Wild Turkey Forgiven is the result of an accidental blend of bourbon and rye. The story behind the whisky is straight-forward—An employee accidentally blended Wild Turkey Rye into a batch of Wild Turkey Bourbon. It’s not necessarily an easy mistake to make, but distilleries re-route whisky into big vats before bottling. Mistakes happen, though rarely are they this expensive.
Read MoreAs written in the pages of my book, when writing about Buffalo Trace Distillery:
Read MoreIt would be easy to point to the notoriously rare Pappy Van Winkle as the distillery’s crown jewel whisky, but Buffalo Trace Antique Collection (BTAC) is better.
After 971 days and 15 orbits around the earth, the Ardbeg sample sent into space arrived back to earth in November 2014. Ardbeg’s Director of Distilling, Whisky Creation and Whisky Stocks, Dr. Bill Lumsden has recently released his report on how space travel, more specifically, micro-gravity, has affected the whisky.
Read MoreInstagram. It’s a world of selfies, latte art, sunsets, and, for me - whisky. The whisky community is strong on instagram. And why wouldn’t it be? Whisky is terribly photogenic, and whisky people are all about sharing (we share drams, why not share pictures as well?) - it makes perfect sense!
Read More“The best barley that ever came is from Ireland…It’s a fantastic growing region… Whisky is about barley. That’s what it is. That’s what it comes from. And the best place to grow barley in Europe is Ireland.” — Mark Reynier
Read MoreWith the success of The Whisky Topic, the next step is to move forward with a website that includes writers besides myself. Jamie Johnson, co-host on the podcast, will play an active role here as well.
Read MoreMany bourbon lovers rightfully obsess over Four Roses.*
The distillery uses five different yeast strains (yeast matters), and two mash-bills to create a total of ten different variations of high-rye bourbon. This allows for a lot of micro-variation and complexity in the blending process.
Read MoreMeant in jest (I assume!), the fear that Jamie Johnson and I feel when shopping for bourbon expressed perfectly. Bourbon’s Existential Terror:
Read MoreYou don't have to read Kafka to understand what an existential crisis is—just hang out in the Bourbon section of any major retailer long enough and you'll witness it first hand … Sir, can you tell me: does this Bourbon have value? Does it have any meaning? Any purpose? And, if not, what does that say about me? ...
Colonel E.H. Taylor championed the Bottled-in-Bond act of 1897 that served to protect bourbon drinkers in an era where poisons, flavouring, and un-aged spirit were all common additives to whisky. The designation means the whisky has been aged at minimum of 4 years in a federally bonded warehouse, bottled at least 50% ABV, and made in the same distillery during the same year.
Read MoreOld Rip Van Winkle 10 represents the raw youthful bloodline of the Van Winkle line. This would be a whisky that’s easy to write-off in one sip, but with that branding, few would. It takes time to build a relationship with Old Rip Van Winkle 10 and experience the uniquely charismatic and sharp flavours.
Read MoreThe Van Winkle 12 Year Old is an utterly frustrating drink. Firstly, let’s get one thing out of the way—unless you really want a “Pappy” related product, this isn’t the one to get. At the retail price ($55 US), this is a pretty good purchase (★★☆☆). At the $200 to $300 retail range you’re likely to find this (and far more), it’s not worth considering. This is an example where the prestige of the whisky hurts its Whisky Cabinet Rating despite a high taste score. The rating is, after-all, the “Is this worth buying!?” rating.
Read MoreBarrel Proof, uncut, unfiltered. This is the sort of wonderfully chaotic whisky that grabs your attention and doesn’t let it go. It’s intensely loud from start to finish, and that’s no surprise—It’s over 64% ABV (ABV changes from release to release). When doing whisky tastings, the Colonel E.H. Taylor Barrel Proof is (using the baseball term) the “closer” whisky. At the end of the night, no matter what else that you’ve had, CEHT Barrel Proof will be the standout star (Unless, maybe, you’re drinking Stagg).
Read MoreThis whisky, in many ways, exemplifies a well-aged oaky bourbon—it’s the sort of bourbon I’d love ten years ago. Today’s whisky world has changed, though. I’m often forgetting about Elijah Craig’s existence in my whisky cabinet, which largely contributed to the low whisky cabinet rating. Subtle bourbons can be wonderful; but subtle should still be interesting.
Read MoreTo get the beauty of this drink, you need to nose it like a scotch drinker. That is, don’t breathe in, just let the vapours naturally come to you as you lift the glass to your nose. You can practically smell the soil the grain were grown in, the grains themselves, the fermentation process, and all those condensed flavours that were fortunate enough to survive distillation.
Read MoreI started out as a single malt scotch drinker. When drinking bourbons, nosing became less important. It’s not that bourbons don’t nose well, it’s just that they generally smell very similar. That’s not the case for this whisky. T
Read MoreThe word ‘craft’ has connotations associated with it that are drawn from personal experiences and expectations. Individual definitions of craft whisky range from it being a meaningless marketing phrase, to the honest belief of a traditional whisky making process. The truth is somewhere in-between.
Read MoreThis whisky was once the secret darling of the whisky connoisseur, easily available and wonderfully enjoyed. It still is the latter, but with Weller 12’s association with Pappy Van Winkle, it’s no longer a secret. Like Pappy, Weller is a wheated bourbon that uses wheat as the second ingredient in place of rye (both whiskies are made at Buffalo Trace Distillery). Wheat offers a slightly thicker mouth feel, and without rye, those harsher spicy notes associated with rye are lacking. However, because this bourbon is aged for 12 years, you do get these softer peppery spice notes from the oak throughout the flavour profile that's quite wonderful.
Read MoreThere’s a format to each whisky review that goes something like this: Interesting factoid, some history, tasting notes, and a score. There’s definitely a place for long reviews, and there are reviewers that do this incredibly well (Hey Davin!), but these are not everyday reviews.
I’m tossing out my old (and long-since unused) whisky review format. I want to write reviews I’d like to read. The new review format is shorter and it’s driven by the current whisky market. The reviews will include a hundred-point tasting score and a rating. The combination of a taste score and star rating for whisky seemed ridiculous at first, but the more test reviews I wrote, the more it made sense.
With rare exceptions, there are no bad whiskies. As a consumer, though, navigating the waters of which whisky to purchase can be a challenge. It’s important to keep categories in mind: Rye? Bourbon? Scotch? That’s an excellent place to start when buying whisky. Next, what are you looking for? Oaky bourbon, or cheap rye, or well-aged sherry finished scotch? These are just some examples of the many categories whiskies falls into.
The theme of my book is The Whisky Cabinet—finding the most delicious whiskies in the world. The sub-theme has always been value, price, and positioning in the market. Taking this a step forward, I’ve worked on a simple four star rating system.
This four star system pits the whisky against other whiskies in its category and considers such factors as the taste, price-point, availability, and prestige (which can work for or against the whisky). It works as follows:
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ Not recommended
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ Good whisky, but not a ‘must-have’
★ ★ ☆ ☆ Your great regular rotation whisky that'll come and go
★ ★ ★ ☆ Excellent, a near must-have
★ ★ ★ ★ Extraordinary, memorable, and original
The higher the star-level, the fewer whiskies in that category. Under this system, four star ratings are rare. And since the landscape of the whisky world changes (age statements are removed, new products are released), whiskies might gain or lose a star over time.
I have privately rated whisky for several years, but I never quite felt comfortable posting these scores. They didn’t tell the entire story. Alone, it’s not a perfect system, but with the star rating it has a place in the review. Each reviewer defines their scoring system differently. This is how I view it, keeping it simple:
For the taste score, I break down the whisky to its core elements. Nose. Palate. Finish. Balance. Construction. Uniqueness. Flavour. A well structured whisky that offers a broad range of flavours and complexity is likely to get a higher score.
All whiskies are rated based on how they taste in tasting glasses at room temperature.
I couldn’t possibly talk about rating whiskies without noting the difference between tasting and drinking whisky. Tastings are done at room temperature, in tasting glasses, and in a quiet environment. Scores are achieved by tasting the same drink repeatedly, and comparing it to other whiskies of the same or similar categories.
Drinking whisky is the pure enjoyment of the spirit. Any whisky scoring over 80 points will make for an excellent drinking whisky (assuming you like that category of whisky). When out in the sun, or at home with friends, the difference between an 82 and an 88 scored whisky won’t matter overly much.
However, like a delicious plate of food, a whisky that scores over 90 points should stop the conversation at the table. That’s how I score the whisky.
I’ll be posting whisky reviews regularly moving forward, and we’ll get to see whether or not we are in simpatico. As reviews get posted (there are plenty in the queue), this system will start creating it's own dialogue. More on that later.
Oliver Klimek ran a blind tasting between NAS whisky and age-statement whisky of similar lineage. The results were, essentially, mathematically inconsequential:
Looking at the individual bottles, the results look as if age statement whisky cashed in a convincing victory: 6 age statement bottles received more votes than their NAS sparring partners, as opposed to only 3 for NAS. There was one draw.
But adding up the votes for all age statement and all NAS whiskies separately, the resulting balance is only 2 in favour of age statement whisky. This number is very small compared to the total number of votes of 295 (59 x 5). Needless to say that this is well within the margin of error for such a relatively small group.
I agree with the rest of Oliver’s conclusion. This won’t settle the argument, but it’s an important data point. It’s worth noting that distilleries are getting better with their NAS whisky, as I mentioned on the podcast before.
The Whisky Topic is on its sixteenth episode! I see podcasting as the equivalent to DVD commentary found on many blu-ray and DVD movies (I didn't invent this concept, I think Dan Benjamin may have). This week’s episode is an excellent example. I would rarely write about any of the tastings that I host—it would make for a boring read. I do think, though, it makes for an interesting listen.
This week, Jamie and I are joined by Glenford Jameson to discuss a blind tasting I hosted at my place a few weeks back. I’ve stressed it is important to maintain trust with your audience when doing blind tastings. It insults your audience if you pair two dynamically different whiskies in hopes of ‘tricking’ them. However, I made an exception. I asked a group of friends I regularly drink whisky with to participate in a ‘tricky’ blind tasting. They didn’t know what they were up for, but I broke all the rules. I served them:
The results were fascinating! Have a listen. Plus, we debuted are new theme song in big thanks to Alan Doyle!
