Before you grab your pitch forks, let me explain. I understand, for some bourbon enthusiast defending Diageo’s Orphan Barrel Project is like rooting for Ivan Drago in Rocky 4 or wearing an Iceland jersey in Mighty Ducks 2. Forget the marketing. I want to focus on the taste in the Oprhan barrel line up. Yes, I do believe there are several good – great bourbons in the Orphan barrel line.
Lets begin with what a blind tasting isn’t. A blind tasting isn’t selecting 3 bottles of bourbon and having your spouse pour them while your back is turned. True blind tasting is when you have no idea what will be in the glass. It could be Pappy Van Winkle 23 or Cleveland bourbon. It’s up to you decide whether or not the bourbon is good. True blind tastings reveal how good your favorite bourbon is. Maybe I have a twisted sense of humor but there’s nothing funnier than seeing a guys face when they realize they rated their favorite bourbon at a 70 or less.
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.
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.
Special releases and limited editions are something we talk about a lot on Bourbonr so every fall we let you vote on which release you liked the best. It was a tough choice but a winner has been crowned! There were close to 1,900 votes cast over the 3 days of voting. If a whiskey didn’t receive more than 10 votes I didn’t include it in the chart.
A couple of months ago FiveThirtyEight posted an article about the secondary market in the sneaker industry. Now, I’m no sneakerhead (although I do still have a pair of gray Jordan XI in my closet) but the article was extremely interesting and I couldn’t help but draw comparisons from what is going on in the sneaker industry to the current bourbon market. The sneaker industry releases special edition shoes to which people camp out for, riot over and in general go a little too crazy over what is, in my mind, “just a shoe”. Sound familiar? Nike (Buffalo Trace) releases special edition Air Jordan’s (Pappy) which are by far the most popular and bring the highest secondary prices. However, there are other releases like the Lebron’s, Kobe’s and KD’s (BTAC) that also fetch multiples on MSRP on the secondary market.
TLDR: Buffalo Trace aged 5 barrels of their wheated mash bill for 12 years on floors 1, 5 and 9 and is releasing each floor under the Experimental Collection. See my tasting notes below.
FRANKFORT, FRANKLIN COUNTY, KY (Dec. 9, 2014) Earlier this year, Buffalo Trace Distillery released an experiment consisting of barrels aged for the same length of time on different floors in the same warehouse. The experiment was met with great interest, as many bourbon connoisseurs are thirsty for knowledge about how atmosphere affects the taste of their favorite spirit.
Admittedly, this is probably the most sensationalized titles I’ve used for a post on Bourbonr but there’s a reason. With the Pappy Van Winkle release in full swing there have been multiple Bourbonr’s that noticed the laser code on their bottles were 2013. In fact, there have been several states releases composed only of laser codes reflecting 2013. This led to speculations and accusations of Pappy hoarding (a felony in the bourbon world) aimed at retailers, distributors and Buffalo Trace (BT) themselves. Questions began to fly! Was Illuminati involved? Does Skull & Bones control the Pappy distribution? Did Dick Cheney have anything to do with this? All valid (sarcasm) questions so I decided to hunt for answers.
Thanksgiving is a great time to eat, drink and be merry with friends and family. For bourbon drinkers it also caps off some of the best bourbon releases of the year (unless you’re in FL or some other unlucky states like me). But, how do you work bourbon in to your Thanksgiving? This post is not about bourbon recipes but rather bourbon/whiskey pairings to enjoy with your Thanksgiving feast.
First, this post is completely from the perspective of a consumer. I’m not a retailer nor have I worked for a retailer. However, I do talk with a lot of Bourbonr’s across the country and have come to realize what works and what doesn’t work for liquor stores.
Second, a word to the consumer, an understanding of the odds is imperative when hunting Pappy Van Winkle. Most estimate the Van Winkle release to be between 22k-24k bottles. My estimate would say that there’s about 15-20 times the amount of people looking for a bottle. That means for every twenty calls a stores gets only one of those customers will get a bottle.