Tag: Barrel Proof

Four Roses Limited Edition Single Barrel 2009

Josh3 Comments

Maker: Four Roses, Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, USA (Kirin)

Age: 11 y/o

Recipe: OESQ

Warehouse/Barrel: 55/43-3Q

Proof: 116.2 (58.1% ABV)

Appearance: Light auburn with thin, elegant legs

Nose: Rich. Crème brûlée, chocolate mousse, mint, alcohol, clove, orange blossom, mace, oak.

On the palate: Full bodied and sweet. Chocolate orange, vanilla. With water it turns silky. Key lime pie, roasted candy almonds, cocoa almonds.

Finish: Long, sweet and sensuous. Oak, char, circus peanuts, mango.

Parting words: This is sex in a glass, but without the stickiness (ideally). Unlike its (arguably better) predecessors, the 40th and 120th anniversary single barrels, it has a sensual quality unusual in a bourbon. Or to put it another way, this bourbon is the dessert you box up and take back to your hotel room after Valentine’s day dinner at the steak house, and eat right before you fall asleep and right after you, well, you know.

The Four Roses annual releases stay on the shelves for a shockingly long time after they are released compared other high-end annual releases, so there are quite possibly some still out there, but your best bet for trying one is to find a generous friend with a bottle or two squirreled away. Four Roses Limited Edition Single Barrel 2009 is highly recommended.

W.H. Harrison Governor’s Reserve

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Maker: Harrison Bourbon Co., Brazil, Indiana, USA

Distiller: LDI, Lawrenceburg, Indiana, USA

Style: High Rye Bourbon

Batch: 2

Age: <4 y/o

Proof: 113 (56.5% ABV)

Appearance: Fairly Dark Copper with thick sticky legs and a long slender necklace around the glass.

Nose: Grassy rye, spearmint, oak, toffee.

On the palate: Full-bodied and sweet. A bit of toffee and then a big burn. On the rocks, as recommended on the label, more sweetness, cotton candy but also oak and vanilla.

Finish: Bubble gum and mint, then a burst of heat, then slow, clingy taffy. On the rocks is not much different, just more subtle and more oak.

Parting words: I sampled some of batch 1 at a friend’s house when it first came out and I thought it was exetremely dull. I later bought some of the 80 proof version and it was similarly boring, but innofensive for summer sipping.

Batch 2 is much more interesting. It leans in the direction of Four Roses with a lot of old-fashioned candy flavors, but has the minty notes of some of the other products coming out of LDI, like Bulleit Rye.

It gets very cloudy on the rocks and has a good number of floaties in the bottle, making me wonder if it was not chill-filtered. If that is the case, no mention of it is on the label. It is the best LDI-distilled bourbon I have tasted, far superior to the high-rye Redemption Bourbon. All that said, it is much too expensive. If it were $10-$15 cheaper, closer to its competitors like Rare Breed and Old Grand-dad 114, Harrison Governor’s Reserve would be highly recommended. As it is, it still earns a recommendation.

Parker’s Heritage Collection: Wheated Mashbill (2010 release)

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Maker: Heaven Hill, Bardstown, Kentucky, USA

Style: Wheated Bourbon

Age: 10 y/o

Proof: 124.2 (62.1% ABV)

Appearance: Deep auburn.

Nose: Alcohol, vanilla butter cream frosting, oak, blondies, white pepper.

On the palate: Full-bodied, sweet, vanilla frosting, then it evaporates off the tongue. With a little water, the oak comes close to taking over. There is still a good amount of sweetness, and vanilla though and a bit of allspice and ginger to boot.

Finish: Big oak, then hot, hot hot and a long, lingering burn. With water, still some burn, but a little white chocolate, oak, turbinado sugar.

Parting words: When United Distillers Corporation was merged out of existence, Old Fitzgerald, the wheated bourbon flagship of the closed Stitzel-Weller distillery, went to Heaven Hill. The quality of Old Fitz had already been declining and the sale didn’t make it any better. Its reputation tanked, and not without justification. The conventional wisdom was that the folks at Heaven Hill just didn’t care about wheaters.

The previous entries in the Parker’s Heritage Collection (named for Master Distiller Parker Beam) were both from the rye bourbon mashbill. When this wheated bourbon edition was released back in 2010, it was something of a revelation. It has the sweet vanilla flavors one expects but it has power that few wheated bourbons have. Let’s hope it’s a sign of good things to come.

Parker’s Heritage Collection: Wheated Mashbill was an instant classic, and is pretty hard to find on shelves, but there are still some out there. It’s not cheap, either, but it’s worth every penny. Highly recommended.

George T. Stagg

Josh7 Comments

Maker: Buffalo Trace, Frankfort, Kentucky, USA (Sazerac)

Age: 16 y/o

Proof: 141.2 (70.6% ABV, the 2005 edition)

Appearance: Dark copper with thick, luscious legs.

Tasted neat and with a splash of water.

Nose: Neat: alcohol, oak, almond extract, mace. W/water: Weaker, but the sweetness really comes to the fore, even a little spearmint. Water does bring out some varnish notes that are a bit unpleasant at first but they seem to disappear after a few seconds.

On the Palate: Neat: Vanishes on the tongue without a trace in a matter of seconds. When swallowed Stagg burns all the way down in what seems like an all-out assault on the upper digestive system. W/water: much more palatable. Still plenty of burn, but it doesn’t overwhelm the complexity of this amazing bourbon. Dry but with undercurrents of caramel, clove, mace, allspice, black pepper, almond extract, pecan.

Finish: Neat: None, evaporates almost instantly. W/water: Still pretty quick, but the caramel and wood linger in the mouth. My lips were tingling for a long time afterwards.

Parting words: George T. Stagg the man was the co-founder (with E.H. Taylor) of what is now the Buffalo Trace Distillery. George T. Stagg the whiskey is the king of bourbons, and hence the king of American whiskeys. It is the most sought after and consistently the best of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection released annually in the fall. The other members of this series are William Larue Weller (a barrel-proof wheat bourbon), Eagle Rare 17 year old, Thomas Handy Rye (a barrel-proof rye) and Sazerac 18 year old rye.

Each year is slightly different, but always excellent. Many of the top-shelf offerings from Buffalo Trace are not worth the price, but George T. Stagg is truly worth every penny. Highly recommended, but don’t be a hero, add some water after nosing it. Your esophagus and stomach will thank you.

Four Roses Single Barrel Limited Edition 2011

Josh3 Comments

Maker: Four Roses, Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, USA (Kirin)

Age: 12 y/o

Recipe: OBSQ

Warehouse/Barrel: QN/17-34

Proof: 118.6 (59.3% ABV)

Appearance: auburn with long, clingy legs.

Nose: Like distilled jerk sauce. A lovely balance of spice, heat, and fruity sweetness.

On the palate (with water): The fruit really comes to the fore. Less jerk and more Pickapeppa® now. Wild Blackberry, raspberry, pomegranate juice, sweet red currant. All this with some caramel and a tiny hint of oak, but it’s not missed. Like a baroque concerto grosso. No one element dominates, but each takes its own turn on the tongue, resulting in a sublime balance of disparate elements.

I tasted a 9 y/o Party Source bottling of OBSQ for comparison’s sake. The extra three years in the bottle make a pretty big difference. All the elements are there in the younger bourbon, but the hot spice overwhelms the fruit. More like a Buffalo Wing sauce or a romantic solo concerto.

Finish: Hot, then tannic and slightly sweet. This is by far the oakiest part of the whole experience. But even here the sweetness and fruit provide a refreshing counterpoint to the wood.

Parting Words: Not much else can be said about this amazing whiskey. I loved the 2009 edition but like the younger OBSQ, it was more solo than grosso. The sweet cotton candy and bubblegum flavors overran the other elements. The 2010 was the 100th Anniversary (of the distillery building) edition. It was 17 years old, and was too woody and dry for my taste. The 2011 is on par with the first two releases in the series (2007’s 40th anniversary and 2008’s 120th anniversary). It’s expensive for a bourbon (>$70 for per bottle) but it is worth much more than that. Coming from a cheap bastard like me, that’s high praise. It goes without saying, but this bourbon is one of the best I’ve ever had and is very highly recommended.

Four Roses Single Barrel Barrel Strength Head to Head: What a difference a yeast makes!

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1)     OBSK (Binny’s, barreled 4/27/99)

2)     OBSF (Binny’s, barreled 7/11/02)

Maker: Four Roses, Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, USA (Kirin)

Age: NAS (around 9 y/o)

Proof

1)     121.2 (60.6% ABV)

2)     124.2 (62.1% ABV)

Appearance

1)     Reddish copper

2)     Auburn, with a little char in the bottom.

Nose (with water added)

1)     Caramel, spice, jalapeno

2)     Peppermint candy

On the palate (with water added)

1)     Full-bodied. Caramel, a little clove and peppercorn mélange, then burn.

2)     Even fuller bodied. Big herbal hit of mint on initial entry. Then some oak that gets more prominent as the whiskey lingers in the mouth. Bourbon lovers will know what I mean when I saw that at times I wondered if this wasn’t a Heaven Hill product rather than a Four Roses.

Finish

1)     Burn, and a little bit of wood. This hangs around for a long time and as it does, it transforms itself into cotton candy and a little tingle that lingers on the lips like the kiss of a long-distance lover.

2)     In the finish, the mint starts to become unpleasant. It feels like I just got done brushing my teeth. Not that it’s a bad feeling, just way too much mint. It doesn’t linger long though. Much shorter finish than the OBSK.

Parting Words

Yeast is something that doesn’t get a lot of discussion in the world of whiskey. Until recently there wasn’t much opportunity to do a head to head comparison. But over the past few years Fours released all 10 of their individual bourbons (2 mashbills, 5 yeasts) as single barrel barrel strength selections at around nine years old to big retailers like Binny’s in Chicago, Party Source and Cork & Bottle in the Cincinnati area, and Julio’s in Massachusetts. For a breakdown of the 10 recipes and the products that use them, click on friend-of-the-blog Oscar’s post here: http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=256627&postcount=63

In addition to being really tasty, these releases offered a chance to deconstruct Four Roses and conduct amateur experiments (like this one) on the impact of mash bills and yeast strains on the taste of the finished product. As you can see above, it makes a big difference.

Viewed simply as individual whiskeys, I’d have to give the edge to OBSK but the OBSF is tasty too, especially when vatted with other whiskeys, like Four Roses Small batch or another single barrel barrel strength recipe. Both are recommended, the OBSK highly.