The finest bourbon I have tasted. Yet.

[BmillsSkier]

Nice collection!

Anyone get the feeling (it could just be the bottles) that Noah's Mill and Rowan's Creek are the replacements for the much loved Black Maple Hill?

Are they NDPs?

[ColoMike]

Thanks. Missing my Weller 12 year that is no longer available and some of the others that used to be drinkers and that have become "highly sought after" and now you can't find. Those were some of my favs. was a great tour guide for those. Re Noah's and Rowan's, bottles are the same. Flavors are not. Who knows where the juice is coming from.

[ColoMike]

Cruiser, freakin' owl eyes to spy that. Buried in that mess is another Noah's that is open. Time will get us there. Still the BEST BOURBON EVER is that Evan Williams from 2001 you sent me to. I hoard that like it is the dew that collects off of the eyelashes of unicorns. Just. The. Best. Bourbon. Ever.

[iceman]

Quiver pic. This thread has cost me a few $$; all well enjoyed. Quite a few trophies in this mix.

Attachment 172445

The woman in the background doesn't look very impressed.

[BmillsSkier]

Re Noah's and Rowan's, bottles are the same. Flavors are not. Who knows where the juice is coming from.

wife and I had a celebratory in-laws went to bed bourbon tasting tonight. The Black Maple Hill was tastier, and finished better than the Pappy 15. Take that for what it's worth.

EDIT: to add, I've been picked in Woodford all day

[bagtagley]

Stagg allotment just came in. Been two years since the last. The bottle is going to the impossible-to-shop-for old man for Xmas, so haven't tasted it yet. I'll report back around noon on Xmas day.

[Tippster]

Killed off most of another bottle of the Willett Pot Still Reserve yesterday. So damn good.

[Cruiser]

Crazy thing is that we're lucky to get a few bottles of the pot still at our shop and when we do they retail for like $50. But then I was down in Nola visiting my mom and I see bunches of them on sale at the local grocery store for $30 (which is less than or wholesale cost). They appeared to have an unlimited supply. The dirty south is bourbon country though...

[Tippster]

$45 here and worth every penny.

[iceman]

Do you think you guys are possibly getting hoodwinked?

For example, Willet's, Rowan's and Noah's are all brands of KBD (Kentucky Bourbon Distillers), which used to make bourbon prior to 1984 and restarted production in 2012 but you're not drinking that yet. KBD refuses to say who makes Willet's for them but people speculate it's Heaven Hill (Heaven Hill's distillery is a half-mile from KBD headquarters, on the same street).

Heaven Hill is privately owned but they own a large number of brands, most of them pretty off-brand shit like Burnett's Vodka and Christian Brothers brandy and O'Mara's Irish Cream liqueur. They do make Evan Williams, which I have liked in the past. Which is not to say Willet's isn't good - I've never tried it in fact. But the provenance is suspect, to me at least.

And go down the worm hole with Woodford's and it takes you to Brown-Forman, a huge conglomerate. And Booker's is made by Jim Beam. Those are all the ones I looked at but I suspect it's that way with most or all of these brands. I've had to leave the liquor pretty much alone over the past few years but what do you think? Are you guys buying fancy bottles filled with suspect over-hyped mass-produced and relabeled liquor? Or is it really that good?

edit: I really haven't read this thread, maybe this has all been covered, if so, sorry. I was bored watching the interminable TCU-Baylor game last night and nobody was posting so I spent some time reading about bourbon.

[Tippster]

Oh I get that KBD just stores & bottles liquid gold distilled by others, but they do their own QC and blending before bottling. This makes them basically equivalent to Negociants in the wine world.

Remember when High West started selling their Rye whiskies - all aged 6+ years - right after they opened? Yeah they bought that stuff from someone else. Doesn't make the booze less good. They're not alone either. There has been a huge explosion in boutique distillers over the last couple years. Unless they're selling un-aged or minimally aged liquors they are all selling someone else's product initially. It's all about the pick of barrels and the blend.

Not sure what's wrong with Beam having high-end whiskies. It's not the same stuff just in a different bottle.

[Meadow Skipper]

The whiskeys taste different though. There may be an analogy with skis - brands make different qualities in their line, and some outsource the construction. Never Summer factory has at least one other brand there.

But bottom line is the taste, and KBD/MGI, and Beam, and all the rest have different juices that they age and bottle in different ways. Sure, the stuff is overpriced and overhyped a lot (or most) of the time, but Booker's is definitely different from Jim Beam white label. Not always, but usually the more expensive stuff is better because of things like Tip mentioned. If you guys are ever in NM I could host an interesting sit-down tasting.

My current go-to - Blanton's - has been hard to find lately which is irritating. I've been getting ryes instead - High West Rendezvous and Lot 40, and I'm very happy with those.

[Cruiser]

Sipping a glass of Elijah Craig cask strength from last year's release. I'll be damned if it's, not the best value in bourbon available today (even if it's only a little bit available).

[ColoMike]

The woman in the background doesn't look very impressed.

Ice, She rarely is.

[ColoMike]

Sipping a glass of Elijah Craig cask strength from last year's release. I'll be damned if it's, not the best value in bourbon available today (even if it's only a little bit available).

Cruiser, The Elijah is very nice. Have one that is not opened and will open soon. Still love the Four Roses single barrel from your shop better. Spicy and clean. The Evan Williams 2001 is better than Mary's tears for me. Clean and carmel. Should have bought a case.

[Cruiser]

I just opened my last bottle of that 4 roses least week. Man, that stuff is nice! But yeah, that old Evan Williams was tits. That and the barrel of Eagle Rare we bought a couple of years back (right before they shut down the barrel program in our market) were the best ones we've come across so far. Although the Blanton's barrel was pretty freaking nice as well. Thinking about it now, we've bought some ridiculous barrels of whiskey over the years. The god damned barrel of smooth ambler 8yr rye makes me weak every time I have a sip.

[bgrayvy]

Do you think you guys are possibly getting hoodwinked?

For example, Willet's, Rowan's and Noah's are all brands of KBD (Kentucky Bourbon Distillers), which used to make bourbon prior to 1984 and restarted production in 2012 but you're not drinking that yet. KBD refuses to say who makes Willet's for them but people speculate it's Heaven Hill (Heaven Hill's distillery is a half-mile from KBD headquarters, on the same street).

Heaven Hill is privately owned but they own a large number of brands, most of them pretty off-brand shit like Burnett's Vodka and Christian Brothers brandy and O'Mara's Irish Cream liqueur. They do make Evan Williams, which I have liked in the past. Which is not to say Willet's isn't good - I've never tried it in fact. But the provenance is suspect, to me at least.

And go down the worm hole with Woodford's and it takes you to Brown-Forman, a huge conglomerate. And Booker's is made by Jim Beam. Those are all the ones I looked at but I suspect it's that way with most or all of these brands. I've had to leave the liquor pretty much alone over the past few years but what do you think? Are you guys buying fancy bottles filled with suspect over-hyped mass-produced and relabeled liquor? Or is it really that good?

edit: I really haven't read this thread, maybe this has all been covered, if so, sorry. I was bored watching the interminable TCU-Baylor game last night and nobody was posting so I spent some time reading about bourbon.

Lots of truth in that post. But a friend of mine back in Louisville works on the production side of Woodford - it is as advertised/marketed. Can't say that for some others.

Regardless, this Kentucky Colonel is glad to have finally stumbled into this thread and is happy to see such fans of the Commonwealth's greatest export that is not on four legs.

[Cruiser]

Pappy allocations came out right before Thanksgiving. Ours was so small compared to previous years that it was just absurd (and our overall biz with Sazerac was up this year). According to the Saz rep draws were down significantly over last year and this year they want 70% of the product going to on-premise accounts (restaurants and bars). So we put the few bottles that we got up for silent auction starting yesterday and ending on the 20th. The bids are already crazy. The first guy to bid on the 15y put down $400 and it's a virtual certainty that he won't be the high bidder with this long left. It's good juice, but is it that good?

BTW, we're donating anything over the wholesale cost to charity. Not just price gouging and pocketing the booty.

[Meadow Skipper]

^^^The amount people are willing to pay is stupid, but major props to your LS for donating the profit. Very cool.

I guess I need to drop by my LLS and see if they were able to put anything aside for me, but the crazy secondary market for this stuff kind of takes the fun out of it.

I mean, when I can't even find Blanton's easily... Hope this bourbon craze goes away.

[Cruiser]

I check cl for Pappy this time of year because it amuses me to see what folks are asking for the stuff. There has been a trend in the last couple of years of shop owners taking their allocation and, instead of selling it in their stores, selling it on cl for ridiculous sums of money. It's become such a shit show. Kinda funny though when you step back and look at it from Julian Van Winkle's perspective. That cat is winning.

[Meadow Skipper]

My LLS only got 9 bottles of PVW, and I didn't luck out. Reading /r/Bourbon on Reddit, it sounds like no one got shit except for restaurants.

It depressed me to no end seeing how quickly High West's Midwinter's Night Dram rye disappeared.

Shit's crazy. Can we just make rum, or something like that, the Next Big Thing?

[Cruiser]

The high bid on the 15y is up to $525 with a week still to go. Amazing...

[Meadow Skipper]

I actually stashed the last bottles of 15 yo and 20 yo that I got, thinking I would save them for a special occasion. Now I'm scared to drink them, which is kind of fucked up.

[ColoMike]

The high bid on the 15y is up to $525 with a week still to go. Amazing...

So Cruiser, what is the bid up to now?
Still shaking my head about seeing 12yo Old Rip for $600 in Wheat Ridge (in a locked case. The year before it was on the shelf). Had 2 bottles at that price that disappeared in less than a week. Makes me want to hoard my 20yo Pappy like unicorn's tears...

[Cruiser]

Up to $700 for the 15y and, if I know one of the guys who has been outbid like I think I do, he'll push it as high as he needs to in order to get the bottles he wants. Crazy, huh?