Review: WhistlePig Whiskey

Among the boutique American whiskies that have flooded the market in the past decade, the new WhistlePig Straight Rye Whiskey immediately stands out. Because its bottled (not made) in Vermont, a state that doesn't produce a lot of spirit, yes. But also because it's debut bottling is ten years old.

Most new whiskies are, for economic reasons, put out on the market as quickly as possible, usually when they're four years old or less. Age statements are rare, and, quite frankly, few of them impress, tasting too much of their too-sharp youth. The folks at WhistlePig decided to wait. Their rye is 10 years old. The difference shows in the taste, which is intense, bright, fruity, minty and spicy. It's a bold, commanding flavor profile, unmistakably rye, and intensely flavorful at 100 proof. Mega-rye in a way.

WhistlePig is the work of distillery owner Raj Peter Bhakta and master distiller David Pickerell, who served at Maker's Mark for 14 years until 2008. Pickerell joined the effort a couple years ago. Why is WhistlePig ten years old? Not necessarily because Bhakta and Pickerell were patient, sitting on barrels for a decade. WhistlePig is a found whiskey, you see. After an 18-month search, Pickerell located a rye whiskey in Canada that was intended, as most Canadian ryes are, as a blending agent and acquired it. The Made-in-Vermont label, then, is just feel-good marketing for now.

The Vermont labeling will work well for consumers, no doubt. But the creators shouldn't be shy about saying the stuff comes from Canada. I think a lot of spirits enthusiasts and cocktail geeks would be very interested in what a pure Canadian rye tastes like.

Don't know what Pickerell would think of me for doing it, but I spent the last two ounces of my small sample of WhistlePig making an Old Fashioned. I do not repent. It was a hell of an Old Fashioned. A stand-up cocktail. I never forgot I was drinking rye, and good rye, too. I followed that Old Fashioned with another made with a different whiskey (which I shall not name) and it was a distinct let-down.

WhistlePig is putting out only 1,000 cases this year, launching in New York City, with some cases going to Chicago and San Francisco. The price is unsurprisingly dear, $70. I'd recommend buying a bottle, though. Worth it.

White Dog Has Its Day

I first tasted white dog at the Labrot & Graham distillery, where Woodford Reserve is made. I remember everyone else around getting very excited about tasting this just-off-the-still clear joy juice, and my thinking it was moonshine and was going to blow the roof off my head. I was surprised when I tasted a delicate, fruity, multi-faceted liquor that I almost preferred to the aged Woodford.

Soon after that visit, I began to see commercially released white whiskeys on the market, first, and most commonly, Death's Door from Wisconsin. That Buffalo Trace recently got into the game is a sure sign that white dog has hit the big time, and that this spirit is never again going to be a secret caviar savored only by liquor geeks who either make their own or sip it on the sly during distillery visits.

I just wrote an article on the phenomenon for the New York Times:

Moonshine Finds New Craftsmen and Enthusiasts

By Robert Simonson

IN early April, Kris Comstock, a representative for the Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky, conducted a seminar on bourbon at Char No. 4, a bar in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, that offers 150 kinds of American whiskey.

Among the bourbons he poured were Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare and Blanton’s. But his students weren’t interested in those.

“The first thing that everyone wanted to taste was the white dog,” he said. “We make products that win amazing awards all around the world, and they want to taste the white dog.”

White dog, or white whiskey, is, basically, moonshine. It’s newborn whiskey, crystal-clear grain distillate, as yet unkissed by the barrel, the vessel that lends whiskey some or all of its color and much of its flavor. And white dog is currently having its day.

“Aging in wood has many beautiful effects on a spirit,” said Tad Carducci, half of the cocktail consulting duo known as the Tippling Brothers. “But it does tend to disguise whatever the base spirit is. When you strip that away, you’re getting a real sense of what wheat offers, or rye or corn.”

Unlike vodka, in which the source grain is often purposefully purified to a vanishing point, white dogs are pungently fragrant, with a chewy sweetness to them.

This spring, Buffalo Trace began a limited commercial release of its white dog, which until now was available only as a much-coveted souvenir from the distillery’s gift shop. The bottles took their place on store shelves next to a growing line of colorless whiskeys.

Most are the work of young micro-distilleries like Death’s Door, in Wisconsin; Finger Lakes Distilling, in upstate New York; Tuthilltown, in the Hudson Valley; the Copper Fox Distillery, in northern Virginia; and House Spirits, in Portland, Ore.

There are so many white dogs on the market now that Joe Carroll, owner of Fette Sau, a bar and restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, offers a white-whiskey flight. Passengers on that flight, he said, include everyone from informed whiskey aficionados to inquisitive novices who think whiskey is born brown. “They’re curious because they don’t know anything about it,” he said.

According to Max Watman, the author of the recently published “Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw’s Adventures in Moonshine” (Simon & Schuster), the trend is being fueled by two very differently motivated groups: practical-minded distillers and ravenously questing enthusiasts. “It’s obviously a boon to small distilleries,” Mr. Watman said. “If you’re making whiskey, you’ve got to keep the lights on and wait. It helps to be able to sell something right away. But that’s not the end of the story. I think anybody who’s ever toured a distillery and tasted this stuff coming right off the line is surprised at how delicious it is. Everybody says, ‘Wow, you should sell this!’ ”

The “you should sell this” moment for Death’s Door’s founder, Brian Ellison, came in early 2008 when he was preparing to age some red-winter-wheat-based distillate. A small Chicago distributor thought the raw liquor was so good he asked for 50 cases as is, and quickly found buyers.

“I always thought at some point people would get tired of it,” Mr. Ellison said. Instead, Death’s Door has sold more white whiskey in the first quarter of this year than it did in all of last year. Mr. Ellison is thinking of putting in some spring wheat to keep up with demand.

“The word ‘curiosity’ is very apropos,” Mr. Carducci said. “People who are spirit geeks are always looking for the next curiosity. But what happens is they become hooked and think it’s an actually respectable spirit.”

Gable Erenzo, a distiller at Tuthilltown, said that its Hudson New York Corn Whiskey — one of the earliest of the new white dogs to hit the market — has been steadily creeping up in sales, and he is not surprised. “We knew this was going to happen,” he said. “People, especially bartenders, were excited when they heard we were making a corn whiskey.”

Not just bartenders, either. Even though home distilling has long been illegal in America, interest in it is rising. The Web site homedistiller.org has 5,500 members, with handles like Kentucky Shiner, upinthehills and toofless.

One New York state moonshine hobbyist with more than 30 years’ experience behind various stills, who asked that his name not be used because of the legal issues, said the commercial distillers are “trying to replicate traditional methods, which is essentially what I do.”

He said he was not surprised by the advent of commercial white dogs. “I’ve been telling people for years that they have to taste corn whiskey, so that when they taste whiskey, they can find their way around the inside of their mouth.”

That said, he’s not overly impressed with what’s coming out. “The hobby distillers who are on the foodie bent are making better whiskey than you can buy. Period. No question about it. You just can’t do as good a job making 1,000 gallons at a time as you can making 10 gallons a time. There’s people making white dog that is mind-blowing.”

All this attention is focused on a kind of spirit that’s been around as long as there have been hills to hide stills. While moonshines of yore found a test of their mettle in whether they could keep the Xs on Pappy Yokum’s eyes, today’s legal lightnings are seen as finessed expressions of the spirit maker’s art.

“You’ve got less to hide behind,” Mr. Watman said. “You can mask a lot in a heavily charred barrel. You don’t get any pass with white whiskey. All you have is an expression of the distiller’s craft and the agriculture from which it came. It ups the stakes of the craft end of it.”

With that clarity in mind, the mixologists playing with this new toy are keeping things simple, building on standard cocktails that highlight the grain spirits’ natural flavors.

Mr. Carducci used Death’s Door as the base of his Albino Old-Fashioned at Bar Celona in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he did some consulting work.

Damon Boelte, bar manager at Prime Meats in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, uses the same brand for the Good Word, his white-dog take on the classic Last Word.

Ehren Ashkenazi, beverage director at the Modern, uses it for Devil in White, a spin on the Manhattan, and Jim Meehan, of PDT, pairs Finger Lake Distilling’s Glen Thunder corn whiskey with sake and Galliano L’Autentico in his Brewer’s Breakfast.

Mr. Carroll, of Fette Sau, wonders whether the current fascination with this baby spirit will last.

“It will be interesting to see if the distilleries continue selling white dog when all their other whiskeys mature,” he said.

For Mr. Watman, however, as long as there are whiskey drinkers in the world, there will be a place for white dog. “Part of it is an enthusiasm for a spirit we already love,” he said. “If you love whiskey, you’re going to love raw whiskey, too. It’s another way to taste the same thing.”

Cocktail-Glass Aging, or, Turning White Dog Tan

I recently met a bootleg distiller from upstate New York. We'll call him Laird. He's been making his own booze for about 30 years, and his knowledge of the craft is vast. I happened to have in my possession a few of the new white dogs that are on the market. I was curious what he thought of them, being a maker of white lightening himself, so I let him sample a couple.

After noting the presence of a paraffin flavor in making of the craft distillers making white dog out there, and generally disparaging the kind of cheap, Dutch stills he was sure each maker was using, he led me through an interesting science experiment. A friend of Laird's and mine—at whose home we met—is an amateur winemaker. He had some French wood chips on hand. Laird suggested I put a few of these in a glass of the Buffalo Trace White Dog (which has an alcohol content of 62.5%) and watch what happened. I was astounded. The whiskey started to take on the wood immediately. Within a minute, it was darker and tasted markedly different. In five minutes, it began to taste vaguely like aged whiskey. I had no idea such things could occur so quickly. "It only works with French oak," said Laird. "The French stuff is great for that. With American oak, it's a slower process." (Here's a photo of the whiskey in question, below.)

And that was that. Until I visited that same friend this weekend. He had an idea—wouldn't it be kinda cool to do the wood-chip thing, but in the context of a cocktail? Light bulb! It would indeed.

My friend gave me a small stash of French wood chips. I went home and prepared myself a white dog Old Fashioned, using Death's Door white whiskey. (Death's Door seems to be the white dog that works best in most standard cocktails.) I muddled a sugar cube with some Angostura, then threw the wood cube in there and stirred it around some more. I added the whiskey, stirred; ice, stirred.

It definitely looked darker than the white dog Old Fashioneds I had made in the past. But that could have been my dose of Angostura. It did, however, taste different. The woodiness came through. It was an interesting accent, one that I liked. And I loved the idea that the taste of the drink would evolve as I sipped at it. I was beginning to think I had stumbled upon a bit of mixology genius.

I moved on to a white dog Manhattan. I figured I could used the wood cube for the cherry. I used Death's Door again, employing Neyah White's white Manhattan recipe, which uses Dolin Blanc vermouth and Benedictine. One thing I discovered as I strained the cocktail into the glass: wood floats. Of course, I knew that. But I had forgotten, since the ice in my Old Fashioned had kept the chip well at the bottom of the glass. But there was my woody oaken bobbing at the surface.

The drink tasted good. But it didn't taste different. What's more, that color of the drink didn't change over time either—though it was hard to tell, what with the color of the Benedictine muddying matters.

I drew some conclusions. One, a wood chip just thrown in at the end doesn't have as much effect on a drink as one stirred along as the cocktail is made. Two, a wood chip is going to have more of a noticeable flavor impact in a sipping drink like an Old Fashioned than it will in an up drink like a Manhattan, which is consumed more quickly.

I wondered if a higher alcohol white dog would make a difference. It does in infusions, after all, sucking out the flavor of whatever's in the alcohol more rapidly. I made a Manhattan with the Buffalo Trace, using just Dolin Blanc. No Benedictine. There did seem to be a slight different in color and taste from the Death's Door Manhattan. But not much.

I had another idea. Maybe the coldness of the liquor was inhibiting the wood chips from doing their aging jazz. I put a cube in some room temperature Buffalo's Trace white dog for 10 minutes. It did its work; the whiskey got darker and sharper. I made a Manhattan with that. Different from the previous one, no doubt, even if the difference was subtle.

More wood chips in the drink would work quicker magic, no question, but it would also be more unsightly. Who would want to drink a Manhattan with five chunks of kindling floating on top?

I still think I'm on to something. This could be the latest bar gimmick. So if anyone out there reading this decides to start adding wood chips to their cocktails, please give me a credit. Of course, there is the question as to whether this would pass muster with the Health Department. But it's not like bartenders actually concern themselves with the health codes that much anyway...

Hell Freezes Over

Or, put differently, Maker's Mark has come out with a new bourbon.

For years, nay decades, Maker's Mark has made hay out of the fact that it makes one thing, and one thing only. Why mess with perfection, they trill. It's like a religion with them, this single-minded attending to The Great Waxy One. I was out there in Loretto, Kentucky, and heard the line when I asked them why they didn't  bottle an "over mature" bottle of Maker's, which I tasted and liked. Because the original is so good, they said. Why divert stock from a product the demand for which they can't even begin to satisfy?

Little did I or the world know that all that time—or at least the past few years—they've been working on a line extension. It's called Maker's 46, and it will be unleashed in June, with 10,000 cases shipping.

Maker's 46 is made of the same stuff and made the same way as the regular Maker's Mark, except for one critical aging fillip. When the bourbon is ready, the barrels are dumped of all liquid. Then, inserted into the barrels are twelve seared staves of French Limousine oak. Seared, not charred; the staves never catch on fire. The booze is poured back in and it ages for two to four more months before being bottled—at 46% alcohol, a notch higher than the regular bourbon. According to a spokesman, the new bourbon is targeted cocktail people and "original adapters of the brand."

The name derives from the fact that the approved formula was chief distiller Kevin Smith 46th try to get it right. Like WD-40. And despite the unorthodox aging twist (no bourbons I know are made using anything but American oak), the government has decreed it can still be called bourbon. New packaging, however, as you can see above. It'll be priced at about 20% above the benchmark Maker's, making it around $65.

Maker's Mark has not increased production, so whatever distillate goes into making Maker's 46 will be taken from what might otherwise be made into standard Maker's.

So what's it taste like? Well, it tastes like rye. Honestly. It's drier and leaner than the regular Maker's, and the sweetness one associates with Maker's is replaced like a tangy, zippy spiciness, which I, frankly, prefer. Not too spicy that it would scare of Maker's faithful. But certainly a step away from smoothness. I see it as working much better in classic cocktails like the Manhattan and Old Fashioned that does the standard Maker's.

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About the Knob Creek Bourbon Shortage

This month, I make my debut in Malt Advocate, the nation's leading whisk(e)y magazine, with an article on last year's Knob Creek shortage. The article's probably the closest I've come to a piece of quasi-investigative journalism in a while, and it was fun to put together, and a please to talk to (and in some cases, visit) the folks at Knob Creek, George Dickel, Jack Daniel's, Maker's Mark, Buffalo Trace and Heaven Hill. 

In the table of contents, I'm referred to as "new writer Robert Simonson." Funny to be called "new" after 20 years in the biz. But I'm new to MA, I guess. And who knows? Maybe people will think I'm 26 or something and start hiring me "youth-oriented" articles.

In order to give the folks over at Malt Advocate a chance to sell a few magazines, I'm just going to print a teaser of the full article here. Once the next issue is out, I'll print the whole thing.

When Knob Creek Went Dry

By Robert Simonson

Press is hard to come by in the whiskey trade. Unlike wine, which has a new vintage to talk about every single year, spirits, once established, get few opportunities to net additional ink. "Jack Daniel's: Still Here" does not a headline make. So publicity opportunities must be created. The most common way to do this is to release a limited edition whiskey—a strategy that has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. 

There's a new technique in town, however, and it draws on the inverse phenomenon: instead of a new product making its debut, an old one goes missing. 

In June 2009, Knob Creek had it's biggest media splash in years crowing over a temporary shortage of its 9-year-old, Jim Beam-produced bourbon. Full-page, full-color print ads in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal showed an upturned bottle of Knob Creek dispensing its last drop. "You may experience may experience something of a shortage at your local liquor store very soon," read the copy. "But not to worry, the next batch will be bottled and on the shelf in November." Some liquor journalists were sent empty Knob Creek bottles in expensive packaging, and consumers could buy t-shirt bearing the line, "I survived the drought of 2009." The news resulted in a wealth of stories, both in print and on the web, and the Knob Creek website reportedly saw a 69% increase in traffic from June through September 2009 over the same period the previous year.

Heavy on the Corned Beef Extract, Bartender, and Light on the Cabbage Water

Holidays bring out the wacky in bartender. Having only just survived an onslaught of Godawful cocktail ideas for Valentine's Day, here come the specialized St. Patrick's Day libations.

I'm sure there will be more contrived abominations between now and March 17, but surely the Corned Beef Collins takes the cake. This delicacy comes from Richard Blais. I'll say nothing. Just read the recipe.

Corned Beef Collins 

1 ½ oz Michael Collins blended whiskey

2 oz Fresh sour mix 

2 oz Club soda

1 eye droplet of Corned beef extract (corned beef drippings from pan)

1 splash Cabbage water

Corned beef spices and cabbage oak, aroma

Shake whiskey, corned beef extract and sour mix with ice. Pour into Collins glass and top with club soda. Smoke corned beef spice blend (bay leaf, black pepper, coriander, salt, mustard seed) with oak chips and present smoke suspended in covered, inverted glass. To serve, remove glass to infuse the air with the smell of corned beef and enjoy!

Of course, in today's cocktail world, you just know there will be some purists who will actually be most horrified by the inclusion of Sour Mix.

Review: Two Single Malt Irish Whiskeys

You don't see too many single malt Irish whiskeys. Single malts are Scotland's thing. Ireland has traditionally gone for blending, not just of different grains, but also products of both pot and column stills; plus triple distillation. Scotch: rough; Irish: smooth. But single malt Scotches hold a certain appeal as a terribly authentic and pure tipple to a certain breed of customer. And lately, Ireland—whose whiskeys become more popular in the American market with each passing year—has been savvily getting more into the single malt game.

A big new entry in the Irish single malt category this year was Tullamore Dew Single Malt 10 Year Old. And it's been getting pretty high marks all around. It comes in at 40% and is matured in Bourbon, Dry Oloroso Sherry, Madeira and Port Casks. The result is very pleasing. It has a deep fruit nose, rich, with cherry, vanilla, toffee and caramel. On the palate, you get some iodine, tangy spice and heat, but also round fruit flavors of cherry, orange and apple. It has a prickly, tingly finish that stays with you. I haven't met a person who doesn't like it yet. It goes for $30.

Another single malt I recently tried is rarer still than the Tullamore (which send 400 cases to the U.S. in 2009), but made by a quixotic producer that's been at it for years. It's the Knappogue Castle 1994 Master Distiller's Private Selection. This Irish whiskey producer based in County Clare is known for its aged single-malts. American and single-malt enthusiast Mark Edwin Andrews started making them when no one else in Ireland was, buying barrels of single malt from Bushmill's and others, who were using the stuff for blending. It's first bottling was the 1951, put out in the mid-1960s, but mainly distributed among friends.

Knappogue started selling in Ireland in the 1970s. The last bottling was in 1987. Andrews died five years later. His son, also names Mark, started the business up again in 1997, buying barrels just as his father and putting vintage stamps on each. He achieved his father's dream of selling Knappogue Castle in the U.S.

Knappogue is now releasing a 1994. The source whiskey was triple-distilled one batch at a time in copper pot stills in February of 1994, aged in bourbon oak casks which were singled-out and selected by the master distiller last fall, and bottled in December of 2009.

The Knappogue has a bright, light lemon-orange color (no caramel coloring is added) and a lovely, mildly spicy, citrus and, yes, orange-licorice nose. Tasting it is quite an experience. I've never tasted a whiskey as orange-y as this. Miles and miles or ripe, sunny orange, tangerine, tangelo, orange zest—whatever round orange citrus fruit you care to mention. It takes some getting used to, it's so different. But once you do, you love it. There're other things in there, like vanilla and milky caramel, apple, banana, and every candied cherry, but they mainly serve to lend depth to the central flavor. It wonderfully mellow with a long, long finish. 

They only made 1,000 bottles of this. Even at that it only costs $100. I'd say it's worth it.

Don't Get Them Confused

At the George Dickel distillery in Tennessee. Proper labeling always helps.

Review: Malted Wheat White Whiskey

I figure that headline is enough to get you to read this item.

Wheat whiskey we know. White whiskey is a growing market. But malted wheat white whiskey?

This product, surely unique (for now) in the liquor market, comes from Death's Door, the Wisconsin micro-distillery that already produces a vodka and a gin, and, for my money, it's the best thing they've done.

I encountered it at Bar Celona, the new Spanish-influence cocktail and tapas bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Tad Carducci of Tippling Brothers is in charge of the cocktail program. I had had a couple drinks, and was about to clear out when a colleague recommended I try the Albino Old-Fashioned. Well, "Old Fashioned" are two words (one word?) that always catch my ear. So I stayed and had another. Am I glad I did. It was one of the most original and delicious spins on the old drink I had ever had. It was composed of white whiskey, sugar, bitters, brandied cherries and grapefruit peel, and was as mellow and smooth as a southern California day.

I asked what whiskey was being used and the bartender showed me what appear to a clear bottle, the kind waiters plunk down in trendy bistros as your water decanter. Looking more closely, there were a few words on it, near the bottom, in black. "Death's Door Whiskey." Then, in smaller letters "Made with wheat from Washington Island, Door Country, Wisconsin." To me, the simple bottle is one of the great design triumphs in modern liquor packaging.

My colleague and I thought that this might be the first appearance of the product in a New York bar, but we weren't sure.

Death's Door rolled out the whiskey last year. It's not just another moonshine jumping on the bandwagon. It's an unusual un-aged combination of 20% malted barley and 80% organic hard red winter, all grown grown in Washington Island, which lies in Lake Michigan just off the Door County peninsula in Wisconsin. It sits in stainless steel barrels for three weeks and then oak barrels for 3 days, at which point it’s bottled.

The result has a beguilingly fruity nose of melon, a few vague tropical traces and baked sweet breads. (Not sweetbreads, but sweet breads.) It's strongly flavored, but mellow, as I saw, and soft, with muskmelon, golden raisins, baking spices, apple, maybe some white pepper. It's not hugely deep, but it's hugely appealing. And it has a long finish, a nice companion on a cold night.

I made a Old Fashioned for myself at home using the stuff. It wasn't as good as the one at Bar Celona (I didn't follow their exact specifications), but it was damn good.

While were on the subject of Death's Door, the company has wisely listened to their marketing people and debuted some new bottles. It miles beyond the old, dull, high-shoulder wine bottle with a simple map of Washington Island on the label. Death Door's Brian Ellison tells me I'm the first to see the new bottle, even before the new distributors. Which means you, readers, are the first enthusiasts to eyeball it on the Internet.

Review: Macallan on the Fly

Macallan recently (OK, not so recently—July) released upon the world its 1824 Collection, "a new family of single malts developed exclusively for the Global Travel Retail market." (Their capitalization, not mine.) That means whiskey for Duty Free shoppers, Ducky! That's right, you can't get this outside the airport. So pay attention to the names and look for them. Because they're all good.

The three expressions (there are four, actually, but I haven't tried the Limited Release, probably because, well, it's so limited) are Macallan Select Oak, Macallan Whisky Maker's Edition, and Macallan Estate Reserve. I began with the Reserve. I shared it with the wife. After a sip, I asked her what she thought. "Good," she said. (The wife keeps it simple.) I agreed: "Good." That doesn't sound like much, but, really, there's very little to criticize about this Scotch. Using specially reserved Sherry-seasoned hogshead casks, this whisky's nose is caramel and butterscotch all the way. It's a smooth dram, very even, on the soft side with a little spice hit at the front, then smoothing out to butter, apple and caramel at the end. Mature and round. Lovely.

The Whisky Maker's Edition is drawn from booze distilled from barley grown on the Macallan estate. It's even smooooother than the Reserve. There's spice, but it comes in the mid-palate this time. A nose of caramel, candied orange and pumpkin spice (possibly, or maybe I'm just thinking of Thanksgiving early) leads to a taste of orange and maple candy. It's smooth as silk at the end, with a pleasantly light burning aftertaste.

Whereas the Reserve and Maker's seem like brothers of a sort, the Select Oak comes off as its own man. The distillers use three cask types: American oak seasoned with Sherry or Bourbon, and first-fill European oak casks seasoned with Sherry. The Sherry makes its presence known. This is lighter in color. It's bright and citrusy on the nose, with light caramel, nectarine and toffee. The Scotch has a much lighter body than the previous two. Again, it's bright, bright, bright. The spice is light and consistent throughout. Peach, ripe orange, Meyer lemon, cinnamon, vanilla bean. It makes you happy.

The prices say that the Reserve ($165 for 700 ml) and Maker's ($99 for 1 liter) are your prizes, but at $53, the Select Oak is a bargain. So, if you're switching planes and need to get shed some foreign moolah before loosing on the exchange...

Some New Whiskeys

I sometimes find the recent, non-stop onslaught of new, better, rarer, more precious and more prestigious whiskeys to be somewhat overwhelming. But the whiskey industry does not really care about my dizzy spells, so they keep on coming out with new versions of their dark amber product. Chuck Cowdery, who has an estimable blog about American whiskey, was good enough to round up the a list of Yankee-born coming attractions. See if you can keep them straight:

Parker's Heritage Golden Anniversary. A limited edition bourbon to commemorate Parker Beam's 50 years as master distiller at Heaven Hill Distillery. 100° proof, $150, out now.

Jefferson's Presidential Select. A McLain & Kyne bottling of 17-year-old Stitzel-Weller wheated bourbon. 94° proof, $90, out now.

Four Roses Mariage 2009 Limited Edition bourbon. Four Roses is unique because it makes ten different bourbon recipes. This is a mixture of two of them, one at 19-years-old, the other at 10. 112.4° proof, $70, out mid-September.

Buffalo Trace Antique Collection 2009. This is actually five limited edition whiskeys: William LaRue Weller Wheated Bourbon, Eagle Rare 17-year-old Bourbon, George T. Stagg Bourbon, Thomas H. Handy Rye, and Sazerac 18-year-old Rye. Various proofs, prices $60+, out October.

Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection 2009. Two releases, both double-barreled. The 1993 vintage spent 8-years in a new barrel followed by 8 more in another new barrel. The 1997 vintage spent 8-years in a new barrel follwed by 4 more in another new barrel. If you want to experience what that tastes like, buy both. If you just want the one that tastes good, buy the 1997. Proof and price unknown. Out October.

Rittenhouse Very Rare 25-year-old Single Barrel Rye. Heaven Hill has done something very interesting here, they have sold this same batch of whiskey at 21-, 23-, and now 25-years-old. Proof and price unknown. Release date unknown.