But when the second round of releases was made available for retail purchase I leapt at the opportunity. Especially with the vintage being offered was the 1985. It’s not often you have a shared birth year for your whiskey. 

The 1985 Vintage is one of only 61 bottles to come from a barrel which was stored on the second floor of Warehouse Q. Buffalo Trace says that all of the barrels were tasted over time and removed from the barrel before becoming over oaked and since there is no age statement listed on the bottle it’s hard to tell the precise age of the bottle. This isn’t an uncommon practice, Buffalo Trace has done similar things with Eagle Rare 17 and Sazerac 18 so the whiskey isn’t as much as an oak bomb as you might expect. It is certainly old but there’s no official word on if it was a full 33 years in oak before being bottled. With that in mind let’s dive into the glass: 

NOSE: Rich oak, Dried fruit, and vanilla 

PALATTE: Rich vanilla, dark cherry, prune, oak, and a dark earthiness 

FINISH: Bitter chocolate, a touch of tobacco, and a coating lingering sense of time 

Overall this is an excellent example of old American Bourbon whiskey. It is still alive without being over oaked and has a power of flavor to match up to the power of the years it spent asleep in the barrel. The issue, as always, is the price. The bottle comes in at a staggering suggested retail price of $2,500. When the proceeds were going to charity this number wouldn’t have raised peep from me but now it changes the talking points. 

Is this good whiskey? Yes. Is it for everyone? Absolutely not. It is a special occasion, made so by the fact that it is a living time capsule. You are paying for the time and history as much as the whiskey itself. I will argue that experiences are more important than money but  the value is certainly subjective. I for one am going to savor the fact that I get to experience this bottled moment of time and not take it for granted. 

Whiskey Wednesday: Unicorns, Whales, and Narwhales

Unicorns are all around. You can see them prancing through the Instagram forest, taunting you with delicious rivulets running down the sides of a glistening Glencairn glass yet the moment you emerge into the fields of the liquor stores they become a distant fable. What happened to these legendary bottles?

The short answer is: they became legendary. As humans we often seem driven to obtain the unobtainable. We strive to climb the highest mountain, to put a man on Mars, and to score a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle for our home bar. Pappy might not be as lofty a goal as the first manned mission to Mars but the spirit is the same. This mentality to obtain the best doesn’t just drive the whiskey market either.

In the world of craft beer the legendary brews are known as ‘whales’ and if you ever wanted to see a brewmaster roll their eyes and grit their teeth ask them

When everyone wants a unicorn what happens to all the workhorses?

about the notorious ‘Whale Hunters.’ These Sudsy Ahabs sail the special event scene, spear the rarest beer on tap, drain the keg and disappear, often without supporting the breweries core beer and usually never to be seen again. They don’t add value to the bar, or even necessarily to the brand, they’re just looking to score something that they feel only they can appreciate before anyone else can be exposed to it.

While the Unicorn and Whale market have certainly spurred growth, especially in the craft scenes, and have been some of the biggest drivers of the infamous Booze Black Market they have an unseen downside. When everyone wants a unicorn what happens to all the workhorses?

Unicorn bottles like the Pappy’s, or the Parker’s Heritage, or the Old Forester

The current whiskey boom has created a feedback loop where what were once reliable bottles are becoming, maybe not unicorns but certainly narwhales.

Birthday Bourbons are great special occasion bottles but they can’t support a distillery on their own. You need good product, at a good price, that people want to drink frequently yet responsibly. The current whiskey boom has created a feedback loop where what were once reliable bottles are becoming, maybe not unicorns but certainly narwhales.

Take the W.L. Weller line up. Created by William Larue Weller the brand has existed since the 1840’s and enjoyed great popularity at the time. Julian ‘Pappy’ Van Winkle joined the Weller Company as a salesman in 1893 and after W.L. Weller passed away in 1899 Pappy and Alex T. Farnsley purchased the company in 1908. A. Ph. Stitzel had been under contract to produce whisky for the Weller Company and after a merger in 1933 the infamous Stitzel-Weller Distillery opened in 1935. The distillery made W.L. Weller, Old Fitzgerald and many other whiskies (but no Pappy Van Winkle) until it shut down in 1992. The Weller brand was than purchased by Buffalo Trace in 1999 where it is currently made along side it more famous Van Winkle cousins.

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A.H. Hirsch 16 Year Special Reserve

At face value this story is similar to many other whiskey brands that existed before and after Prohibition. It enjoyed early success, sluggish sales in the middle of the century and has been enjoying rising tides with the rest of the Bourbon industry. But between Stitzel-Weller’s closing in 1992 and today we’ve been struck full force with the Bourbon Boom and Pappy Mania. And once the word got out that Weller was just “young, cheaper Pappy” stocks began to get bought up, and people saw a chance to raise prices.

What was once a great everyday workhorse is slowly becoming something pricy and privileged rather than welcoming and friendly. And I say this as a spoiled man who just received a House Single Barrel of Weller Antique 107. This is going to be an everyday whiskey for myself and for the bar at Faith and Flower but we almost didn’t end up with it because of its Narwhale reputation.

Due to a snafu in the warehouses people who were not myself, or my bar, were able to order cases of our current barrel. And the entire barrel blew out of stock in less than 24 hours. And I first found out about this situation by being linked to a post of someone selling bottles of it on the Secondary Market for $70!

While all the one hand it’s flattering that someone would want to pay so much for a barrel I’ve picked out, it’s also infuriating not only because it feels like someone stole one of my favorite toys but because that’s highway robbery on the price. They weren’t just stealing from me, they’re stealing from the people they’re selling it to as well.

Thankfully we were able to retrieve all of the cases (minus a few missing bottles) and I can continue to wage my war against it becoming a true unicorn by making Old Fashioned Cocktails with it. But where does this unicorn hunt leave us?

Let’s look at the craft beer world again. For the first time in nearly two decades beer growth and consumption is down, not slowing. A gentle decline has emerged. Many analysts point to breweries being bought out by massive conglomerates and to choice fatigue, there are just so many damn options that its exhausting. But they also point out that people aren’t drinking less they’re just moving to other drinks. Like whiskey.

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Hibiki 17

What if these craft beer drinkers became exhausted not by choice but by the hassle and work needed to get they’re favorite brew, or were so discouraged by never being able to get a thimble of Pliny the Younger that they tried something else, say a workhorse Bourbon. Turns out they liked it and moved into a new category of drinking. What happens when these same problems invade the Whiskey World? How long can we maintain growth in an industry when the goalposts keep moving?

On the other hand, while my philosophy has always been education and approachability, I have felt the sting of working an entire year to craft a bar program that delivers everyday excellence, to then earn that one shinning Unicorn of a bottle and priced it in a way to reward thirsty travelers in their search only to have that one Unicorn Hunter swoop in an annihilate the bottle. It’s a balancing act that we’re all going to have to get better at if we want to keep this Whiskey Boom from going belly up.

The Beast Arises

Open Bottle: Old Rip Van Winkle 25 Year Old Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Pappy Mania has struck early this year and for the first time in years even I’m feeling a bit of hype.

The early onset of this yearly bourbon malady is the amazing limited release of an Old Rip Van Winkle 25 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon. What makes it hype worthy is that fact that like the A.H. Hirsch 16 Year Special Reserve this bottle is a piece of history. A gussied up, fancy decanter of liquid history.

My feelings on Pappy and the bottle hunting that surrounds it are pretty well documented,  but unlike the yearly release of what you could now call the standard Van Winkle’s this bottle is something different. This is actual Stitzel-Weller Bourbon.

Distilled in the Spring and Fall of 1989, the 11 barrels that comprise this release were aged on the lower floors of the metal clad warehouses at Stitzel-Weller that shut

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No one has ever seen him look to the right.

down in 1992. But just because the distillery stopped making spirit doesn’t mean the whiskey stopped aging. Leftover stocks continued to rest at the warehouse with some being sold off and some being bottled for various brands but these barrels stayed in the family. In 2002 they were transferred to Buffalo Trace where they aged for another 12 years on the lower floors of one of Buffalo Traces brick warehouses. In 2014 the whiskey was dumped into steel tanks. This isn’t an uncommon practice with older whiskies, the past few releases of Sazerac 18 Year Old Rye have been steel tanked, and it simply halts the oak aging process.  Oxidation can still happen but this is certainly not an aging experiment, nor can it legally be considered aged in steel tanks. It is simply an attempt to keep the whiskey from becoming over oaked and undrinkable.

So what were they doing with the whiskey for the next 2.5 years? They were figuring out how to sell it. Whiskey this old is a massive expense in time, labor, and lost product so it needs to have an appropriate price tag, but you also need to convince people that it’s worth the price tag. It doesn’t seem like that would be a problem with a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle but they pulled out all the stops for this release.

The massive box each of the 710 bottles comes in is made out of the oak staves from the 11 barrels the whiskey aged in. The Glencairn Crystal Studio designed a bespoke decanter, every bottle is signed by Julian Van Winkle, III and it comes with a parchment sheet with the short version of the whisky’s story. It’s a production.

At a mere 710 bottles, the secondary market for this bottle is literally drooling. But what’s interesting to me is that Buffalo Trace, and the Van Winkles, seem to be making steps to try and curb the flipping of this bottle. From what I’m told 9 bottles hit Los Angeles with maybe 30 for the whole state of California. But not a single bottle of those went to an Off Premise Liquor store. Every bottle was sent to a bar, with each bottle number being carefully recorded so that if a bottle does emerge on the Secondary Market they’ll be able to track it back to its source and supposedly punish the seller. While I appreciate the attempt to keep the bottles from becoming mere commodity trading with the secondary market already willing to pay $15,000 I can’t see these bottles actually staying on the shelves of all the bars they were allocated to.

But that’s the story ABOUT the whiskey, what about the whiskey itself? Bottled at IMG_3766.JPG25 years old and 100 proof this Bourbon carries serious weight. The nose is of dried oak, dark coffee, and just a touch of stone fruit. The finish is almost nonexistent but it doesn’t matter because the mid-palette travels for hours. White pepper, caramelized oranges, deep ripe cherry, of course a vanilla and caramel note but what’s interesting is how well this walks the line massive oak flavor without being over oaked. Right when I was expecting it to dive into wet wood and raisins it instead let the pepper burn for another moment before evaporating completely on the tongue. This whiskey is better aged than the standard 23, and I’d say it’s at least as lively as the 20 year old.

I think bottling at 100 proof made a huge difference on the final product. The burn and the massive presence of the mid-palette flavors solved almost all of the complaints I had with the Old Fitzgerald 20 Year Old, which was also Stitzel-Weller whiskey that finished it’s aging at Heaven Hill. There were 12 barrels for that release and the finish was also nonexistent but in comparison the Old Fitz just seemed flabbier. Those extra proof points and the Van Winkle name come with a much heftier price tag though.

In the end, it’s hard for me to separate the whiskey from the history. When I pick up this bottle, when I sell this bottle at the bar, when I manage to sneak a sip of this bottle it’s not the whiskey I’m talking about. It’s the history. The liquid time that is carried over the tongue adds volumes to the value but is it enough added value? I’m not sure, but for the first time in a long time I find myself agreeing with a massive price tag on a massive whiskey. At least at the retail level. But if you have a spare $15,000 hanging around I know someone who might be accepting bribes…

Your “Pappy’s” History

Pappy is history. Literally and figuratively.

Figuratively, the time when the whiskey was equal to the hype is long gone. The search and endless discussion of the search for Pappy Van Winkle has become a bigger story then the actual whiskey itself. But for most people it’s still just a name. Rather than focus on the ephemeral qualities that may have lead to Pappy’s preeminent status let’s talk some cold hard historical facts that lead to where we are now.

Pappy Van Winkle is a line of Premium Bourbons that in recent years have become the hot ticket item with bottles going for thousands of dollars at auctions and on the secondary whiskey market. The label includes a 15, 20 and 23 year old Bourbon all called “Pappy” as well as several younger variations referred to as “Old Rip Van Winkle” as well as a 13 year old Rye. All of the Bourbons are currently known to be “wheated” Bourbon, meaning that their mashbill is composed of corn, wheat, and barley and as of 2010 all of the whiskey in the bottles has been distilled at the Buffalo Trace Distillery. That wasn’t always the case.

images-2.jpgJulian “Pappy” Van Winkle was a real man. He was involved in the whiskey business well before prohibition. He and his partner, Alex Farnsley purchased a controlling stake in W.L. Weller and Sons in 1908. At the time Weller and sons was strictly a bottler. They distilled nothing themselves but worked very closely with the Stitzel Distillery.

After Prohibition Pappy, ever the shrewd business man, managed to acquire the Stizel Distillery, merged the two operations into the Stizel-Weller Distillery and opened the new distillery on Derby Day in 1935. They begin production on many purchased pre-Prohibition brands including Cabin Still, Rebel Yell and most notably: Old Fitzgerald.

images.jpgPappy’s flagship brand was Old Fitzgerald. His biggest contribution to his namesake Bourbons is his “whisper of wheat.” Every brand that came out of Stizel-Weller was a “Wheated” Bourbon as opposed to the standard mash of corn, rye, and barley. To many this produces a rounder, softer bourbon with more dark fruit and cherry.

Pappy passed away in 1965 when all the cigars and Bourbon caught up to him at the far too young age of 90. His son, Julian Van Winkle, Jr. inherited the business but in 1972 he was forced by stockholders to sell the distillery and brands. He still maintained a bottling plant and resurrected yet another pre-Prohibition brand “OldRip Van Winkle.” No family relation. He continued producing the label sourcing whiskey from what had been the family distillery.

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Flash forward to 1992, Julian Van Winkle III is now in charge of the family company and the Stizel-Weller Distillery is completely shuttered. The remaining brands and whiskey stocks are sold off (the flagship Old Fitzgerald fell into the hands of Heaven Hill) and Julian II continues to use old stock for new bottlings. Old Rip Van Winkle 15 year was released in 1989 but the first mention of “Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon” appears along with the first edition of the 20 year old in 1995.

However, many of these early bottlings are not Stizel-Weller whiskey. Julian II was back where Pappy had started, as a non-distilling producer. A bottler. He was sourcing whiskey and many of the initial offerings of the “Pappy” lineup, like the first edition of Pappy 23 in 1998 are actually high-rye Bourbon from the Barton Distillery.

But the Van Winkle’s never let facts get in the way of a good story and Pappy began getting rave reviews in the late 90s by picking up steam as the Bourbon revival does. In 2002 the Van Winkle’s partner with the Buffalo Trace Distillery and secure a continuous source for their brands.

In the end, the cold hard fact about why Pappy Van Winkle is considered the best Bourbon in the world is because people keep saying it is.

And In 2007 the New York Times puts the Pappy 20 at the top of their list of
premium and super-premium Bourbons leading the revival of the industry. By the time Anthony Bourdain tweets that he’s considering getting a “full pappy back tattoo” in 2011 Pappy-mania is swinging into fifth gear.

Now when most people ask how they can get a bottle of this coveted whiskey gold the answer is, you can’t. Yet people are still getting bottles, often at massive price hikes. So it’s not that you can’t get a bottle, it’s just that someone else is willing to pay more. To the Van Winkle and Buffalo Trace’s credit they haven’t seized upon the Pappy craze to drastically raise prices but the people they sell the bottles to have. Pappy Van Winkle not only helped fuel the Bourbon Revival but also the secondary Bourbon trading market where bottles are traded and sold, technically illegally, online. That’s a lot for one small whiskey to carry on its shoulders.

but_always_fine.jpgIn the end, the cold hard fact about why Pappy Van Winkle is considered the best Bourbon in the world is because people keep saying it is. And because people keep making money off of saying it is. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Think about that the next time you see it listed on someone’s menu for $150+ a pour, and maybe find a bartender you trust to help you drink your next history lesson.