Tag Archives: Bourbon

Caol Ila 21yo 1984/2006 (58.5%, Dewar Rattray, for The Nectar, Belgium, Refill Bourbon, Cask #6266, 251 bottles)

Caol Ila was founded in 1846 and rebuilt in 1879 and 1972, and in 1974 six new stills were installed. As of 1999 also unpeated whisky is made, which is nice, but also makes you wonder about single casks sold to independents since that date. Mainly used for the Johnnie Walker blends, but more and more used as a single malt due to the popularity of Islay malts. If I’m not mistaken the first official bottlings were the Flora & Fauna 15yo and a few Rare Malt editions. In 2002 the 12yo, 18yo and a cask strength were released and a few years later a Moscatel finish Distillers Edition and Moch were released. During that time also three versions of a 25yo were released, I know were pretty good.

This whisky was distilled on December 12th 1984 and bottled 21 years later on September 6th, 2006, and was bottled for Belgian outfit, The Nectar.

Color: Light Gold.

Nose: Fat Peat with ash. Very leafy, as in fresh, non-musty wet leaves and crushed dried leaves. Sweet and balanced. Green apple skin. Sweaty, tarry and with distant flowery perfume. Hints of wood. Crushed beetles, (not Beatles). Sea with some smoke and late (dare I say unexpected) fruitiness.

Taste: Sweet and chewy, with elegant peat. Nutty, almonds and some walnut. Some white pepper and plants. Also the sweat returns which fits the profile. Nice balance. It has some unexpected fresh sourness in the warming finish. No wood to speak of, but it has the wood spice. Finally, some salt on the lips, during the yellow fruity finish (apricots and peaches obviously). Astonishing.

I quite like this. Due to its perfect sweetness this is dangerously drinkable. Not as complex as I might have hoped, but hey, it’s not a super old Islay, and we don’t drink those for their finesse do we? Caol Ila in al its guises is a very nice alternative to all the other (increasingly expensive) brothers from Islay.

Points: 90

Bourbon Week – Day 7: Parker’s Heritage 1996/2007 (63.7%, OB, First Edition, 750 ml)

Sadly the Bourbon week is almost over. I had a lot of fun with it and (re)discovered some true gems of American Distilling. I’ll definitively do another Bourbon Week again. So, to close this week off, here is the first edition of the Parker’s Heritage Collection of Heaven Hill. Distilled in 1996 the year of the fire, so we can’t be sure where this is distilled. If it is from before the fire, than it’s from the original distillery in Bardstown. If it is from after the fire it can be sourced from anywhere or even distilled by Heaven Hill distilled in another distillery where they rented time to distill. It’s not from the new plant (the old Bernheim plant in Louisville), since they started to distill there from 2000 onwards.

Color: Brown

Nose: Very deep slow-moving smell, that has to be force-sniffed out of the glass (a Glencairn). I’ll give it some time. On paper this seems to be a brute, and brutes can be very shy. Gravy with toffee, still very closed. Overall the gravy plays a big part as a component for this nose. Almost like it’s a syrup, a sense of foreboding. Like a giant, waiting to erupt. For now its still quiet. It smells of a caramel cain, or something we Dutch call “Hopjes” a kind of caramel, coffee, toffee candy. Yeah, that’s it. Slowly the wood comes out. Plain oak, no elegant polished mahogany, but slow-moving unpainted oak and sawdust. Mind you, the oak smell and the sawdust are two different smells. Also a food-like sourness that seems to be partnered with the gravy and the Hopjes.

Taste: Wow, what a body. Again dry wood combined with a rum-like depth and virtual sweetness. Tarry and thick. Halfway through a short burst of wood and char, that moves away again, to leave room for the return of the rum. It’s maybe a tad unbalanced in the finish and the strength and the deep refined taste doesn’t make this for everybody, but if you’re into this, well it doesn’t get any better than this. For me this is a Bourbon that didn’t have a lot of rye in the mash bill.

This is one where the word savoring was invented for. Just give this a lot of time, and you’ll thoroughly enjoy this. Just drink this when you have a moment alone for some contemplation. Don’t let it be interrupted by noise or by the feeling you still have to do something. A bedtime dram, when you’re the last one to go to bed. Top, have fun with it!

Points: 87

P.S. Reading around a bit, some claim this is a Wheated Bourbon made by Bernheim meant for Old Fitzgerald. others claim that it is made in the Original Heaven Hill Distillery (Bardstown) in April 1996, before the fire that was in November 1996. You decide what it is…

Bourbon Week – Day 6: Old Grand-Dad 114 (57%, OB, Lot No.1, 750 ml)

As I mentioned yesterday, Jim Beam is famous, but they’re also famous for having bought some brands and making essentially the same whiskey under all those brand names. More or less all Jim Beam products come from one recipe, one mash bill. Just variations in age and proof.

In 1987 Jim Beam bought themselves National Distillers, and by doing that, they also acquired Old Grand-Dad. For all the Bourbons that were kept in production, all original recipes were changed to the ‘Jim Beam’ recipe. All but Old Grand-Dad. This recipe survived due to its uniqueness, and is the only other recipe that Jim Beam uses. This Old-Grand-Dad recipe uses a lot more of the, so-called, flavour or small grains i.e. rye and barley.

Old Grand-Dad came in two versions. One ‘normal’ version at 43% ABV and a “bottled in bond” version at 50%. What Jim Beam did is adding two more versions. First, Old Grand-Dad 114, aimed at a younger public who would ‘dig’ the high-proof, and Basil Hayden’s, which is aimed at the connoisseur and therefore put in their Small Batch Collection. So there you have it, for those who didn’t know it yet. Basil Hayden’s is Old Grand-Dad at 40% ABV. By trying any Jim Beam and Old Grand-Dad, you can get acquainted with both recipes Jim Beam uses.

Color: Copper Orange.

Nose: Clean and a bit light, lots of typical rye scents. Wet forest. Powdery and dusty. Again a Rye Whiskey that smells a bit like a Single Malt. Although it seems a bit closed (this is not from a freshly opened bottle), this smells really good, almost like a good men’s cologne.

Taste: Sweet and tick, spicy wood. Tarry and some coconut. Cloying texture. Full bodied and stunning balance. Not the ping-pong mentioned earlier, but this time the rounded out balance between sweet and the bite of the rye. Hints of red fruits, are they cherries? Its sweet and has hints of sourness and dryness from the wood, but that only adds to the balance. Wow, instant favorite of mine.

Excellent! No wonder that they couldn’t replace this recipe. This is very, very good. At least I like it a lot at this strength. Recommended. I haven’t tasted all of the “Small Batch Collection” yet, but I can’t imagine Jim Beam making anything better than this.  Yeah I’m ‘younger public’ now! Another example of the water of life, that preserves youth.

Points: 86

Bourbon Week – Day 5: Baker’s 7yo (53.5%, OB, Batch B-90-001, 750 ml)

Now for a whisky from the stables of Jim Beam in Clermont or Boston Kentucky. Yes Jim Beam have two distilleries and use them interchangeably. As you might have read, Jim Beam White is what it all started for me, but that days have gone. No Jim Beam White on my lectern anymore, or is it? Jim Beam is famous, and Jim Beam is famous for using only two recipes, two mash bills for everything, mostly only varying in ageing and proof.

Jim Beam has the “Small Batch Collection” A collection of four Whiskeys aimed at the true connoisseur: Knob Creek (9yo, 50%ABV), Bookers (6yo to 8yo, Cask Strength), Basil Hayden’s (8yo, 40% ABV) and finally Baker’s (7yo, 53.5%). All made in small batches obviously. If you’re interested in Basil Hayden’s, than you have to check tomorrows review.

Baker’s it is for today. I said there’s no more Jim Beam White on my lectern anymore, but it turns out that this Baker’s is essentially Jim Beam White at a higher proof and aged for 7yo. So a well matured, higher strength Jim Beam White. By the way, Booker’s and Knob Creek are also from this ‘Jim Beam’ recipe.

Color: Copper

Nose: Meaty and yeasty. Saké. Hints of sweat and cigarette smoke. Fresh ánd musty, wild?Citrussy (lemon) and also some orange skin. Sometimes it noses like a single malt. Completely different from other Bourbons. Mushrooms and clay. Multiplex in the end. Let it stand for a while and it somehow homogenizes into a clean high rye-content Bourbon. Very interesting trait that is.

Taste: Rounded spice, and sweet, but in a sort of dirty gravy like way. Quite different from the Four Roses offering reviewed yesterday. This has some opposites too, because you can call this dirty on your first impression, but as with the nose, this gets cleaner when you wait a minute or five. Its a good Bourbon, but for me the sweetness is a bit tiresome in comparison to the Buffalo Trace and the Four Roses reviewed earlier, but that is marginal. Therefore only a marginal lower score.

Again a very decent Bourbon Whiskey. This bottle is almost finished, and I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Points: 81

Bourbon Week – Day 4: Four Roses “Single Barrel” (50%, OB, BS 38-3O, 70 cl)

And now we return to Bourbon. A Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky from Lawrenceburg Kentucky. First of all, when writing about Four Roses we have to look at their ten recipes. What? Ten recipes. Four Roses has ten different recipes for making Bourbon. They combine two different mash bills with five different yeast strains. The ten recipes are called OBSV, OBSK, OBSO, OBSQ, OBSF and OESV, OESK, OESO, OESQ, OESF.

The letters V, K, O, Q and F designate the yeast strain used. V is described as giving light fruitiness, light vanilla, caramel and creamy notes. K gives light spiciness, light caramel and a full body. O gives rich fruitiness, light vanilla, caramel and also a full body. Q gives essences of floral aroma’s and finally F gives essences of herbal aroma’s.

The letters B and E are used for the Mash Bill. B is 60% corn, 35% rye, and 5% malted barley. E is 75% corn, 20% rye and 5% malted barley. You might wonder what the O and S stand for. O stands for Four Roses Lawrenceburg, and S means Straight Whiskey. If you want some more information about how a specific recipe might taste, have a look over here.

I think this is genius, because this scheme allows for a lot of variation (you hope) in the finished product. There are some people in the USA, that bought some single casks from those ten different recipes, if not all. I know for a fact that Binny’s just did that, but there are more. So if you’re interested in the differences between those recipes, you can have a go with those specific single barrel bottlings.

Now, we have here a Single Barrel (100 Proof), do we know which recipe it is? Yes we do! It’s OBSV (60% Corn mash bill, Rich in Spiciness, Full Body). I’m very curious. I love the concept, and the looks of it. I once had the previous version of the Single Barrel (43% ABV), which I didn’t like too much. Too weak, very light and too floral and girlie for my taste. OK, let’s have a look at this new one and see if its more masculine 😉

Color: Dark Gold Copper

Nose: Dusty, slightly woody, fern, not overly complex, or is it? Give it some time, creamy, vanilla ice-cream and an exotic sweetness you can smell in a good Gewürztraminer. It also had a meaty component, like gravy. All in all, a very intriguing nose. I like this.

Taste: Spicy, licorice. Hints of wood only, almost no toast. This rose has quite a firm body. Since it’s a “B” and not a “E” I’m surprised at its sweetness. But is definitively tastes as a Bourbon with a high rye content. It’s like a ping-pong match between the corn and the rye. It’s not balanced in a way that you have a ‘married’ taste, that tastes always the same, but it’s balanced. It goes to and fro, your palate never gets a rest, and is always surprised with each sip. There goes a coconut by the way…

For me this is a work of high quality and more than one step up from the old Single Barrel. It seems to me this is like a sponsored bottle: for the quality you get it’s really dirt cheap, even without the discount I got, so I bought me a case of this. 50%ABV is excellent too. Again kudos, this time for the people at Four Roses. Excellent.

Points: 83

Bourbon Week – Day 2: Buffalo Trace (45%, OB, Single Cask for Binny’s, 750 ml)

Day two of the Bourbon week on Master Quill. This time a bottle from Buffalo Trace simply called Buffalo Trace. Again a Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey but this time from Frankfort, Kentucky. Buffalo Trace make a lot of different Whiskey’s. Bourbons, Ryes and Wheaters. Also a lot of different brands come from Buffalo Trace, and some are not the worst on the market. Just think of the Staggs and Sazeracs of this world. Wow!

For this review I’ll use and oddity of Buffalo Trace, well it’s definitively and oddity for us Europeans. They already bottle a lot of different whiskies that also taste quite different, lot of different mash bills. Here we have a single barrel version of the regular Buffalo Trace. A single cask picked by Binny’s (from the Chicago Bay Area). So the bottle is the same as the regular one, except for an elliptical golden sticker. Issued in 2010.

Color: Orange Gold

Nose: Honey, and a lot of it! Even the waxy part is there, honeyed furniture wax. Hints of toasted oak. Fresh sea air and meaty. Like sitting on the porch of your sea-side cabin, and the smell of  freshly made meatballs float by. Chocolaty and vaguely spicy. Very balanced. Nothing in this overpowers the rest.

Taste: More wood, and again a lot of honey. It tastes just less sweet than honey. It’s not overly complex, but very likeable. It’s not too sweet nor to dry. Texture is thin, even water seems thick. Just don’t confuse this with a thin taste, because that would be unfair. The people from Binny really did choose a nice cask. One that shows us what kind of whisky is (mass) produced for this ‘standard’ bottling, and it shows us what a damn good whiskey they make at Buffalo Trace. Kudos!

Yeah this is not bad, not bad at all. This will be no problem to finish, no problem whatsoever. Before finishing this piece, I already poured it four times. Very good standard bottling! Ok,ok, Single Barrel of a standard bottling. A shame really that I don’t have the standard version at hand…

Points: 82

Bourbon Week – Day 1: Labrot & Graham Woodford Reserve Distiller’s Select (43.2%, OB, Batch #49, 70 cl)

Here at Master Quill I’ve explored some Scottish Whiskies and I think it’s time to expand a little. There is a lot more out there and I feel it’s time for me to look into what America is capable of. The journey started for me with a Bourbon, as can be read here. Since I don’t have any Tennesee Whiskies, or even bottles from micro distilleries, I will focus for the time being on Bourbon, with the odd Rye-Whiskey thrown in for good measure.

What is Bourbon you might ask. The Federal Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits state that Bourbon must be:

  1. made from a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn,
  2. aged in new, charred-oak barrels,
  3. distilled to no more than 80% ABV,
  4. entered into the barrel for aging at no more than 62.5% ABV,
  5. bottled at a minimum of 40% ABV.

It is clear that Bourbon has to be aged, but no one knows for how long. Also there are more rules for a Bourbon to be called Straight, but we’ll get to that another time.

Lets move on to the next candidate. The first Bourbon we will explore is the small batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Woodford Reserve. This bourbon is made by Brown-Forman, but marketed under the name of the previous owners from long long ago: Labrot & Graham. The Distillery was built near Versailles (Kentucky) in 1812, but distilling activities started as early as 1797. Brown-Forman owned this distillery previously from 1940-1960 and now owns it again from 1996 onwards. The first batches were distilled ‘elsewhere’. Whisky is distilled partly in Scottish Pot Stills and partly from Column Stills from their Early Times plant in Shively (Kentucky). Besides this there are also Woodford versions made for the Kentucky Derby at a slightly higher ABV (45.2%, I don’t know if there are more differences, besides the illustrations on the bottle). There is also a small Masters Collection series and now a new Double Oaked version.

Color: Copper/Orange

Nose: Very Nice. Sweet/creamy character with spicy oak. Candied yellow fruits. Apples (skin), raisins and again some wood. Honey, almonds and cinnamon. Distant smoke.

Taste: Dry, more like spicy rye and spicy wood. Acetone and toast. Toffee and popcorn. Very elegant and nothing is in excess here. First a solvent like and slightly bitter finish, but after that somewhat late; a creamy finish and mouthfeel. And even later than that the toast from the cask. This really unwinds slowly. Still its a bit unbalanced, and thin. I would have bottled this at a higher ABV.

Pretty decent bourbon. But be careful, because for me this isn’t always as nice. Some day I like it more than on others.

Points: 77

Pulteney 8yo 1990/1998 (63.1%, Cadenhead, 222 bottles, 750 ml)

My good friend Christoph asked me to have a look at a clean bourbon cask whisky and look for mint. As it happens, I have just such a thing on my lectern, so let’s have an adventurous search for mint in this whisky. This whisky was opened on November, 27 2010 at a tasting session with my Whisky club “Het Genietschap” where the theme was “Whiskies younger than 10yo”. This was one of my entries (together with the Kilkerran). I remember I found it very closed when freshly opened. Just have a look at the picture from june 5, 2012. How full it still is.

Color: White wine, light gold.

Nose: Very clean bourbon nose, clean ethanol, some chocolaty wood and musty. Fresh sea air and powdery. Very typical for high cask strength young Cadenhead bourbon barrel whiskies. I’ve smelled everything there is now, no evolution, so we can move on to the taste. Beware it’s 63.1% ABV.

Taste: Strong and spicy, but not woody (just a bit). There’s also some smoke ánd a freshness resembling menthol a bit, but not mint. Everything is in the details. It’s great to taste something that’s spicy, not from the wood. It’s obviously sweet at this high strength, maybe a tad too sweet for my tastes. High alcohol with a lot of sugar can be a bit nauseating. This one’s on the precipice, but didn’t fall in.

As I said this is very typical for those high strength Cadenhead bottlings. They are very clean and reveal quite some information about how the cleanly distilled spirit from a distillery is. This is as honest as it can get, so it’s quite interesting to taste a few head to head. I guess this is a connoisseurs whisky. Not made for your gulping pleasure at a card game. And it can only be ‘enjoyed’ with caution. If you don’t give it enough attention, it will give you very little. The fun is maybe more in analyzing and discovery. The fun is also for those people (like me) who occasionally like their whiskies strong and utterly clean.

I once had a similar bottle of Tormore that was even stronger and older (13yo, 63.9%, 85 Points). There were many things wrong with it, like a very metallic taste, but still I had a lot of fun with it, when ‘enjoyed’ at the right moment. I found myself another bottle before it completely vanished of the face of the earth.

Sorry C. No mint, I’ll have to look further, or you have to taste this for yourself this summer 😉

Points: 84

Bladnoch 8yo (55%, OB, Beltie Label)

This should turn out to be a very interesting review. If not for you, than certainly for me. Mr Bladnoch, Raymond Armstrong has a lot of fans, just have a look at the forum Bladnoch has. When looking around, this 8yo is considered to be very nice. Also, when you have a look at the average score for this bottle on Whiskybase it turns out to be 86.5 points (8 ratings).

I mention all this, because my bottle of 8yo was officially opened at a gathering of my whisky club last saturday and this Bladnoch was considered to be the worst of the day/evening! Auch! So I gave it a few days and will taste it again now in all tranquility (only some Flower Kings on the stereo). What is wrong, is the whisky bad, or were we doing something else than a proper tasting saturday? We’ll soon find out…

Color: Gold

Nose: Malty and definitively nothing wrong at first nosing. Hint of smoke and butter. Grassy. It smells like it has a more than a light body (for a Lowlander), clean and honest. The butter evolves over time. Mr. Brilleman of the Dutch Whisky Information Centre (WICN), thought us that this is a distillation error, (which sometimes can smell nice). It’s not overpowering so no problem here for me.  Hints of sour wood and powdery. Also slightly fruity. It smells like it will be very sweet and buttery.

Taste: Starts very strangely, like new make, and some woody spice. A little bit soapy and fatty. Sure there are some grassy notes, but not as I’d come to expect from a Lowlander. It’s like the grass turns a bit bitter. I find the taste to be unbalanced to boot, and seems to me as if some feints that found their way into the cask aren’t completely transformed by ageing. I guess this should have been in the cask for a longer while. I also don’t detect any citrussy notes which would make the whisky more refreshing.

After giving the whisky some time to breathe it gets somewhat more balanced and friendlier, some nice spices shine through, with just the right amount of wood. It just doesn’t shed its new-make-and-wood finish.

Adding water added even more balance to the nose, and that’s definitively all right. The palate however got even more simple. Fatty wood and slightly bitter. I’m glad most people like this, because Raymond deserves his success with this own distillation of Bladnoch since the take over. This unfortunately just wasn’t for me. But I’ll find me another one…

Points: 77

By the way the Beltie label should mean this was from Bourbon Barrels. (The Sheep label was used for Hogsheads). Sometimes, both labels were used for Sherry Butts though.

May 25, 2015 [UPDATE]. Now that the bottle is almost empty I feel I have to add something to my additional review. Reading back my notes, the nose is pretty much the same, but I feel the taste has changed, or maybe I have changed. The taste is more balanced, still buttery, but sweet and better integrated. The new make is no longer there. Fresh oak, giving spice and grass. Quite a transformation when it got a long time to breathe. Hurray! First time around it wasn’t for me, and I tried to sell it, but nobody wanted it. I’m happy I still have it. It came ’round nicely. With water the grass and spice got even better and a honeyed note enters the fold, Nice!

New score: 83

The Balvenie 15yo 1983/1999 ‘Single Barrel’ (50.4%, OB, Bourbon Barrel #1300, 311 bottles)

Time for some more whisky then…

Let’s have a look at this old Balvenie. I have to say I don’t usually like Balvenie that much. I think that for me it lacks character and body. It’s usually a light whisky that is bottled at a relatively low ABV compared to other whiskies. This older 15yo is bottled at 50.4%, but more recent versions are bottled at a mere 47.8%. That having said. This 15yo and the original 21yo Portwood can be respectable whiskies, depending on the version you find. Still, I encounter the 15yo a lot, so I have the opportunity to try them on a regular basis and to me they don’t seem to get better, so if you want one, my tip to you would be: try to find an older one.

The Balvenie 15yo "Single Barrel" but not #1300Color: Light Gold

Nose: Vegetal, comes across as a very light and clean whisky. It’s powdery and the malt shines through. Dry wood. The cask didn’t give the whisky a lot of color, but is evident on the nose. After a while I get some lemony notes or maybe some lemon grass in combination with hot coco. Again I would use words like clean or fresh for this one.

Taste: Sweet and estery. Again the wood is there. It’s there from the start and I guess it will play a role for some time to come. Even the taste is clean, so if you like clean whiskies, this one is for you. Wow this one is very fruity now and does have some body. Prickly wood (not overpowering though), yellow fruits like dried apricots and peaches. Some bitter wood in the finish.

I would say this is a nice place to start drinking good malts. It’s decent and very easy to “analyze”. It’s clean and elegant and has some nice woody notes to show you what a cask can do. If you’re a connoisseur, well maybe this one’s a tad to easy. A friend of mine would say: “drinks well playing cards” Again, try to find an older one (50.4%). By the way, this is not cask strength. It is reduced to 50.4% to get more bottles out of a cask, or maybe the Balvenie drinkers like their 15yo a little lower than 57%. I’m not judging.

Points: 86