I have no clue how the blend will taste, but I look forward to finding out and sharing with my fellow malt mates and bourbon buddies as our paths cross in 2019.
So, how exactly did we spend our time in 2018's whiskey extravaganza? There are many ways to quantify the year, and those who know me, know that I love me some analytics and data. Let's start at the top - in total we sampled thirteen different whiskeys (March contained not one, but two Irish Single Pot Still Whiskeys) from a combined eight different whiskey classifications:
- Three Single Malt Scotch Whiskies
- Two Straight Bourbon Whiskeys
- Two Irish Single Pot Still Whiskeys
- Two Finished Bourbon Whiskeys
- One Japanese Blended Malt Whisky
- One Straight Rye Whiskey
- One Tennessee Whiskey
- One Blended Malt Scotch Whisky
 |
| Age estimated for Greenspot, Woodford, Maker's, Jack Daniel's, and Wild Turkey (click to expand) |
 |
| A graphical representation of the spreadsheet (click to expand) |
2018 Whiskey Superlatives
Most Expensive - Red Breast 12 year - $69.99. They say high tide raises all boats and brother, whiskey's popularity is definitely a rising tide at the moment. I am not sure the historical pricing of Irish whiskey, but I am betting a decade ago Irish whiskey producers merely dreamed of commanding a price premium equal or greater than their Scottish counterparts. That being said Red Breast 12 was very well received by the group and nearly unanimously swept the A/B comparison to Greenspot, so the quality is in the bottle. It is a shame it is still offered at 40%, but Red Breast 12 year can be found in cask strength form, non-chill filtered to boot, typically for ~$90.00 and I can say first-hand the extra twenty dollars is easily justified for the step up if you enjoyed standard Red Breast.
Least Expensive - Evan Williams Single Barrel - $24.99. Since I began my bourbon exploration, I have always had, and always will have, a bottle of this whiskey on my shelf. Heaven Hill deserves a standing ovation for offering a whiskey, typically eight years old, that smells, tastes, and finishes like a quintessential bourbon - vanilla, oak, caramel, baking spices, some smoke - it's all there and the only criticism is its amiably low proof, but its proportionally low price helps sooth that criticism.
Highest Proof - Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Barrel Proof - 66.1% ABV. A bit like bringing a bazooka to a pellet-gun fight, one could within reason disqualify this Jack as being an anomalous wild-point, but alas the king has earned and deserves this crown. Astonishingly, despite being two-thirds ethanol, this Tennessee Whiskey is plausibly enjoyable neat but water has always improved the experience of this deliciously different whiskey for me.
Lowest Proof - (tie) Red Breast 12 and Greenspot - 40% ABV. Perhaps in a bout of national conformity, both of our Irish entrants come in at the legal minimum to still be called a whiskey. I, along with many Irish Single Pot Still whiskey fans have long wished for a modest bump in ABV for these standard offerings, even 3-percent would do wonders in my opinion.
Oldest - Johnnie Walker Green Label - 15 years. To be fair, we had six non-age-stated whiskeys that *could* be older than 15-years but that is a bit like saying your mortgage bank *could* forgive your note out of the goodness of their miserly heart. Still, as I stated in the reveal, it is awesome that Johnnie Walker has maintained the 15-year age statement and kept the price in the $60 neighborhood - a benevolent gift to malt maniacs in today's harsh reality of vanishing age statements and younger and younger offerings.
Youngest - Unknown! As stated above, six of the thirteen whiskeys sampled contained no age statement whatsoever, so we can only speculate here. My speculation, and it is no more than that, is that Maker's 46 would tie the age-stated Pikesville Rye at six years old for this accolade.
The More You Know - UPS Quirks - Approximately half of each month's samples were sent to their respective recipients via UPS (the others were hand-delivered by yours truly). Due to various legal and/or regulatory reasons, there is no parcel carrier that will accept distilled spirits from an unlicensed sender. I chose UPS over the United States Post Office because I felt it better to violate a corporation's policy rather than the Federal Government's policy. Regardless, of the 48 parcels sent through the year, all but two had silky-smooth journeys. The trials and tribulations of the troublesome two each revealed interesting UPS behaviors. The first - it does not matter what name/address you affix to a box, UPS will only deliver the parcel to the name and address listed on the shipping label they affix to the box (UPS did not notice one recipient's change of address and instead used the incumbent address in their system on the shipping label). The second - a parcel that is hilariously misrouted and given a Mr. Toad's tour of the United States will ultimately find its way to its recipient without any intervention from the sender. As an added bonus, UPS will proactively refund the shipping cost as their system is built to automatically detect such routing errors and make good on them, both logistically and financially. Well played UPS, well played.
Favorite Whiskey - Many of them! Okay, a cop-out here, but variety is indeed the spice of life. Re-reading the Group Impressions from each month, it seems to me that Johnnie Walker Green Label, Red Breast 12 Year, Taketsuru Pure Malt, and Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban were the most sweeping in terms of positive consensus among group members. Each a barley whiskey, coincidence? Most interesting indeed. Even more interesting to me is that there was not a single whiskey that was panned by the consensus. The closest was one taster's loathing of Caol Ila, but given how polarizing peated malt whiskey can be, it would be a statistical anomaly if we did not have at least one dissenter in Caol Ila's tasting. This adds to what I have long suspected - that there are very few 'bad' whiskeys out there. Just as Napoleon (the pig, not the angry short dude Bill & Ted kidnapped) said - all whiskeys are equal, but some whiskeys are more equal than others. Or something like that.
So where do we go from here...
A final hearty thank you to all who played along through 2018. I had a hoot and a half with the whole experience and as an added bonus, procuring all the whiskeys kept me in the good graces of the various frequent shopper programs of my local merchants. I do not plan to retire this blog, at least not yet. My hope is to continue to use this space as a journal for my whiskey raves and rants, likes and dislikes, and whatever verbally meandering hooch-based inspirations strike my fancy. There will be more group tastings, though not monthly, and most likely done in smaller, targeted groups. There might even be a jump to rums and tequilas, as well as entries scribed by special guests, but we can't put rules on these things at this juncture.
Lastly, maybe one day the delightful person at the UPS Store that personally marshaled each and every whiskey parcel sent during the twelve consecutive months will stumble upon this blog and realize that I really wasn't making my own hot sauces, infused oils, and spice extracts to send to friends for their impressions. I suspect they are procedurally obligated to ask 'and what are you sending? ' each and every time for insurance or regulatory reasons. Almost certainly they suspected something was afoot within a few months as the same dude showed up on the first Wednesday of each month, always with identical boxes, with identical dimensions, going to identical and unchanging recipients. Still, they never batted an eye when my replies became ever more exotic. Hmm, perhaps we have stumbled upon our first special guest for 2019, I wonder if they like whisk ... err rosemary-habanero infused vanilla extract.
No comments:
Post a Comment