Has the TTB Failed Us?

The label on a bottle of whiskey is extremely important to consumers. There’s a vast amount of information that can be gleaned from each label. What happens when we can no longer trust the information presented to us? The consumer is in trouble. If you’re not familiar, the Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is responsible for regulating and approving whiskey labels. They’ve also been the center of whiskey label controversies over the past few years. Without diving too deep in to the controversy, multiple distilleries and Non-Distiller Producers (NDP’s) have been called out for mislabeling their products. Their response was “the labels were approved by the TTB” or some other form of a hand washing rebuttal. read more

Distilled Spirits Council Releases Growth Report

Every year the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States releases their market report. It’s 40 pages of boring graphs and bad stock images. Since I’m well versed in both I decided to pull out the interesting parts for the Bourbonr readers.

If you’d like to read the full report you can do so here: Distilled_Spirits_Industry_Briefing_Feb_3_2015_Final read more

Single Oak Project Almost Complete

The always innovative Buffalo Trace is ready to release the final round of their Single Oak Project. This is BT’s quest to find the perfect bourbon based on mash bill, entry proof, stave seasoning, grain size, warehouse, barrel char and tree cut.

This is the stuff bourbon nerds dreams are made of. read more

Russell’s Reserve Getting a Makeover

This appears to be a label change only

ECBP Release #7 Ready to Go

Heaven Hill Distillery is set to release their 7th installment of the Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. This release will be exactly 128 proof and 12 years old. No word on when it will hit store shelves but I’d expect it in the next couple of weeks.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof will begin to ship February 2nd! read more

Willett White Dog is Coming

According to TTB labels approved today, Willett will release 2 unaged whiskies a rye and a wheated mash bill. This will be Willetts own distillate. That part makes it interesting to taste but I would prefer a 375 ML bottle because who really wants a whole bottle of white dog. What is also interesting is the release will be cask (still) strength. This would be the perfect bottle for home aging. read more

Single Barrel Limited Edition Dropped

Four Roses announce that they will not releases their Single Barrel Limited Edition (SBLE) in 2015 (an indefinitely). This was originally reported by Fred Minnick on his blog and  is now making its way around the bourbonsphere. In a release Four Roses names “bourbon shortages” as their reason for cancelling the release. The SBLE was first released in 2008 to celebrate 120th anniversary of Four Roses. Check out the list of all of the Four Roses Single Barrel Limited Edition  mash bills by year. read more

Diageo to Bring Back I.W. Harper

Based on TTB filings approved on Monday Diageo is bringing back the I.W. Harper brand to the US. We don’t have a lot of information but here’s what we can gather from the filings.

– Two releases. One Non-Age Stated (NAS) (assumed to be 4 years+ since it’s “straight bourbon” with no age statement) and the other 15 year read more

Is Bourbon Age Important?

There’s a lot of emphasis placed on a bourbons age. Some brands state the bourbons age on the label with pride while others, for multiple reasons, choose to leave it off. Recently, there’s been several brands that decided to drop the age statement from their labels (Grab Jim Beam Black while it still has the 8 year statement). Prices often increase with the age of a bourbon. Are older bourbons really worth more? Or, is it just more expensive to produce older bourbons and we accidentally correlate price and quality? There’s no denying age is a key ingredient in bourbon quality but it can also be a bourbons downfall. Age is the fickle beast of the bourbon process. read more

The Most Underrated Bourbons/Whiskies

What if some of the best bourbons and whiskies are the ones that go unnoticed? The bourbon that never receives the attention or accolades but tastes just as good as the special releases. A few weeks ago I read a post about most underrated bourbons (sorry, I don’t remember where but if someone comments the article I’ll cite it here) so I thought I would give you my list of underrated bourbons or whiskies. This isn’t an “under-valued” list but rather great tasting bourbons that, for whatever reason, don’t receive the attention of some of their counter parts. Also, this is my opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree. read more