Tag: Whiskey Wednesday

Whiskey Wednesday: A Little Russell In Faith

From no Turkey to a Turkey a month it really does seem like I’m filling that Wild Turkey hole. I promise I’m not repeating myself or selling out. I like exploring things I don’t know and I love sharing experiences.

I’ve talked several times in the past about house single barrels, and I’m sure I will many more times in the future. In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a what a house single barrel of whiskey is, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s an entire barrel of whiskey that has been bottled, labeled, and sold to a single bar or store.  Most bottles of whiskey are a batch of a couple dozen to a couple thousand barrels of whiskey depending on the brand. Each barrel of whiskey ages differently, aging is an organic process after all. The time spent interacting with the oak, where in the warehouse, what the weather was like over the years, all of these contribute to the flavor of the barrel. To create a consistent product these different barrels and flavors are batched together. Single barrels on the other hand celebrate those individual differences.

It’s also a collaborative effort. Sharing the barrel and story with the customer helps them build the story of their evening out on the town, while the actual selection process is a collaboration between the distillers and the account. The distillers have already narrowed down your choices to a mere handful of barrels before you start tasting anything. They’ve already passed the distillers/brands personal taste test and now it’s about trying to match that to not only what you as the buyer likes, but what you think your customers will enjoy. It’s an ever growing relationship.

And if I’m honest it is a way to keep myself and the other bartenders interested behind the bar. It’s a way to make things more personal and break up the monotony of the 369th Old Fashioned order of the week. But anything can become predictable if do it enough, even barrel picks. That’s exactly why this barrel of Russell’s Reserve caught my attention; it had a funk and an tannic note that I wasn’t expecting.

I reached out to Bruce Russell, grandson of the eponymous Jimmy Russell of Russell’s Reserve, as to why that might be and he had this to say, “The thing that I found interesting about your barrel is the fact thatit moved from the bottom floors (floor 2) of warehouse B up to floor 6 (and right by a window on the edge) after about 6 years. It’s the reason why I think your barrel has such a funky, unique flavor profile. Generally if we move barrels it is down in the warehouse. We do that if we find whiskey we really love because moving it down slows down maturation and will keep the whiskey from changing a lot. Moving it up in the warehouse will speed up the process and is usually done early on in maturation to fix a whiskey that didn’t age very much after 2-3 years. I honestly don’t know why they moved your barrel (or the other dozen or so that got moved) when they did. But it definitely gave it a palate that I haven’t seen in any other of the single barrels this year.”

So even the barrels personal journey was a unique story and it certainly seems to have left an imprint on the flavor of the whiskey. Bottled at 110 proof and non chill filtered, the nose is slightly hot, as you’d expect at 110 proof but it also has a dark chocolate and earthy note that carries into the mid palette. Once on the tongue the whiskey displays dark stone fruit, a rich brown sugar quality and a touch of nutmeg, while the finish is all of that vanilla and a hint of white pepper. It definitely has that Wild Turkey funk but it also has its own undeniable off kilter character.

Whiskey Wednesday: Ancient Age

I tend to live my life with a fair amount of snark and irony wrapped around the place where most people keep an actual personality. As such it sometimes becomes hard for me to tell when I stopped ironically appreciating something and start genuinely liking it. Or if that change ever happened.

Example A: Ancient Age.

Ancient Age is a low level or “value” brand. I remember drinking handles of it inAncient-Age.jpg college not because it was phenomenal stuff, but because it was affordable. I moved on as a slight increase in disposable income allowed me to try other things yet here I am unabashedly keeping it in a decanter of honor on my back bar. And I’m not the only one, Ancient Age has a massive cult following for its affordability and quality, at least its quality in comparison to its price. But why?

The brand is relatively old as far as Bourbon brands go. The brand was first introduced in 1946 by Schenley Industries, and has been made at the same distillery for the brands entire life. Both the brand and the distillery have changed hands many times but Ancient Age has always been made at what we now know as the Buffalo Trace Distillery. It is not, however, owned by Buffalo Trace. It is owned by a company known as Age International which is one of those incredibly interesting corners of the Bourbon world that is rarely talked about.

In the 80’s things were not good for brown spirits. Consolidation, shut downs, and sell offs were happening everywhere. Especially if you weren’t really a booze company, like say Nabisco. At the time Nabisco had a subsidiary called Standard Brands, which included Fleischmann’s Distilling. In 1983 Standard Brands was sold to Grand Metropolitan, which a few years later would merge with Guinness to become the behemoth Diageo.

Knowing that Grand Metropolitan already had a successful drinks arm Ferdie Falk and Bob Baranaskas, the CEO and President of Fleischmann’s respectively, resigned and started their own company. Having previous relation with Schenley, Falk approached them and the pair were soon the proud owners of the Ancient Age brand and its home distillery.

The new company was dubbed Age International and they believed that the future success of Bourbon lay outside the U.S., hence the ‘international’. Their interest in foreign markets led them to work with Elmer T. Lee to create Blanton’s Single Barrel, which was originally designed for a Japanese market and just happened to be released in the States as well. This focus on over seas markets is also why there are so many variations of Blanton’s available around the world that aren’t available here at home.

In 1992 Falk and Baranaskas sold the remainder of their shares in the company to their Japanese partners, Takara Shuzo who immediately turned around and sold the distillery to Sazerac while maintaining control of Age International and its brands.

Sazerac continues to distill Blanton’s, Ancient Age, and the other Age International Brands which lead them to develop a separate mashbill to create their own proprietary brands, like the distilleries eponymous Buffalo Trace. So while Buffalo Trace does distill Ancient Age the two Bourbons sit on different branches of the Bourbon Family Tree.

Over the decades there have been several different variations of Ancient Age, my personal favorite being Ancient Ancient Age 10 Year Old for the name alone, but the whiskey shortage has even effected value brands so you’re most likely to come across just standard 80 proof Ancient Age these days.

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The bourbon itself is fiery. Despite its name it is a young whiskey where the grains are more predominant that in many of its older siblings. It’s more cereal with the vanilla and caramel taking a backseat with the barrel presence being much less refined. Honestly, this is the kind of whiskey an Old Fashioned Cocktail was designed for. It’s a whiskey that benefits from having its edges softened and it’s hot heart rounded.

In the end, I just like this whiskey. It is what it is and I just have to accept that it’s essentially the Pabst Blue Ribbon of the Bourbon world. Except people aren’t proudly drinking Ancient Age at their back yard hipster BBQs. Though to be fair I can’t remember the last time I actually saw someone drink a Pabst these days. Everything is cyclical. So I’m going to circle it back around and keep pretending I’m fancy even if it’s just Ancient Age in my decanter.

Whiskey Wednesday: The Old Forester’s New Clothes

It’s time for the same old song and dance but with a brand new look. The first entry in a new chapter of house single barrels with the first Faith and Flower edition single barrel of Old Forester.

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Old forester is an old brand, introduced by Gavin Brown in 1870 as the first bourbon brand sold exclusively in sealed bottles. Being sealed gave consumers assurance that the product hadn’t been tampered with or adulterated which made it the fan favorite of pharmacists who stocked it for its “medicinal qualities”. This reputation probably helped with Old Forester being granted one of six legal licenses to produce medicinal whiskey throughout Prohibition.

Unfortunately, over the century and a half of its existence Old Forester has been over shadowed by the Brown-Forman corporations other whiskies, like Jack Daniels or Forester’s mashbill twin Woodford Reserve. But recently the company has been trying to inject some new life into the old horse.

To kick things off the new Old Forester distillery is slated to open in downtown Louisville this year, And a few years back Old Forester was made the official bourbon for mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby (replacing Brown-Forman’s Early Times whiskey which is not technically a Bourbon) and around the same time they started rolling out their Whiskey Row Collection. The Whiskey Row is a series of Old Forester Bourbons meant to highlight milestones in Old Foresters history and the style of whiskey being made at that point in time. The Whiskey Row series are hence named with a date and a style like the 1870 “Original Batch” or the 1920 “Prohibition Style” and they also came with fancy new bottles and labels that set them apart from the classic Old Forester bottlings. And now all that fancy bottle and label goodness has found its way to the single barrel.

The Old Forester Single Barrel has always been a bit of a rare breed and been at least marginally separated off from the main bottles so it makes sense to align it more closely with its Whiskey Row brethren. The bottle is sleek, black, and just a little sexy.

510BA05C-43B6-4957-BAD0-F3DB91AEA44B.JPG  The single barrel offerings are at a solid 90 proof, one of the things that set them apart from the standard bottles, but the color scheme on the new label is an almost complete palate swap. Where the normal Whiskey Row bottles harken back to the old white/cream style labels of the brands history the new single barrel is jet black with silver lettering. And clearly looking to scratch the whiskey intelligentsia’s need to know everything the rickhouse and floor where the barrel aged are large and center.

 

But packaging doesn’t improve the whiskey in the bottle. So what about the actual whiskey? This inaugural Faith and Flower barrel comes from the first floor of Warehouse K. It’s the classic Old Forester/Woodford

mashibill 78% corn, 12% Rye, 10% barley that can too easily come off as a sweet corn bomb, but here it’s taken on a darker tone. Deep, red, ripe cherry winds its way through the middle of the palette while cinnamon, nutmeg, and woody sweetness lingers on the nose. The finish is medium yet weighty leaving the rough edge of the barrel mingled with the caramel sweetness.

Seeing this single barrel dressed up and tasting like this is like seeing a old friend the you’ve long felt to be predictable suddenly dressed to the nines and just dripping with an heretofore unseen sex appeal. The bones are the same but it’s a reminder that everything, and everyone, has a unexpected side that can make you sit up and take notice.

Whiskey Wednesday: A’bunadh, Aberlour A’bunadh

Bigger is always better right? Just like the old fashioned way is the best way. Or at least that’s what Aberlour has been banking on the past two decades with their A’bunadh releases.

Despite a history stretching back nearly 140 years Aberlour still feels relatively unknown to the wider world. The distillery was founded in 1879 by James Fleming who built an extremely modern distillery for the time powered by a waterwheel driven by the Lour river . Aberlour literally means “the mouth of the chattering burn” and was supposedly named for the ancient Druids belief that the river actually spoke to them. The water for the distillery is drawn from St. Drostan’s Well, which only adds to the mythic nature of the Aberlour’s waters as the well is named after the 6th century Columbian Monk who supposedly used it as a baptismal site. So, like many Scotch distilleries there is a lot of history, myth, and legend involved.

James Fleming operated the distillery until his death 1895 and then the distillery changed hands over the years, being acquired by S. Campbell & Sons in 1945, before being sold to Pernod Ricard in 1974, who updated and expanded the distillery the following year, finally merging  the former Campbell Distilleries with the Chivas Brothers in 2001.

Aberlour is quintessentially Speyside in style and is double cask matured. Unlike the more well known Balvenie line, the Aberlour line isn’t finished in a second style of oak. Instead, the malt is fully matured in ex-bourbon or Olorosso Sherry barrels and once they are finished aging these different barrel styles are batched together. The proportion varies depending on the interation. The 12 Year is 75% Ex-Bourbon, the 16 year is 50/50, and the A’bunadh is 100% Sherry. And while the general line up of Aberlour might be less known the A’bunadh definitely has a cult following. Though it was first released in 2000 the A’bunadh story actually begins with that distillery expansion brought on by their purchase by Pernod Ricard in 1975.

During construction some workers stumbled upon some an 1898 newspaper with a story about the distillery fire that year, wrapped around a bottle of Aberlour from 1898. The workers who discovered the bottle finished off most of the bottle before guilt kicked in and they turned the bottle over to the master distiller, who immediately sent the remainder off to the laboratory for analysis. The A’bunadh is an attempt to recreate the whiskey in that bottle.

“A’bunadh” means “the original” in Gaelicand if the above story is to be believed this is the style of malt the distillery was making before it’s catastrophic fire in the late 1900s. There is no age statement, each batch is blended together from malts ranging from 5 – 25 years old, is non chill filtered, and bottled at cask strength. It is 100% Olorosso Sherry barrel aged and though there is no age statement , each batch is uniquely numbered allowing whiskey connoisseurs, otherwise known as nerds, to easily track the “best” batches.

2017 saw the release of Batch 58 but I’ve still got a few bottles of the 57 hanging around and it lives up to its predecessors. There is a massive amount of all spice and caramelized orange on the nose. There is a massive amount of that Sherry sweetness, melded with orange, dark fruit, a little bitter chocolate and heavy malt. The finish is long and sustained and with Batch 57 coming in at solid 11.42 proof the mouth is left dry and clean afterwards.

Whether or not the A’bunadh actually is like the original malt distilled at Aberlour is rather irrelevant at this point. It has certainly earned its place in the Single Malt hierarchy and deserves a little more love from those of us not constantly dreaming about our next dram.

Whiskey Wednesday: The Experiential Exceptionals

I’m told my generation, (I refuse to say ‘Millennial’) values experience over material possessions. That a memory formed, or an adventure had is more important than the shiny new car. My intense desire for a Tesla would be my argument to that hypothesis but this experiential mentality is appealing and you can see it leaking into almost everything, including booze. There is definitely a trend towards one off releases and in the scotch world more small producers are creating blends not with the idea of creating decades long consistency but of constantly evolving smaller bottlings, aiming for consistent quality if not consistent flavor.

In the scotch world more small producers are creating blends not with the idea of creating decades long consistency but of constantly evolving smaller bottlings, aiming for consistent quality not consistent flavor.

Don Sutcliffe, of Sutcliffe and Sons, along with Willie Phillips, the former managing director of The Macallan, created The Exceptional Whiskies with this experiential philosophy at the forefront of mind. They say it outright. They’re not looking to create year-in, year-out consistency. They want each edition to be ‘individual’, ‘distinct’ and ‘memorable’. Since 2013 they’ve released 2 editions of the blended grain and their blended malt, and now they’ve got the first edition of their own blended scotch to add to the line up.

It follows in the same philosophical vein and draws on decades of experience and relationships. It takes grain whiskies from North British, Strathclyde and a 33 year old Cameron Bridge and blends them with single malts from seemingly all of Speyside including: Glenfarclas, Ben Nevis, Balvenie, Kininvie, Glen ddich, Alt- a’Bhainne, Auchroisk, Glenallachie,Westport, Speyside and a splash of 30 year old Macallan. Then all of that is finished in first fill Olorosso Sherry barrels. The result is fruity, rich, very light up front, with a honeycomb sweetness and a definite herbal nose.
So what’s the result? It’s good whisky. But is it any more than that?

Exceptional.jpgThe cynic in me wants to say that the whole ‘unique experience’ is marketing talk for ‘we can’t get the ingredients to make this anymore.’ That it’s just another way to cash in on the whiskey boom. But looking at how long Don and Willie have been doing this it looks more like to men tired of doing the same thing day in and day out. It has the feel of wanting to find something new, to experience and share it. So what does the millennial in me say? That it’s not a generational thing. That it’s just a human thing.

Whiskey Wednesday: Shooting Turkey Rye in a Single Barrel

I don’t like to repeat myself, but the conversation about the Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit Barrel a few weeks ago got me thinking. While I might not be a Wild Turkey Bourbon man at heart the rye has always tickled my fancy. I’d like to say that it’s simply because it’s damn good whiskey but that hasn’t always objectively been true.

I touched a bit on the history of Wild Turkey with the post of Kentucky Spirit (You can read about that here) but Wild Turkey’s history feels more tied with the pop culture of past decades that almost any other brand except Jack Daniel’s and Jim Beam.

Wild Turkedownload.jpgy as a brand was said to originate in the 1940’s when an Austin Nichols executive, Thomas McCarthy, brought some choice whiskey along on a wild turkey hunting trip in South Carolina. Enamored with the samples he brought his friends kept asking for more of “that wild turkey bourbon.” More likely it was a marketing approach to appeal to hunters and the rugged, rustic type but every whiskey loves a mythical origin story.

Turkey also appeals to me because it’s been the favored drink of self destructive writers for decades. Hunter S. Thompson was a known lover, Stephen King mentions it with distinction in a few books, and in his biography it’s listed as the drink of choice for perennial hipster literary icon David Foster Wallace.

Yet throughout all this pop culture iconography it’s always the bourbon they’re talking about. The rye always seems to be the unspoken younger sibling despite, at least from personal experience, it being the bartender favorite.

The Wild Turkey Rye is known as being a “barely legal” rye.  At 51% Rye/37% corn/12% barley it meets the bare minimum by law to be considered a rye whiskey. Yet, along with the brand Rittenhouse, it is a rye that kept rye alive in the decades when it was certainly not cool to drink. And it was certainly popular enough that when the 101 proof rye was dropped in 2012 there was enough of an outcry that it was reinstate a mere two years later. And now it might finally have its family champion.

Bruce Russell is the third generation of Turkey Russells and he is the current

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Like Grandfather, Like Grandson

driving force behind their rye, at least their high end stuff. While Jimmy Russell has always been unassuming and focused on the fact Wild Turkey makes two products, a Bourbon and a Rye, his son Eddie and grandson Bruce have championed the expansion of the range arguing differentiation through aging.

The idea that certain spots  in certain warehouses yield “honey” barrels is well established in Kentucky whiskey lore even if no one understands why that should be the case. But for Wild Turkey rye that took a new edge with the release of the Russell’s Reserve 6 Year rye and then even more focus with the Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel Rye.

While the single barrel carries no age statement it is clearly considered to be the upper echelon of the Turkey Family Rye. The 6-year was first introduced in 2007, the year after they raised the barrel entry proof from 105 to 115 and four years before the new distillery came online in 2011. This of course means there’s been a fair amount of flux in the production.

The rye itself is a fine example of Kentucky rye. It is all rich tobacco, which makes the old smoker in me shiver, a hint of dill, a full serving of citrus and a baked quality that ties in the darker spices and the heavy vanilla/caramel barrel notes. And it’s bottled at 104 proof which grants it the same oomph as its Wild Turkey 101 sibling.

The problem for me is twofold. 1) pricing and 2) transparency. The pricing hangup is easy for me to explain, I want quality at cost like it used to exist before the “Bourbon Boom” but that’s the old man in me yelling at the local teens to stay off my lawn: it ain’t going to happen. As for Number 2 there’s no denying that Jimmy, Eddie and now Bruce make good, and often great, whiskey but in an age where the consumer is more and more interested in the process of what ends up in their bottle the Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel Rye lacks any discerning features on the label. If a single barrel product is supposed to be different barrel to barrel I want to be able to compare barrels and bottlings, and nothing on the label gives me the ability to do that. There is no barrel number, warehouse ID, or even simply year or batch number. And these aren’t new requests. These are standard industry practices for single barrel and have been since single barrels were introduced in the 80s. Which brings me back around to the why of  why does the Wild Turkey Rye tickle my fancy so?

I think it has to do with placement. There is a wonderful sweet spot that the 101 Proof Wild Turkey Rye hits in flavor, cost, and history. While I can love the flavors and the drive to create more rye that the Russell’s Single barrel presents the balance between those things isn’t there for me yet.

But then again, aren’t we most critical of those we want the love the most?

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I mean if it’s good enough for Aragorn…

Whiskey Wednesday: McKenna’s Patience

Bourbon is full of history, tradition, and ancient family recipes.

Except when it’s not. (which is pretty much all the time.)

This call back to the golden days of our frontier forbearers is meant to impart some sort of permanence, stability, and a patriotic appeal to what is actually a relatively new spirit. Bourbon wasn’t defined as a unique product of the United States until the 1950’s. As far as the United States government was concerned the term “whiskey” wasn’t even defined until almost 1907. So, while the “Founding Father’s” of Bourbon were certainly making whiskey, they were following their own rules by making what felt like a good product to them. Most of the regulation like the Bottled In Bond Act were spearheaded by the distillers themselves looking for tighter control and quality of their products.

In the worst case this clarion call to the past is meant to mislead consumers, but even the best intentioned creates a consumer base deathly averse to change. This is antithetical to the alcohol industry needing to be an ever-evolving marketplace.

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Why would you ever change this glorious label?!

I still remember my first gut reaction of, “Why the hell would you do that” in the modern whiskey world. It was the label change on Henry McKenna Bottled-In-Bond.

Henry McKenna is a name that harkens back to the early days of the Kentucky distilling world. In some circles he’s as highly regarded as George T. Stagg and William Larue Weller, (very well regarded indeed).

McKenna was an Irish immigrant that moved to the Kentucky territory in 1838. Like many Irish immigrants at the time Henry worked on the railroads helping build the country’s early infrastructure. Also like many other immigrants he went into less backbreaking work as soon as he could.

He settled with his wife in Nelson County and by 1855 was a partner in a flour mill. Looking to make use of the spent grains they soon purchased a farm and soon after that were distilling about a barrel a day from the leftovers from the gristing process.

These early whiskies were almost assuredly all wheat but by 1858 the whiskey was had proved popular enough to hire a fulltime distillery manager and had begun distilling corn as well.

images.jpgThe whiskey produced at McKenna’s Nelson County distillery never carried the name ‘Bourbon’ but it was regarded to be of the highest quality. Newspaper at the time noted that McKenna never sold a drop that wasn’t at least three years old. There was even a bill introduced to Congress in 1892 asking for unlimited bond period on aging whiskey to prevent tax penalties on whiskey aging beyond the bond. This bill was known as “The McKenna Bill.” The next year McKenna passed away at the age of 75.

He left the business to his sons who had grown up in the distilling world. They managed the company until the advent of Prohibition forced them to mothball the distillery. But following Repeal James McKenna, a ripe 79, reopened the distillery with a distiller trained by his father’s original distillery manager supposedly keeping the family recipe intact.

James died in 1940 and the family sold the distillery to Seagrams, but not the original recipe. Seagrams marketed and produced Henry McKenna for decades until they dismantled the original distillery in 1976 and sold the brand to Heaven Hill in the early 90’s.

Under Heaven Hill two versions of McKenna are still on the shelves. The 80 proof Henry McKenna and the Henry McKenna 10 Year Bottled In Bond Single Barrel. You get one guess which one I love.

Not only does the Bottled-In-Bond meet all of the bonded regulations, it’s also 10 years old which is ancient in this shifting whisky scene AND it’s a single barrel so there is the possibility that each bottle you dive into will be different, a new variation upon the McKenna theme.

I’m spoiled and was able to purchase to Private Single Barrel a few years ago and haven’t tasted a regularly available bottling in a while. So, how does it stack up to all of that history?

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The nose is redolent of salted caramel, and the mid palette is all pistachio and pecan drizzled with vanilla and a dry, oaky, tannic finish. There is still a heat, and a rough around the edges quality from the its 100 Proof nature that hasn’t been fully tamed by its ten years in the barrel. It’s a whiskey that you can sip on but feels like it loves to be tossed around in a mixing glass as well, with plenty to offer a cocktail while not losing its identity.

This is most assuredly NOT the whiskey that Henry McKenna was making when he first set out to Kentucky nearly 200 years ago, but it is good modern whiskey. The label change I originally hated has grown on me and I’m sure that its updated look helped introduce it to a modern audience. Trying to stand on tradition alone can often leave us unable to see over the crowd, but perching on it’s shoulders can help show us the stage set for the future.

Whiskey Wednesday: The Harmonious Hibiki Harmony

In recent years Japan, traditionally the Land of the Rising Sun could easily be called the Land of the Rising Whisky. And while that is a terrible turn of phrase, it is nevertheless true.

Ever since Glenfiddich started promoting their Single Malt in the States in 1963 whiskey drinkers- especially malt whiskey drinkers, have been hammered with the idea that Single Malts and age statements are the mark of quality. And across the globe the
Japanese were quietly and efficiently sticking with the old school blending mentality and fine tuning all of the nuts and bolts. Ten years ago it seemed like no one knew that the Japanese even made whiskey and now they are some of the rarest unicorns on the market.

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Suntory Time

The big Japanese whisky houses are suffering from the same shortages and price inflation we’re seeing in the rest of the whiskey world.  With them it seems more noticeable because they only reached the mainstream consciousness here in the US so recently. But it’s not an artificial shortage. I just got back from a trip to Tokyo and even there the ol’ standards we came to rely on were nowhere to be seen.

They are moving to address this imbalance, and that’s part of the benefit of Suntory seeing themselves as a blending house as well; they have an internal system that allows them to adapt. In the US they’ve released Suntory Toki (which you can read more about here) to address our need for a Japanese Whiskey for cocktails. But the big shift for most people was discontinuing the Hibiki 12 and introducing the Hibiki Harmony.

The Hibiki’s have always been the ones that Suntory considers to be the highest form of their art and is meticulous in its attention to detail. The name Hibiki means “resonance” and is meant to represent the Suntory philosophy of living in harmony with people and nature. The goal is to create a harmonious balance between the malt and grain whiskies that make up the blend. Even the bottle is meant to represent that natural harmony. The bottle has 24 facets meant to represent the 24 seasons of the traditional Japanese calendar. This attention to detail and the quality of Hibiki didn’t go unnoticed and the 12 year especially became a fan favorite. But pricing and stocks have buried the 12 year and soon after it’s demise along comes the Hibiki Harmony.

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Shortage Be Damned, Hibiki 17 Minis

Beam Suntory is quick to point out that the Harmony is not meant to be a replacement for the 12 Year. The Hibiki 12 Year was actually unique among the Hibiki blends in that it utilized a small amount of whiskey aged in plum wine casks. With rising demand, depleting stock, and this blending element only being used for this one bottling the decided to just stop making the 12 Year.

The Harmony is actually meant to be a more affordable available version of the Hibiki 17 Year with its hint of Mizunara (Japanese Oak) aging.  The Hibiki blends pulls whiskey from all three Suntory distilleries: Yamazaki, Hakushu, and Chita. The Harmony utilizes Chita Light grain whiskey with Yamazaki American Oak aged whiskey as the primary malt. The supporting players are Spanish Oak and that Hint of Mizunara with Hakushu Heavily peated malt for flavoring. The result on the Harmony is a very floral nose, with a hint of tart fruit and herb. The mid palate is rich, rich honey with a confectionary note but the touch of Mizunara is what brings it home with a touch of spice that lingers. It is a great introduction to the wider world of Japanese whiskey.

And again, this isn’t an artificial shortage. The bars in Tokyo were using the Harmony just as we are here in the states.  And I can appreciate the effort to simulate the 17 Year old. It’s always been expressed to me that the pinnacle of the House of Suntory style is the Hibiki 17 Year Blend, just as the Nikka “Yoichi” 15 Year Old Malt was the perfect expression of the Nikka style. As a side note, the former is now incredibly allocated and expensive while the later has been discontinued due to supply. Take that for what it’s worth.

IMG_3176.JPG            But in a world of vanishing age statements and soaring prices  I feel it’s hard for the general consumer to not see this as a replacement of a beloved bottle by a younger whiskey at a higher price. That’s not a problem with the Harmony though. That’s just the reality of the whiskey world we now live in.

Whiskey Wednesday: Time For Toki

In Japanese Toki means ‘time’ and the adage goes in time everything comes back around. In a market obsessed with single malts Japanese Whisky is an ongoing example of the relevance and power of blends. Since importing whisky making from Scotland nearly a century ago distillers in Japan have been breaking down the individual components of the craft and reassembling them into works of art. Though the more disparaged styles, like grain whisky or blends, have taken a front row seat next to their single malt brethren. And they’re holding their own. This quality and craftsmanship hasn’t gone unnoticed which has lead to a massive boom in popularity. Which is great, because you can never have enough good whisky. But it’s also terrible because it’s becoming increasingly hard to find and holy hell look at that price tag!

Hoping to fill that gap is the Suntory Toki. Made by the same folks behind Hibiki, Yamazaki and Hakshu. And in fact, the component distilleries are the same as those that make up the Hibiki style blend. These are the Yamazaki and Hakushu distilleries as well as the Chita distillery, which you’ve probably never heard of. Relatively unknown in the West, Chita is the Grain Whisky distillery that is traditionally used to accent the malts produced in the Yamazaki distillery. In the Toki, however, the Chita’s ‘heavy type’ grain whisky takes center stage along with Hakushu malt aged in American white oak. They are then supported by two different Yamazaki Malts: an American Oak malt and a Spanish oak malt. All of the traditional components are there.

The result is an incredibly light whisky. Rich pear, apple and a green fruit, with a light oak presence and almost no edge. It’s incredibly approachable but not any where close to reaching the haloed status of its older siblings. But not everything needs to be a living legend. Sometimes you just want a damn good highball and there is nothing wrong with that.

Whiskey Wednesday: Kentucky Spirit Soars Like A Wild Turkey

Let’s do something different, different for me at least, and talk Wild Turkey and about a single barrel not chosen by me.

Gathering together all of my Whiskey Wednesday posts, my personal whiskey collection, and the bottles I routinely stock at the bar a pretty glaring hole starts to emerge, and that hole is shaped like a damn Turkey. I couldn’t tell you why it’s there either. Wild Turkey seems like it should check all of the high proof, rough around the edges, old school bourbon boxes for me. And it’s made by Jimmy Russell! And yet it’s never close at hand for me. Let’s shake that up.

Wild Turkey was born as a Non-Distilling Producer in 1942. Austin Nichol’s & Co. were a New York based grocery wholesaler. They finally purchased the Ripy Brothers Distillery (then kimgres.jpgnown as the Boulevard Distillery) in 1971 and renamed it the Wild Turkey Distillery. This purchase made sense since the Ripy distillery was where most of the Wild Turkey Whiskey was coming from but it was terrible timing as “white goods” started gaining steam and the bourbon market tanked. The brand and distillery, were purchased by Pernod Ricard in 1980 and then sold to Gruppo Campari in 2009. But through out all of those changes Jimmy Russell has been there, making whiskey.

Jimmy’s career has lasted over 60 years; he started at
the Wild Turkey distillery well before it was the Wild Turkey distillery. In fact,

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Pictured: Jimmy Russell’s mad skills.

his tenure at wild Turkey began 10 years before the 1964 act of Congress that declared Bourbon to be a “distinctive spirit of the United States.” He was named Master Distiller in the late 60’s and is the last living Elder Statesman of Bourbon. He, along with Booker Noe and Elmer T. Lee, were the first generation of rock star distillers. These were distillers that were forcibly evicted from the seat in front of the stills to go travel and spread the good word of Bourbon. And even into his 80s he’s still traveling and distilling. And it’s a family business these days, his son Eddie is the new kid on the block with only 30+ years of distilling experience.

Jimmy Russell is essentially old school Bourbon personified. Yet he doesn’t take himself seriously and no matter who his employers are he makes no qualms about who he is or his opinions. For the past several years when doing tastings and traveling Jimmy would tell everyone at the tastings that he didn’t like low proof young whiskey, while pouring them Wild Turkey’s low proof young whiskies. Guess what Wild Turkey doesn’t mimgres-1.jpgake anymore? Seeing the Wild Turkey 101 Rye return with a vengeance was transcendent moment amidst all of these brands lowering proof and dropping age statements. Yet for all of my love of Jimmy, and his rye, when I drink the Bourbon it’s usually me trying to figure out why I don’t drink the Bourbon.

So naturally the first time Ryan Wainwright plopped this single Barrel of Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit in front of me at Terrine (now The Ponte) my eyebrow rose skeptically. At 101 proof the Kentucky Spirit is essentially single barrel W

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Original Drop

ild Turkey 101 Bourbon- so I was expecting an incredibly earthy, slightly musty, hard oak. Instead, it turned out to be a spice bomb of a bourbon, with a dark baking spice, a dark, overripe cherry, with a farm house quality the I feel is coming from the Wild Turkey yeast. The oak and caramel in the barrel are supporting players rather than the main attraction and the proof sits right where it should granting all of the flavor with very little burn. I was genuinely surprised.

But I don’t think I should have been. This barrel taste’s like Jimmy’s bourbon philosophy, chosen by a bartender with a very specific palette. What this barrel says to me is that although Wild Turkey is quite frankly in a slump there is still liquid gold in its warehouses. There is experience, and skill, and craftsmanship that seem to be producing a sometimes muddled bourbon, but when the sun breaks through, damn, does it shine.