Memorable Pours of 2019 - Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Heritage Barrel (2018 Release)

This is not the Old No. 7 that I remember from my occasionally foggy college nights. Truth is, this bottle would have never come into my life had it not been for another leap of faith I took on Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Barrel Proof. So impressed was I with that bottle that when I saw a brand new Jack Daniel's Single Barrel variant adorned in a fetching indigo blue label appear on a local retailer's shelf, I immediately grabbed one without hesitation.

So what is the Heritage Barrel release? From a distillate point of view, the Heritage Barrel is identical to Old No. 7 - a 80% corn, 8% rye, and 12% malted barley mash that is column distilled and run through a vat of charcoal (the Lincoln County Process) before being placed in new charred oak barrels for aging. It's here that the Heritage Barrel takes a detour from standard Old No. 7 in both barrel type as well as barrel entry proof. As explained by the distillery:

Unique Barrel Toasting You Won't Find In Any Other Single Barrel

This release celebrates the early craftsmanship of the Jack Daniel Distillery. The whiskey is from uniquely crafted heavy-toast barrels and 100 proof barrel entry proof.

The "Heritage Barrel" expression of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel was crafted with a low temperature, heavy toasted barrel which created a light but rich char full of deep flavor. A lower 100 proof entry proof allows our grain bill to assert itself creating a special Tennessee whiskey with notes of light baking spices, vanilla, and toasted oak with a long, lingering finish, aged to perfection at the top of one of the highest elevated barrelhouses, 1-09, on Coy Hill. What emerges is a flavorful and rich Tennessee Whiskey.

Nose - Honey, gingerbread, mulled fruit/spices, gentle cinnamon and baking spices. The longer in the glass, the more prolific and nostril filling it becomes. What.An.Aroma.

Taste - a bit more spice than sweet. Very gentle oak, zero char here. Warming hug as the sip descends. Proofed perfectly. Lovely alcohol tingle, like a soothing TENS unit for your tongue.

Finish - long, slightly drying, spice first, then some sweetness, then a very mild tannic drying.

Speaking bluntly, not only is Jack Daniel's Heritage Barrel a memorable pour of 2019, but it has easily remained near the top of my ever-changing list of all-time favorite pours. Each pour dazzles and delights and I am hard-pressed to name a single fault in regard to the actual whiskey ... and there's the rub because while the whiskey is sensational, there is a dark reality lurking in the shadows: availability.

Never intended to be an annual release, the folks at Jack Daniel's only produced a finite amount of Heritage Barrel barrels. In the first year of availability, the Fall of 2018, Brown-Forman claimed 200 Heritage Barrels were bottled. While no specific bottle count was given, one can do a little informal analysis - a Jack Daniel's whiskey barrel holds 53.3 gallons of distillate which equates to 201.7624 liters that will produce 269 750ml bottles. That number however assumes no loss to leakage or evaporation. It's estimated that barrels stored on the top floor of maturation warehouses, just as the Heritage Barrels are, lose ~30% of their liquid during the average maturation time of 5-6 years. Applying that correction yields ~188 750 ml bottles from each barrel and a grand total of ~37,600 bottles for the release. Back in 2018, Brown-Forman insinuated those 200 barrels were the entirety of their Heritage Barrel stocks, but refused to confirm or deny when directly asked if that was indeed all there was.

That refusal became moot in the Fall of 2019 when Brown-Forman announced they were bottling another 200 barrels of Heritage Barrel, but that these 200 barrels were indeed the last of the Heritage Barrel program. Jeff Arnett, master distiller at Jack Daniel's, claimed in an interview that originally 400 total Heritage Barrel barrels were filled and it was decided to split the batch across two years to see how one additional year of maturation affected the whiskey.

In my personal experience, I did not encounter a whole lot of Heritage Barrel bottles in either 2018 or 2019. In fact, I never saw a bottle from either year in any major chain liquor store like Total Wine or ABC Fine Wine & Spirits. Every bottle I encountered was in a mom-and-pop liquor store. All of this is to say finding a bottle of Heritage Barrel will almost certainly prove difficult at retail by the time you are reading this. This is a very bittersweet thing. On one hand, I am beyond grateful to have this whiskey on my shelf to enjoy, but on the other, I can never freely enjoy this whiskey. Each potential pour will be carefully scrutinized and debated; I am forever Elaine wondering if I am indeed sponge worthy of the indulgence.

There is one remote hope however - the Heritage Barrel releases were so well received by the whiskey public that perhaps the good folks at Brown-Forman will green-light another run of the program at some point in the future. One can hope. In the meantime, this whiskey serves as a reminder that just as with the amount of time we have on this planet to love, the amount of this whiskey that I have to enjoy is finite. Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? (Sniffs the glass, sips the pour) Yeah, I suspect it is.

The Hemingway Daiquiri

It's always curious when myth, nostalgia, and marketing collide. Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway was hoofing it down Calle Obispo in Havana, Cuba looking for a restroom when he popped in to the Floridita to use their facilities. Before departing, Hemingway spotted the bartenders pouring a line of the same cocktail and asked to sample one. Upon sipping, Ernest proclaimed 'not bad, but make one without the sugar and double the rum'. And with this, the Papa Doble was born ... or so folklore would have us believe.

What is known is that Ernest Hemingway did indeed live in Cuba and he was indeed a prolific consumer of alcohol. Legend has it that Hemingway 'discovered' (more likely popularized) two cocktails from Cuba - the Mojito (from Bodeguita del Medio) and the Daiquiri (from Floridita).

Both establishments are still in business today, but by most accounts have become more tourist trap than proper cocktail destination. Happily though the recipes are available for all to make at home and enjoy.

The Hemingway Daiquiri has become a staple in our cocktail rotation, particularly in winter when Florida's citrus season produces its citrusy bounty. While it is unknown if Mr. Hemingway ever actually consumed his namesake daiquiri, it is a very nice balance of sweet and tart that is dangerously easy to consume.

I'd suggest using the best quality silver rum you can find - what you are looking for is a silver rum that can be sipped neat without fear of harsh, prickly edges. The next suggestion is to squeeze your own citrus - fresh lime and grapefruit really push this cocktail into the stratosphere.

The Hemingway Daiquiri

Ingredients

• 2 ounces good quality silver rum
• 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
• 1/2 ounce fresh grapefruit juice
• 1/2 ounce Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
• Simple Syrup (Optional, added to taste)

Composition
Combine the rum, lime, grapefruit, and Luxardo liqueur in a cocktail shaker. Stir and taste. If too bitter add a teaspoon of simple syrup, stir and re-taste. You are looking for a mixture that is just sweet enough to mask the cutting tartness of the fresh citrus without becoming excessively sweet.

Once satisfied with the tart/sweet balance, add ice to the shaker, plop the top on the shaker and shake well. Strain and serve in your preferred glass of choice.

“No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Memorable Pours of 2019 - Nikka Coffey Grain Whisky

Holy moly, it seems like just a moment ago that I was typing up my favorite pours of 2018 and yet here we are at the conclusion of another year ... and decade for that matter. I've decided to mildly change things for 2019 and go with 'memorable' rather than 'favorite' pours. The truth is, I find some enjoyable aspect of nearly every whiskey I have tried and/or purchased through the years which results in my 'favorites' list being in a state of constant flux. Memorable whiskies however are those that come out of nowhere and totally blow my socks off or punch way above their weight. Essentially, these are whiskies whose purchase was a leap of faith or one that I had no great expectations for yet they dazzled and delighted.

First up, we head to Japan and one of Nikka's two distilleries, the Miyagikyo Distillery. Opened in 1969 and featuring eight pot stills, it's Miyagikyo's other still type, of which they have two examples, that is the focus today - Coffey column stills. Purchased by Nikka's founder Masataka Taketsuru in 1963 from the James Calder & Co. distillery in Bo'ness, Scotland, a Coffey still is an early variant of a column still, named after its inventor Irishman Aeneas Coffey in 1830. Column still manufacturers improved on Coffey's design through the years and today, column stills are used all over the world to produce almost every type of distilled spirit. What makes Nikka's two Coffey stills special however is that they are effectively distillation time capsules - woefully inefficient and primitive when compared to their modern-day counterparts, Nikka's Coffey stills produce a distillate entirely unique and only possible in those nearly sixty year old stills.

Nikka produces four types of spirits in their two Coffey stills - gin, vodka, malted barley whisky and the inspiration for this writeup - grain whisky. Of the four Coffey distilled spirits, only the malted barley and grain whiskies are exported to the United States. Speaking of grain, in Nikka's case, the grain consists of corn, 95% corn coupled with 5% malted barley. After distillation the grain whisky is sent to what is assumed to be a wildly diverse set of barrels for maturation - ex-bourbon and sherry all at various stages of 'freshness', hogsheads, butts, new oak, the list of possibilities really is staggering. Frustratingly, but understandably, Nikka remains mum on precisely how diverse their whiskey maturation barrel spread is. From here, Nikka's blenders take over, selecting and batching the final product from that deep and varied roster of barrels. Not for not, but here is where I personally feel the Japanese excel in whisky production - blending a myriad of different maturation styles into a final, composed whisky.

This bottle of Coffey Grain came into my life in precisely the same manner that the bottle of Nikka Pure Malt did - on clearance at my local grocery store. Marked down to $44.99, my curiosity peaked and the bottle came home with me. At the time of purchase, I had no knowledge of the whisky's tasting notes, production characteristics, or how it had fared on the various whiskey review sites across the Internet. I quite literally went into my first pour with zero idea what was in store for me. Imagine my genuine surprise when my first sniff of the glass reminded me immediately of corn whisky. Perhaps naively I had no expectation whatsoever that a Japanese distillery would choose to make a corn whisky; of all the grains I would have anticipated the Japanese using, corn was never in the realm of possibility for me. The aroma wafting up from the glass was seductively shocking - sweet corn, creamed corn, kettle corn, vanilla, some caramel are all at the forefront of the aroma. With time and patience, a gentle floral perfume emerges from the sugary shadows of the corn. Also lurking behind the corn sweetness is an unmistakable grassy grain/barley note. Really delicious stuff.

Moving on to the taste, I recall muttering my satisfaction such that my much better half's curiosity was peaked and asked to join along in the tasting. The sweetness from the nose continues on to the tongue but to a lesser degree. The whisky tastes sweet, but not a cloying sweetness; a controlled sweetness. The vanilla continues as does a subtle savory floral note. There is a dry grass/grain note on the palate as well as subtle fruit like apricot and nectarine. There is a creaminess, a velvety smoothness to the whisky that totally cloaks the respectable 45% ABV bottling strength. The finish, the weakest part of the experience for me, is medium-short and definitely left me wanting for more. The addition of water slightly tames the sweetness and exposes more of the floral/grassy notes, but to my tastes, the whisky is just about perfect exactly as it pours from the bottle.

It would be reasonable to think that Coffey Grain's 95% corn mashbill would make it an excellent and safe recommendation to anyone that enjoys bourbon, but I don't think that is the case at all. Nikka's Coffey Grain is far too gentle and restrained when compared to a typical bourbon's bold oak, caramel, and alcohol punch. I would however recommend this to fans of Scotch and Irish whisky, particularly if sweeter drams are enjoyed/preferred.

In a somewhat amusing (and frustrating) aside, I so enjoyed my initial pours of Coffey Grain that I swung by the same grocery store a few days later to pick up another bottle at their marked-down price but alas, the shelf space was empty; the clerk told me someone showed up and purchased the remaining three bottles claiming the price was too good to be true. And this brings me to the Debbie Downer aspect to this tale - the increasingly ludicrous (personal opinion) price Japanese Whisky commands at retail. Beginning in 2015(ish) and continuing through today, Japanese whisky prices have relentlessly climbed higher and higher. Today, the average asking price for Nikka's Coffey Grain whisky in my area is $70 - $80, nearly double what I paid for it. Personally, as much as I enjoy this whisky, I do not see myself willingly purchasing a bottle at today's asking price. At the end of the day, this is still a non-age stated grain whisky. Yes, it delivers an enjoyable experience, but that enjoyment is disproportionate to its current retail price in my opinion.

My recommendation is to seek out a reasonably priced pour of this whisky at a bar. Happily, the whisky is readily available and given the very posh reputation Japanese Whisky holds at the moment, the chances of finding a bottle at a watering hole is high. Give it a shot and if it twinkles the stars in your night sky, then seek out a bottle to call your very own.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and may your chestnuts be roasty while your angels be heralded and singy.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

It’s always refreshing to be reminded of just how good you actually have it in life. Of course such reminders usually come about when one ventures outside their tried and true comfort zone or rolls the dice on a completely unknown prospect. In the context of whiskey purchases, such a notion is far less daring than say investing in the latest startup that you read about on FaceTube or deciding now’s the time to finally start that Hootie & The Blowfish tribute band. I deviated from my established whiskey purchasing guidelines recently, twice in fact. One outcome was poor, the other quite good and in the end I was reminded of how reliable an old friend really is.

If you haven’t heard, American Whiskey is (has been) booming. As with most boom-town stories, the influx of interest brings an influx of cash which in turn brings a complete spectrum of options to the new legions of consumers. The options range from hidden gems offered by truly passionate small-scale producers to vastly overpriced and over-hyped snake oil products offered by hucksters. Sadly, the common readily available options are all too often brushed aside and forgotten, perceived as too pedestrian when compared to the new shiny offerings twinkling on store shelves. Every now again I succumb to this very failing, enticed by the prospect of discovering a gem yet unknown to the masses.

The first purchase, a ‘boutique’ bourbon from Finger Lakes Distilling in Burdett, New York came with a disproportionately high price tag that was, on the surface at least, justified by lofty and transparent production characteristics - barrel proof bottling strength, non-chill filtered, low (though not disclosed) distillation proof and low barreling proof (50% ABV vs the common 62.5% ABV). More influential however was the disclaimer that the whiskey spent the entirety of its six-year maturation in a barrel constructed of a variant of oak, Chinkapin, I’d never personally encountered. There is precedent for trying to discover exotic woods in which to mature whiskey; the Japanese whiskey world is enamored with Mizunara Oak and Buffalo Trace has launched an entire (and very difficult to find) series of releases featuring exotic wood varieties from around the world in which they age their bourbon. Whiskey nerds love to dissect minute aspects of whiskey production, but barrel characteristics has got to be a top-three topic. All this explains why a mysterious and exotic sounding oak variety led the charge in inspiring the purchase of an unknown and expensive whiskey.

The bourbon’s specifics:
McKenzie Single Barrel Bourbon (Bourbonr 6th Anniversary)
Region: New York
Mash Bill: 70% Corn, 20% Rye, and 10% Malted Barley
Strength: 52.8% ABV (105.6° Proof)
Color: Natural Color
Filtration: Non-Chill Filtered
Maturation: 6 Years in 100% Chinkapin Oak
Price: $75.00 (Seelbach’s)

The Good: The smell and initial taste are entirely unique to any other bourbon I have enjoyed - a green wood nuttiness but minimal resin and non-existent oak char. Controlled sweetness, far more corn sweetness than say brown sugar/caramel sweetness. I’d say this bourbon straddles nicely between sweet and savory.
The Bad: There is a musty, bitter nuttiness that appears towards the tail end of the sip and lingers throughout the finish. This bitterness is reminiscent of a roasted walnut that's started to go a bit rancid. The bitterness lingers for quite some time, hours in fact in the mouth, analogous to the lingering smokiness of a peated Islay Single Malt. Personally, I am not a fan of this impression, but others might be.
The Ugly: The price, by a long shot. There are just far too many bottles that retail for far less that I enjoy more than this bourbon. I can officially say that I regret making this purchase.

The second purchase, another ‘boutique’ bourbon (albeit to a lesser degree), from Newport, Kentucky, came at a price lower than its New York companion, but higher than the average bourbon of a similar age and strength. New Riff is a new kid on the block but has sent shockwaves through the whiskey world with their remarkably well rounded bourbons that totally betray their short maturation periods. Typically aged around four years, New Riff’s bourbons should be a fiery handful with plenty of alcohol prickle, but miraculously, New Riff’s bourbons are nothing of the sort. Like Finger Lakes Distillery, New Riff also distills and barrels at lower proofs than virtually all major producers, though no specifics are disclosed. One specific detail worth mentioning is this bourbon’s astonishing rye content. Most bourbons feature a rye content measured in teens, rarely cracking the 20% mark, but New Riff opted for a lofty 30%!

The bourbon’s specifics:
New Riff Single Barrel
Region: Kentucky
Mash Bill: 65% Corn, 30% Rye, and 5% Malted Barley
Strength: 56.2% ABV (112.4° Proof)
Color: Natural Color
Filtration: Non-Chill Filtered
Maturation: Four Years and One Month
Price: $49.99 (Total Wine)

The Good: Smell, taste, and finish all shine in this bourbon. It is astonishing to me that such a young bourbon can exude such well rounded composure. There is a sweet candy sugar nose and a huge punch of rye in the taste. There is not one ‘rough’ or unenjoyable aspect to this bourbon.
The Bad: Okay, this is a stretch, but I’ll go with price. $50 is not abjectly out of place in today’s market and it’s certainly better than the $75 that the McKenzie above commanded, but it does feel just a tad overpriced. On the flipside though, I have enjoyed every pour from this bottle and as such, when this bottle is finished, I will purchase another at this price with absolute certainty.
The Ugly: Because New Riff is a smaller distillery, their distribution reach and volume, particularly outside of Kentucky is quite small which in turn equates to a hard to find bottle locally. Luckily here in Florida, I have seen bottles of their bourbon and rye show up on Total Wine shelves and thus far they tend to stick around rather than be instantly swept away by the bourbon nerds. I have yet to see New Riff in any other store in my area however, be it a chain or a mom-n-pop store.

As I contemplated these two bourbons, a $75 dud and a $50 surprise, flashes of another bourbon that I purchased around the same time kept popping into my thoughts - Wild Turkey 101. Why Wild Turkey 101? Well for two reasons: the insanely low price I paid for a bottle and just how tasty I have always found 101 to be.

First, the Kick’n Chicken’s specifics:
Wild Turkey 101
Region: Kentucky
Mash Bill: 75% Corn, 13% Rye, 12% Malted Barley
Strength: 50.5% ABV (101.0° Proof)
Color: Natural Color
Filtration: Chill Filtered
Maturation: NAS ('up to 6 to 8 years' as shadily proclaimed on the back label)
Price: $13.99 (Publix Supermarkets, sale price)

Ultimately, I poured a half ounce of the two boutique bourbons and tasted blind against a half ounce of the 101. I was able to correctly identify each one, the McKenzie due to its bitter note, the New Riff due to its rye punch and higher proof, and the Wild Turkey by process of elimination (and for being all around pleasing). Rating the three bourbons, I placed the New Riff in the top spot, followed by the Turkey, and sitting a distant third was the McKenzie. Not a terribly shocking ranking given my impressions above, but when you factor cost into the rankings, things become decisively convincing.

I purchased that bottle of Wild Turkey while passing through my local grocery store which had the whiskey marked down to $18.99 / 750ml bottle. If you bought two bottles, you received an additional $10 off the total purchase. That extra discount brought the pre-tax price of each bottle down to $13.99. Think about that, thirteen dollars and ninety nine cents for a 50.5% ABV, 6-8 year old bourbon that stands up to any desired application - neat, over ice, in a cocktail, or even in cola. Most striking however was the fact that such a budget-friendly bourbon that is readily available totally dominated a specialty bourbon that not only cost five times more but required far more hoops to jump through in terms of ordering/shipping. To be fair, it is said that Wild Turkey is capable of producing 9.5 million proof gallons of whiskey each year. Despite not knowing the specific annual output volumes of Finger Lakes or New Riff, I think it safe to speculate that neither come anywhere near Wild Turkey’s production output which in turn means that Wild Turkey has far more margin with which to leverage in offering their bourbons at lower prices.

While I will temper my cost criticism of the Finger Lakes bourbon, I simply cannot ignore the fact that I enjoyed Wild Turkey 101 far more. This collision of a high cost for a less enjoyable whiskey is what left me feeling regret over my purchase of the McKenzie bourbon. In the big picture, it’s not that big a deal. While this experience will serve as a reminder to be a tad more cautious when contemplating the purchase of an unknown whiskey, my positive New Riff experience ensures that I will not totally write off exploring future boutique whiskeys. More importantly however, this experience serves as a great reminder to be thankful for that which I already have. Often times we sadly tend to take for granted the familiar and loved items in our life. Here, in some small way, is a reminder of how foolish that is.