Old Forester Birthday Bourbon

I’ve never had the pleasure of tasting this specialty bottling of Old Forester so when I saw it at BevMo last week I had to swoop it up. They also had a 75th Anniversary Prohibition Repeal box set with a smaller bottle of what I assume is “commemorative” whiskey and a sweet Old Forester sniffy glass.

Again I find myself totally impressed by what is in my glass. This particular bottling was distilled in 1997 and bottled in 2009. So it is double digits in age, always a good thing. At 97 proof it is exceptionally smooth with a splash of cold water. Initial prognosis was vanilla, cranberries, bacon. It has a nice dark complexion and looks great in the glass. Sweet flavors left the glass smelling like some sort of bourbon infused cotton candy the next morning (typical of most older bourbons).

I really like it and will be drinking it only on special occasions… maybe birthdays (durpa durp). Over time I have found that if I drink the fancy bottles like they are every day pours I am sad that they are gone so fast. So I’ve been trying to make anything over $45 last a while.

Old Forester Birthday Bourbon

Van Winkle Lot B 12 Year Old Bourbon

After many months I broke down and decided to splurge on a nice bottle to make up for my b-day, my ten year anniversary with Xty and June’s lamenting of my father. I felt I deserved a nice bottle, it’s been a while… what the hell?

I went ahead and got the 12 year old Lot B Van Winkle since I really wanted the 23 year old 🙂

I also purchased the Lot B because it was the first bourbon I ever drank neat. It was the first bourbon that I had that was just pure sipping satisfaction. It was sweet but robust and very old for its age. Albeit it is the Van Winkle way of making bourbon. All bottles in the Van Winkle line up taste rather mature to me. Perhaps it is because it sleeps in the barrel for so long.

For the money it is probably the best bourbon you can buy in the $50.00 range. There are a few other bourbons that can kind of give it a run but at the end the Lot B always wins in my book. I love the wheat and if I were a baller it would be my “regular” pour.

Lots of love for this and you should always go Van Winkle if the option is available. It’s great bourbon for the sake of bourbon, how it should be.

12 year old

Old Forester Signature = Tasty Bourbon

Man there is nothing I hate more than when I buy a cheap lower shelf liquor that turns out to be better than most most mid shelf and dare I say… even some top shelfers! I got this tasty treat for $18.99 and the regular Old Forester is $13.99! I chose the Signature bottle because I figured the 100+ proof would give me more bang for my buck (terrible way to look at things I know but times is hard).

It was like me and this bourbon have known each other all along. It is delicious! At first sip I thought it had a copper flavor thing going but it went away. Now all I taste is good bourbon juice. It’s more on the heavy mellow side with hints of vanilla and is very easy down the hatch. I like it with a splash of water.

I am most interested in trying some of the Old Forester specialty bottles, I am sure they must be great. Just remember that it is what’s on the inside of the bottle that counts.

Old Forester Signature

Wathen’s Kentucky Bourbon

I’ve recently been drinking Wild Turkey 101 and the reliable Weller 90. They are good earthy whiskeys, even though they are different flavors the two share similarities as far as sweetness and oakyness go.

This week while at my local BevMo I decided to pick up a bottle that A) I had never seen before and B) was less than $30.00. Alas we have Wathen’s Kentucky Bourbon a nice change from my recent regular pours.

I found it to be pleasantly fruity with hints of citrus after the initial alchohol whiffs (it is 94 proof) but even at 94 proof it was enjoyable served neat. It offered a chewy, buttery floral flavor with hints of some nutty vanilla sweets. A bit of water really brings out the best of this whiskey. The next morning my glass smelt of sweet cotton candy. It’s quite a treat.

Wild Turkey 101

Ahh the old savage turkey juice, I know, i know long time no whiskey. I have been drinking Weller 90 for the past 6 bottles. Oddly enough over the course of the past year I have only enjoyed one bottling of the Wild Turkey, Russel’s Reserve. It was okay but I never got around to trying any other bottles. My dad and his friends used to take this stuff down with cokes back in the day so when I need to break a twenty bill last night and picked up a small bottle of WT101. It was good and reminded me of the Russel’s Reserve but it tasted more oaky and a little less corny. I actually enjoyed it a bit more than the RR.

I bought a small 200 ml bottle and I decided it’s good enough to drink right out of the bottle (never done that before) it’s a nice change from the Weller. Either way it’s good whiskey, I always sort of shunned it as it’s not too rare and you can pick it up at any convenient/drug store. But now I’ll be sure to get a bottle when ever I see some on sale (cuz I’m a cheap fuxxer these days ~ Alas the old lady is getting ever so close to landing a paying gig) one of my favorite parts of drinking bourbon is the little stories the write up for the labels. They all say great things like hand-crafted and age old tradition. I found the Wild Turkey story to be extra awesome:

“The famous name on this bottle comes from a group of wild turkey hunters, one of whom brought a special 101 proof barrel-aged bourbon on their annual hunting trip. In the later years they always requested ‘that Wild Turkey bourbon‘ and to this day it is still hand-crafted in the same slow traditional way.”

This bourbon is much like that story. It is short and sweet (not too sweet) but gets right to the point (drunk) with that 101 punch. Enjoy neat.

Wild Turkey 101

Last to bed, first to rise

Edit: this was written at 6:34 am on Sunday morning.

Why oh why is it always like this. No matter what I do I am always the odd ball who stays up way too late and then wakes up like four hours later. Right now it’s freezing and I’m sitting next to a portable heater with a cat who is sort of awake too.

If my intestines don’t lie, it’s safe to say that last night I drank quite a bit of Weller Antique 107 proof. First and last thing I tasted. My guts still kind of burn and I might need some tums.

Overall I enjoyed this bottle of Weller as much as their other bottles I’ve tried. A few things I liked about it were the price, the color and that’s pretty much it. I didn’t so much like the taste. It’s very old timey, cough syrup sweet with subtle hints of oak. I found it to be similar in taste to the 7 yo 90 proof but it’s still different enough to favor the 7/90.

It really reminded me of Bulleit, which markets itself as a frontier whiskey. They share the same copper penny flavor and a somewhat orange hue. It’s also got a little edge to it. I found to be better with tons of ice and a little water to be safe.

Whenever I have some bourbon I find too sweet it usually tastes better if I leave it alone for a few days and then give it a try again (see old grand dad.)

Weller 107

Recent Decent Sips

So before turkey day I went and picked up two bottles. I wanted a nice bottle but there weren’t many options so I opted for two decent bottles.

One was a Weller 7 year old. It’s good and much different than the stellar 12 year old. Somewhat floral on the nose and packs a nice balance of sweetness and light oak on the palate. It’s a great anytime bourbon because it’s just so damn good and the price of $16.99 it’s damn near impossible to find a better bottle.

The second bottle was an Old Grand Dad 114 proof. Upon first sip (after having a few wellers) it tasted pretty gross. It had a sweet Italian sausage thing going on. I really thought it was pretty foul. I put it all the way in the back of the milk barn.

I gave it a few days and hit it after a hard day of work and it was much better. It still had a little of that sweetness and was a bit musty. I also picked up some fruityness. It really tastes like basement to me but in a good way.

I found it goes great with lemonade. The two just mix into each other and you end up with a sweet treat.

With or without lemonade it is a good sipping bourbon (just not as cheap or as good as the Weller).

old grand dad

weller

Very Special Old Fitzgerald

More wheat? Yes please! I love wheat, seriously I eat cream of wheat on the weekends. Delicious!

I made a goal to buy a new bottle once a week. The catch is it can’t be from the old Buffalo Trace distillery. I love the stuff but at any given time 85% of my bottles are from BT. It’s good bourbon.

Which brings us to the Very Special Old Fitzgerald, a 12 year old wheater. It’s a nice change. It was a lonely bottle at bevmo so I gave it a chance. It was a bit on the pricey side for a bottle with no cork (again doesn’t matter, it’s good stuff) at $36.

I’ve only sipped on it a few nights now so I’m still feeling it out taste wise. It is definetly sweeter than most the wheaters I sip on. Ha ha I can’t really say more, it is good though and I will buy one for the bunker next time I see one.

Note: I could not pour two glasses and keep the bottle totally full like they did in the photo. Perhaps it was a magic bottle of VSOF.

Very Special Old Fitzgerald

Well Well…

W.L.Weller is the greatest! I resisted it… I am a doushe. I totally discriminated because it has a twist top (doh!) It’s really good and very nice to the wallet at $23 a bottle. I always thought for that cheap and no cork it must taste like ass. Now I’m thinking a cork maybe totally a cosmetic thing. Because this stuff is smooth and it’s 12 years old! The Van Winkle 12 year old is usually $50 (not anymore though because I now know that bevmo does price matching.)

There are a few other bottles they make that I will soon be making permanent fixtures in my milk dungeon. It’s made with wheat (instead of rye?) and it taste similar to the Van Winkle stuffs (also wheaters… except for the rye, because obviously it’s a rye.) A lot of people say great things about the Weller stuff but I slept. I’m excited.

Go get some now and be impressed.

Weller 12 year old wheater

ER10 vs ER17 – Final Showdown

Okay so I just sat with the two again. Only this time I had one ounce servings of each side by side, two times. The ER17 was noticeably darker than the ER10. Again I really didn’t notice any major differences between the two. There were however enough subtle differences to make the two stand apart from each other a bit.

So really I am no major spirits writer, bourbon just tastes good. As does wine, I just happen to like bourbon a little bit more. I think the majority of spirits writers/reviewers/whatever have these overtly fantastic descriptions of tastes and it always leaves me a bit confused. Like I don’t often taste hints of citrus but have read it in descriptions of bourbons I drink regularly. It could be that I identify what that person identified as citrus differently.

I was talking to this guy at BevMo last Wednesday and he was telling me that reviewing a drink should take three words, two words if it’s really good. Which makes sense to me too. I mean surely we all have different tastes and what I enjoy occasionally my friend may not enjoy ever (Willet.)

With that being said I think that there’s nothing too complicated about this comparison. The ER17 is better. But to say it correctly; the ER10 is better (than the average cheapo bottle) and ER17 is best (as far as Eagle Rare goes.) I found the ER17 to be more of everything I enjoy in the ER10. Sweeter (chocolate covered cherry?), darker, more oak flavor and it is noticeably smoother. It’s good enough to drink straight and it’s 90 proof. I can’t seem to find a proof statement on the ER10, but I think it’s also 90 proof.

The next morning I went over to the empty glasses and took a sniff. They both had some pleasant scent left in the glass but I could tell which one was the ER17 because it smelled almost like cotton candy 🙂 The smell took after the sweet cherry flavor I was tasting.

I’d say if you’re just starting out or don’t see any sense in dishing out sixty something dollars for a bottle to go with ER10. If you’ve had a few bottles or are a purveyor of the finest milks you may want to try the ER17. Will the difference wow you? Maybe. It didn’t wow me all that much but I can appreciate it for what it is. Now to get my hands on some of the other bottles from this years Antique Collection.

Eagle Rare 17 Year Old

Just got back from my local BevMo and swooped a bottle, this bottle is from the 2008 Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. Nasal passages detecting a mustiness and hints of tobacco… old as balls, bitter tobacco. It’s really dark colored too.

I’m currently sipping about an ounce in my sniffy glass straight. It’s been sitting for a few minutes. The smell hasn’t died down so I’m going to give it a cap full of water. Okay, two caps of water. I think it’s good to go.

Wow. Well my first instinct was “shit, I like the 10 year old better.” I gave it a few sippers and realized it’s a completely different taste. I need to try some with a little ice.

Once I poured me a glass with some ice it turned a nice gold color. It’s really good because it so different. At first it smells and tastes like regular old Buffalo Trace with earthy/leathery notes, but it’s got that sweetness that regular ER10 packs.

Even then, it’s a different kind of sweet. A bolder, thicker sweet along the lines of cherries and vanilla. I usually find the ER10 to be on the cinnamon side of the sweet, kind of a side effect rather than one of two major taste elements.

Either way it is a nice change from the Eagle Rare I’ve come to know and love. I will probably enjoy the bottle more as I have few pours. Some bottles take a little time to appreciate.

Edit: I got a bottle of the ER10 and they in fact do taste very similar. I think last time I was drinking the ER10 I was in a festive mood and had a few drinks. The 17 year old is good though.

eagle rare 17 year old

In Preparation

I swooped up a Maker’s Mark Rock the Vote edition bottle. It’s solely for the purpose of getting lit on election night. When Barack Obama is announced president I will peel off three layers of wax and get my Maker’s Mark on. I won’t even get into the other option. I can promise it will require a visit to the ER.

Makers Mark - Rock the Vote