Tag: Whiskey

Whiskey Wednesday: The Three Chamber Rye

Alright, let’s get this out of the way: I am a Leopold Brothers fan, I’ve been a fan of their work for years. They are one of the best examples of what a mid-sized distillery can offer to the larger spirits world. They’re not trying to grow beyond their capacity and that capacity is often defined by quality standards, not production goals. They once said that what they make is liquid food, and their products back it up.

But with all of those standards and expectations comes a pressure to deliver. Especially when it comes to the Three Chamber Rye.

The Three Chamber Rye journey is one that I have followed for years, for at least as long as I’ve been writing Bottled-In-Bond, LA. In fact it was something that I was able to taste right off the three-chambered still before it had ever been bottled. The pressure of those years since tasting the white dog on my expectations has been enormous but to truly understand why we need a history lesson.

The Three Chamber Rye takes its name from the still used to produce it. While many people these days are familiar with the difference between a pot still and a continuous still, chances are they’ve never heard of a three chamber still. That’s because the last one was decommissioned just after the end of Prohibition. 

But before Prohibition the three chambered still was the tool for making rye whiskey in the United States. We know this because of the Crampton and Tolman papers. These were two reports commissioned by the IRS after the passing of the Bottled In Bond Act of 1897. These papers would become the basis for the standards of identity for what would define a bourbon, a rye, or other spirits aged in wood in the US. Every distillery that was surveyed that produced rye whiskey, except one, used a chamber still.

The three chamber still works much like its name suggests, there are three chambers stacked on top of each other. Each chamber is separated by a valve to prevent wash from each chamber from flowing into the other. The best way to understand how it works though is to start at the end with the third chamber.

This is where the mash from the last run will have ended up as the last stop of the process. Stripped of almost all alcoholic content and essentially stillage, this spent mash is pumped out of the chamber. 

The valves on the other chambers are opened one by one and the mash from chamber two flows down into the third by gravity, the mash from chamber one flows into chamber 2 and the first chamber is refilled from the pre-heating chamber.

Once all of the chambers are filled the steam valve is opened. It rises through the bottom (third) chamber, extracting oils and flavors, passes up into the middle (second) chamber, extracts alcohol and more flavor, continues up into the first chamber continuing its extraction before passing into a heat exchange in the preheater charger to warm the waiting mash without interacting before the vapor passes into a thumper and condenser to become new make. 

Each of these chambers operates at its own temperature, pressure, time, and inefficiencies. Each extracts different flavors and compounds.

If you’re familiar with how a continuous still works this may sound like a more difficult, less efficient version of that. And for many years that’s how this still was considered: as a transitory technology between the pot still and the continuous still.

Todd Leopold’s research into this forgotten technology however, led him to an article about the Hiriam Walker distillery in the 30’s. At the time this distillery was the largest distillery in the world and rather than instill another continuous still the very deliberately had a three chamber still limiting their production numbers. This told Todd that this still must have been producing a whiskey of such a unique flavor that the average consumer would notice its absence. And this led the team at Leopold Bros to commissioning Vendome to make the first Three Chamber Still in 100 years.

I don’t think Vendome would have agreed to make this still for any other distiller, as it was the first still they ever made that they couldn’t guarantee would work, or even not explode. Yet once it was functional and paired with Todd Leopold’s skill as a distiller it became clear that the resulting whiskey, even before being aged, was incredibly unique. The Chamber still essentially worked as an oil extractor. 

By the time the mash hits the third, bottom chamber almost all of the alcohol has been stripped from it. This means that the steam is extracting oils, flavors, and other compounds that it carries into the other chambers that are then slowly mixed with the alcohol being pulled from those chambers before being passed into the condenser to be collected. This allows a lot of time for compounds to interact and to add in compounds that don’t usually have time to exist in more familiar distillations.

The production goes beyond just the technology though. When you look back at production in the late 1800’s you quickly realize that the grains grown then are drastically different from the grains grown now. Over the past 150 years we’ve bred grains to produce more yield, meaning more starch. This is efficiency at the cost of flavor.

To solve this, Leopold Brothers worked with local Colorado farmers to start growing essentially extinct Abruzzi Rye grain. This rye has a starch content of about 60-65% which is much lower than the 75-80% starch content of modern, comercial rye. This unlocked yet another key to the flavor of this bygone whiskey. Add this to the fact that it’s distilled to 100 proof, goes into the barrel at 100 proof, and five years later comes out at 100 proof and you have a whiskey that hasn’t been tasted in literal generations.

I’ve now been fortunate enough to taste this whiskey as a new make straight off the still in the first year of its operation, to be able to taste the first bottled release, and now the first single barrel release. It has a unique character worthy of the wait; floral, fruity, bready, unctious, and heavy.

That term heavy is important because it leads us to the next stage of the conversation. That’s right, we aren’t done yet! While doing more research, and examining the blueprints laid out by the Crampton and Tulman papers, as well as the flow charts of the Hiram Walker Distillery it became clear that this Three Chamber whiskey, this “heavy” whiskey, was a component. Just a part of the standard bottle of rye. It would be blended with “light” whiskey to create a completely separate flavor.

This “light” whiskey would now be what we consider rye whiskey distilled on a continuous still. To truly recreate pre-Prohibition Rye the Three Chamber Rye would have to be blended with a continuous still rye.

Without a Continuous Still of his own, Todd reached out to Nicole Austin of Cascade hollow, formerly George Dickel. If you haven’t heard of Nicole or her work at Cascade Hollow go Google her now. She deserves her own full breakdown for her innovation and creativity as she’s doing for a macro distillery what Todd has done for an independent distillery. (Which is why she happened to have a four year old, experimental, column distilled rye already on hand.)

The two were able to collaborate. Not just as individual distillers, but as a mid-sized distillery working with the largest liquor company in the world. They produced a collaboration bottling that equally featured the work of both distillers while recreating a historic flavor profile.

The result is one of the best, most versatile rye whiskeys I’ve ever tasted. It is bright, spicy, weighty, fruity, delicate, and slightly floral. While this is a whiskey to sip it is probably one of the best cocktail Ryes I’ve ever worked with. A Manhattan or Sazerac with the Collaboration Rye is stellar. 

*If only the price were.

As you can imagine recreating a century old style of whiskey, and doing it right, doesn’t come cheap. Getting a bottle of the single barrel Three Chamber Rye is a couple hundred dollars. And depending on where you live getting a bottle of the Collaboration is 100+.

I absolutely believe that the price is worth it for experienced whiskey drinkers. They both explore something new, unexpected, and delicious. I want to open that door to appreciate the complexity of this whiskey to more people. And the easiest way for that is with cocktails. But the price point, for now, is aspirational rather than available.

Leopold Bros might think they’re making liquid food, but with the Three Chamber Rye they’ve made a whole meal.

TASTING NOTES:

Leopold Brothers Three Chamber Single Barrel Rye
NOSE: Malt, Baking Spice, Light Oak, Herbs
PALETTE: Stone fruit, oily, lavender, bright spice, bready
FINISH: Long, floral, roasted peach, tobacco, oak

Dickel and Leopold Bros. Collaboration Rye
NOSE: Dried fruit, citrus zest, rye spice, vanilla
PALETTE: oak, caramelized pear, floral, stone fruit, dill, baking spice
FINISH: Long, honied, spiced apple

Quarantine Bottle Kill #9: Elijah Craig 12 Year (From Long Ago In The Before Time)

There’s a sense of static in the air these past few weeks of quarantine. Not of any sense of normal but certainly of familiarity. A sense of sameness and of the world outside the familiar walls drifting away. But also there’s that electrical charge like anything can and could happen at any moment.

The world seems to be looking for answers and I’m sitting here working my way through old booze and writing about it.

It is a way to help keep my sanity. Beyond it being something from the Great Before that I enjoyed it’s also been an avenue for self reflection and rumination.

It’s mental travel.

Placing myself in the place, time, and person that I was when this bottle joined the collection. No spirit allows me to check in with myself and chart my trajectory more than Elijah Craig.

Elijah Craig 12 Year Bourbon was my first true Bourbon love. I’m not going to say that it “got me into whiskey” but it certainly helped expand my understanding of what good Bourbon could be. When I started buying barrels for my program Elijah Craig was the first barrel I bought. And I kept buying barrels. Even after the aged statement was dropped. It is a benchmark Bourbon and the numerous barrels arriving over the years have given me an excuse to examine the years as they pass.

But as time goes on and the age has changed and after so many barrel selections I forgot what old school Elijah tasted like. Was it inflated in my mind? Was the memory of who I was when I discovered it altering the actual liquid? Am I drinking nostalgia flavored whiskey?

So how fortunate was I to discover a bottle of standard issue  Elijah Craig 12 Year Old from 2012 hiding in my closet. This bottle is from when my career shifted from being a bartender to a Bar Manager and when so many of my early influences and opinions crystallized. Here is a liquid opportunity to examine the past.

NOSE: Caramel, Oak, Apricot, Tilled Soil
PALETE: Toffee, Vanilla, Baked Apples, Baking Spices, Earthy and Deep
FINISH: Long, clean, spicy with a hint of white pepper. Drying to a lingering woodyness

This dram is deep and powerful. It is what I have idolized for years. While the NAS Elijah Craig is a very good Bourbon this old 12 Year has a maturity, for lack of a better word, that its descendant does not. 

And while the Elijah Craig Barrel Proof releases are still 12 Years old the much higher proof gives an edge that here is softer and more nuanced.

This is a dram for deep thoughts and late night conversations. It’s also a perfect example that things don’t stay static forever. Eventually all things change.

Quarantine Bottle Kill #4: Single Oak Project #156

I’m trying to cut down on the quarantine drinking so today’s bottle is a single 375 of Buffalo Trace Single Oak Project.

The Single Oak Project was a massive Bourbon experiment that was begun by Buffalo Trace in 2011. The goal was to break down the very DNA of Bourbon and be able to catalogue exactly what element imparts what flavor on the final product. It was the Human Genome Project of American Whiskey.

As the name implies the major variable that affects the final flavor of a whiskey is the process of oak aging. And more importantly how the oak interacts with the spirit over time. Ever tree and every barrel is different so the first variable that needed to be controlled was the oak.

Buffalo Trace carefully selected 96 American Oak trees with special attention paid to the grain and growth rings of each tree. These were then turned into oak staves and separated into staves from the top of the tree versus the bottom of the tree. They then varied the seasoning time of the staves. Half were seasoned for 6 months the others for 12 months.

Barrels were assembled using only staves that had been prepared in the exact same way. This produced 192 unique barrels.  These barrels then received either a #3 or a #4 char, the char essentially being how long the interior of the barrel was lit on fire and how deep it penetrated the staves.

They didn’t stop there though. Once the barrels were completed there were a few variables about what they were filled with. The mashbill of the whiskey varied (either a wheated or a rye Bourbon), the entry proof varied (105 or 125 proof) and then the style of ricks they were aged in varied (concrete or wood). 

By their own calculations this produced 1,396 taste combinations spread between 192 bottles. And over the course of four years they released all of these bottles to the public and opened a website where everyone could catalogue their tasting notes. At the end of the project all of the ratings, scores, and tasting notes would be gathered and a “winner” would be declared. Seeing how the project saw it’s final release in 2016 we know that the “winner” was Barrel #80 which has gone into production and will be released after reaching proper maturity in 2025, if we’re all still around by then. 

Barrel 80 was from the bottom half of the tree with an average grain size, seasoned for 12 months, and given a #4 char. The spirit was a rye Bourbon mashbill that entered the barrel at 125 proof and aged in a concrete rick. This is honestly very similar to traditional Buffalo Trace and it makes sense that a crowd source tasting would select something that is similar to an already popular flavor profile.

But of course the real winner of this project is the breadth of knowledge and flavor demonstrated by controlling the minutiae of every aspect of the whiskey making process. And with that in mind it’s still worth finding bottles and tasting through to see what those changes produce.

This bottle of Single Oak Barrel 156 has been on the booze shelf for years which completely defeats its purpose. So lets dive in.

This is another barrel from the bottom half of a tree with coarse grain, staves seasoned for 12 months, and given a #4 char. The spirit was a rye Bourbon base, entered the barrel at 105 proof and aged in a wooden rick. Now, after all that nerdiness here’s what it actually tastes like:

NOSE: Vanilla, Cherry, Heavy Oak, Pepper
PALETE: White Pepper, Tobacco, Leather, Stone Fruit, Rye Spice
FINISH: Dry, Spice, Medium, Earthy

I love the Single Oak Project because I love the minutia and variation.While I can wish that something on one of the more extreme ends of the bell curve had one out for wide production but the wealth of knowledge generated is worth a dram or a bottle.