Review: Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Eureka!
I like great discoveries.  I'm not talking about scientific sleuthing leading to solutions of complex problems (especially mathematical ones).  I am talking about everyday life where I stumble upon greatness in any form.  For me, it usually takes the form of pop culture.  A great book, music or old film. Especially old films.

There is something about films from the 1960’s and early ‘70’s that evoke bitter/sweet nostalgic memories of Dad with big sideburns, Foster Grants and Mom in yellow while Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree plays on the 8-track stereo. The cheesy music, subtitles, wide lapels, bad hair, ya know what I’m talkin’ about. Think also Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Leone:

• A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
• For a Few Dollars More (1965)

Moving into the early 1970’s, the incomparable Bruce Lee:

• The Big Boss (1971)
• Fists of Fury (1972)
• Enter the Dragon (1973)

Bruce Lee has been such a discovery for me recently.  Here is one rare interview.  Like his films, there is an innocence, yet wisdom beyond his years. His movies, by anyone else are laughable, but by Bruce, well, you are humbled by his tremendous physical feats and thoughts of what a terrible loss, his life cut so short has been for so many of us.  By the way, check out the first punch he throws in this scene from "Enter the Dragon."  It is so fast, the camera catches a mere blur.  For his films, he was usually filmed at a slower tape speed to better catch his movements.



I have, once in a while, eureka moments in whisky too, and the discovery of Buffalo Trace is one of them . . .

Nose (undiluted)
Rich corn husk, vanilla, maple. Oh, I like this! Such unexpected refinement.  I am really surprised.  At this price point, I did not expect much.  American ingenuity at its best!

Palate (undiluted)
Smooth! Layered flavors of corn, vanilla and slight hickory smoke. Damn! This is good!

Finish (undiluted)
Tangy, easy spiced rye and some drying black licorice.  Wow!  Black licorice and charred American oak.  Hmm, hmmm good, like Mom’s apple pie with extra cinnamon coolin’ on the window sill with a tea towel covering it on a sunny day.

General Impressions
If you like bourbon or Tennessee whisky, you will definitely enjoy Buffalo Trace.  It is rich, rewarding and reasonably refined in spite of its ridiculously affordable price.  I paid around $20.  I would have been happy to pay double that for the quality of this drink. Matter of fact, I paid in excess of $40 for Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Select, and as you know from my review, it is not worth it.  It pales in comparison with Buffalo Trace.

Some reviewers have complained that the finish lacks length, meaning the flavors do not linger long once swallowed.  I disagree.  Length of flavor is fine.  Other reviewers just got it wrong.  Take it from me (heh, heh).

45% Alcohol/volume
The talent of a great whisky blender shines through in his or her ability to produce a whisky that may be high in alcohol volume, yet no raw rubbing alcohol flavor on the palate.  Buffalo Trace meets this significant benchmark of quality in remarkably elegant fashion.  It is made from corn, barley and rye that is aged in charred American oak barrels.  25 to 30 barrels are typically selected by the blender for the final product.

Have no fear, this is not rot gut for rummies.  There is no burn as it goes down. Just a gentle tickle that can be cured by another sip.  It is a comfortable whisky that can be sipped casually while you watch sports, chat with friends, stare out at a field of hay and watch it sway in the breeze.  It is so smooth and approachable that you can easily sip this neat.  No water or ice is needed.

As I said above, if you are a bourbon or Tennessee whisky fan, Buffalo Trace will prove to be a great treat!

Cheers!


Jason Debly

Copyright © Jason Debly, 2009-2011. All rights reserved. 

Poster owns no copyright to video of "Enter the Dragon" which is posted for the purposes of nostalgia, education and entertainment.

Basil Hayden's 8 yr old Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Great discoveries are often made by accident. Jeff Dufour wrote, in a 2006 article entitled, The History of Bourbon, a happy accident, (click here) that in the late 1780’s, Elijah Craig, a distiller of Bourbon County, Kentucky, took old fish barrels and used them for whisky that was to be shipped to New Orleans. In order to clean out the inside of the fish barrel, he observed the cheapest and most efficient way to do so involved burning the inside with an open flame. The charred interior of the barrel cured any smell or remnants of fish. Thereafter, Mr. Craig would send the barrels of Kentucky whisky by boat to New Orleans, a trip in those days that could take a couple of months. The whisky that arrived in New Orleans tasted better than when it left Kentucky. Suddenly, charring the insides of barrels became a must for Kentucky whisky distillers. The charred wood imparted flavors of vanilla, oak and smoothed out the roughness of the whisky.

What the above story has to do with Basil Hayden’s 8 year old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky, I do not know, but just felt compelled to impart that interesting anecdote to you. “Eric,” a reader of this blog, kindly provided me with a link to Mr. Dufour’s article that enabled me to learn this interesting tidbit in the history of American whisky. Thanks Eric!

In any event, moving right along, lately, I have been sampling Basil Hayden’s bourbon. I first tasted it at a whisky festival in November 2009. I was impressed and decided I needed a bottle for further study and eventual posting of a tasting note. Unlike a lot of reviewers on the web, I try to only post tasting notes based on my sampling of a bottle. I do not think an adequate opinion of a whisky can be formulated from a tiny 200ml bottle or at a whisky tasting. I need a bottle that I can return to several times over different evenings before coming to a conclusion as to a whisky’s merits and defects.

Nose (undiluted)
Floral, vanilla, corn husk.

Palate (undiluted)
Light bodied, gentle corn and rye tang, distinctive of bourbon, graces your taste buds like a tiny dancer. Summer easy sweet charcoal, like a wheeping willow tree graced by a light breeze. Caramel flavors hang in the background throughout the tasting.

Finish (undiluted)
Sweet corn, a little rye warmth, and the flotsam jetsam charcoal/vanilla flavors culminating in some of the mildest spice I have ever experienced in bourbon.

General Impressions
My immediate impression of this bourbon is that it is very light bodied and consequently easy drinking. Very easy! This is not spicy. Yes, there is some spice, but it is so mild that the word “spice” hardly seems appropriate. It would be the perfect ingredient in mixed drinks calling for bourbon, except it is too expensive to be used as mix. It is a mere 80 proof and tastes like less. This bourbon is so mild that if you have never had bourbon or always added ice or water, well if there was ever a time to try it straight, it would be now.

As a general statement, it is fair to say that when bourbon is sweet, it is due to the corn grain used. Rye provides spice. Without checking Basil Hayden’s website (click here) I was sure there was less rye (meaning more corn) in this bourbon recipe than typically found in other bourbons. Well, guess what? I was dead wrong. There are exceptions to every rule and Basil Hayden is one.

A visit to the website indicates that Basil Hayden’s 8 yr old bourbon is based on a recipe of twice as much rye as corn when compared to the recipes of the remainder of the Small Batch collection marketed by Beam Global Spirits and Wine Inc., namely: Knob Creek, Booker’s and Baker’s. Trouble is: Knob Creek and the others are a helluva lot more spicy, robust and challenging than Basil Hayden’s, but I guess it is not due to the rye content.

Anyway, back to my impressions of this bourbon. I am a bit underwhelmed (is that a word?) given the premium price for a whisky marketed as an ultra-premium bourbon. Why? This bourbon just lacks pizzazz. It’s too smooth, no burn going down, so gentle that you can never mind all that advice about taking little sips I make in other reviews. It lacks any challenge or intrigue. It's belongs in the featherweight bourbon division (there is no such division, I just made that up!).

Something can be simple yet interesting or memorable. We see this all the time in music. Take the catchy guitar riff in Daytripper by the Beatles or Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. The music is simple but its gotta 'hook' that brings you back for more. Whisky may be understood the same way. Jim Beam Black, Johnnie Walker Black are not overly complex, but have that “hook” that brings you back again and again for another sip. Basil Hayden’s lacks that hook in terms of flavor. For that reason, I would not buy it again, not because it is bad but rather because it is not "great."

So, who should buy this? If you are trying bourbon for the first time, this would be worth getting to know before you try much more robust and superior bourbons of the heavyweight division like Wild Turkey 101 and Knob Creek. Trust me, the latter whiskies will knock you out with a punch you won't see coming!

Cheers!

Jason

© Jason Debly, 2010. All rights reserved.

Review: Wild Turkey 101 Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Before I ever tasted bourbon, I associated that particular type of American whisky with a stream of images like: the Alamo, tumbleweed, cowboys and late night John Wayne westerns. Countless great, as well as utterly forgettable, westerns have actors like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood saddle up to the bar and order a bourbon that came in a little shooter glass. They would gulp it down and promptly wince in pain that would flash momentarily across their face.

Nick Passmore in an article entitled “The Kings of Bourbon” for Forbes magazine recounts the history of bourbon following the end of prohibition:

“When repeal of Prohibition came in 1933, people could start drinking again (legally), and the distillers could start making whiskey again (legally). But it takes a long time to make good whiskey. In the interim, imported Scotch, imported gin and imported Canadian whiskey all came flooding in, and imbibers soon developed a taste for them.

As its customer base deserted it, bourbon struggled. Instead of trying to refine it, distillers were forced push their whiskey out the door as quickly and as cheaply as possible. And pretty awful whiskey it was too.”

Given the above cultural mosaic that cluttered my spotted brain, coupled with the above checkered history of bourbon, it is understandable that I did not have an overly positive view of bourbon.

My opinion changed when I tried Jim Beam Black bourbon during a visit to the United States. I always make an effort to try the libations of the locals wherever I travel, and so I found myself, much like those cowboys in the western, sitting at the bar staring at amber liquid in a glass. Ahh, a legend in my own mind.

Besides Jim Beam Black, I have also reviewed Knob Creek. It get’s a big thumbs up too! So, when my brother showed up at my place at Christmas time with a bottle of Wild Turkey 101, as per my request, I knew I was in for a treat.

Wild Turkey 101

The ‘101’ in the name of this brand is an allusion to the 50.5% alcohol/volume or 101 proof! Not a trifling amount. Now, I know what you are thinking “. . . this is gonna taste like battery acid!” Not at all. You will be surprised if you give this Kentucky bourbon a taste.

At this point, I just have to tell you the quaint Norman Rockwellesque story of how the Wild Turkey 101 brand name came about.

In the 1940’s, Thomas McCarthy, the president of the Austin Nichols company (the company that owns this particular bourbon distillery), was going on a wild turkey hunting trip. He decided to select some choice 101 proof bourbon, from the company stocks, that would be shared with his friends during the trip. In subsequent years, McCarthy’s friends “always requested that Wild Turkey bourbon” and so a brand was born.

Nose (undiluted)
Classic bourbon bouquet of big time vanilla and sweet corn rising up from the bottom of my brandy snifter. The scent of red licorice also makes an appearance. I like this!

Palate (undiluted)
A rip roarin' entry of sweet corn and warm caramel, reminiscent of the hardened top surface of crème brûlée explodes across the palate. Mid-palate is where the spiciness of the rye says: “Hello!” or maybe “Whatcha doin’ there neighbor? C’mon over!” Besides the rye is that hickory wood smoke that is present, but not over-powering.

Mid-palate transitions to dark French toast drizzled with maple syrup, some old-fashioned molasses, charcoal, oak and of course, lots of vanilla. While the initial entry upon the palate was distinctly sweet corn, the middle and final stages of the tasting are dry, concentrated layers of oak, vanilla and cigar smoke.

Finish (undiluted)
The longest lasting flavors left lingering are of spicy rye, uncrushed peppercorns and, to a much lesser extent, vanilla. The flavors hang upon the palate for a considerable amount of time, about as long a rodeo cowboy on a bucking bull.

General Impressions
Big bodied, concentrated, powerful. Somewhat smoother than Knob Creek, but don’t worry, this is by no means a Plain Jane whisky. Plenty of flavors kick that palate into high gear. Please note, I am not saying Knob Creek bourbon is rough, but rather a more robust flavor profile than Wild Turkey 101.

Wild Turkey 101 delivers a robust, challenging bourbon to the palate that must be savored in small sips if consumed neat. In a nutshell, you will enjoy flavors of oak, vanilla and charcoal. Wild Turkey is among the most powerful bourbons, as opposed to the very delicate, ethereal ones like Four Roses and Basil Hayden’s.

As much as I like it, I would not recommend it to someone who is not familiar with bourbon. This is a big drink with a lot of punch. At the very least, if someone was interested in trying this as their first venture in the bourbon world, I would strongly recommend trying it with two big ice cubes in a tumbler, wait two to three minutes and then sip. The ice will tame the wild aspects of the flavors that roll into the palate like a Mac truck.

I am astounded that it is 50.5% alcohol/volume, and at the same time delivers an enjoyable taste without a nasty bite of alcohol. Matter of fact, you do not taste any alcohol. No need to add water in order to tame the flavor profile. If you prefer to add ice, it will be a beautiful marriage that you just arranged!

Value for Money?
“Uh huh, you betcha pardner . . .” The price is very reasonable. Good value for your dollar spent. Wild Turkey 101 can be purchased for as little as $19.99. It does not come in a fancy, cardboard sleeve like many whiskies or scotches (i.e. Johnnie Walker Black), and so it does not carry the cachet or snob appeal of those others. The marketing of this bourbon no doubt is like the philosophy of many Americans of Kentucky, unpretentious, honest and to the point.

Cheers!

Jason Debly

© Jason Debly, 2010. All rights reserved.

Knob Creek Bourbon

Rodney Dangerfield & Bourbon
The late, great comedian, Rodney Dangerfield, and bourbon share at least one common characteristic: “No respect.”



A lot of my scotch drinking friends and the whisky media regularly scoff at the idea of bourbon being a spirit that can be used in the same sentence as scotch. “Why?” you ask. They claim bourbon lacks the ‘complexity’ of flavors that scotch can deliver. While I will concede bourbon is probably less complex than top end scotches, nevertheless, it can offer complexity that beats out many scotches and provides a most enjoyable drinking experience.

It all comes down to how much you want to spend. Famous Grouse or J&B blended scotches are hardly complex in terms of flavor profile. Similarly, Jim Beam White Label is not complex. However, if you move up the Jim Beam product line (premium bourbon aged 8 yrs), complexity emerges. Jim Beam Black has some complexity but not a lot. Move into the ultra premium bourbons like Knob Creek (owned by Beam Global Spirits) and you will discover impressive complexity.

Knob Creek bourbon is aged nine years in new charred American white oak barrels. Nine years is around the very high end of aging for bourbon. There are very few bourbons aged longer than nine years. When bourbon first goes into the barrel it is white, crystal clear. The longer it ages, the darker it becomes, taking its’ color from the wood of the barrel. Those barrels are subjected to fire in order to char the wood. This is done because sap or sugars of the wood become absorbed by the bourbon resulting in color change and that charcoal / caramelized sugar taste that is unique to bourbon. Hence, the longer it ages, the sweeter the bourbon.

Bourbon Ingredients
Barley, corn (at least 51%) and rye grains make up bourbon plus pure water and a particular strain of jug yeast (the type of yeast is unique to each distiller and contributes to the signature taste). In the case of Knob Creek, a much higher percentage of corn is used than the minimum 51% requirement. No other additives are permitted. Also added to such a mash is a bit of mash (called the ‘setback’) from a previous distillation, which functions to ensure consistency of flavor and a signature flavor profile. These basic ingredients, by law, must originate in the United States.

All of the grains used in this bourbon come from within Kentucky. Specifically, within about 80 miles of the distillery.

Price
Ultra premium bourbon like Knob Creek is about twice the price of its entry level brethren. However, even at its price, it is still cheaper than most, if not all, entry level (ie. Glenlivet/Glenfiddich 12yr) scotch. From that perspective, it’s a bargain, as entry level scotch does not have the complexity exhibited by Knob Creek.

You also have to appreciate that a standard bottling of bourbon only has to be aged for two years. Naturally, aging additional years drives up costs.

Shortage?
All 2009 Knob Creek has been sold by the distiller. Apparently, no further orders to the distillery can be filled. Next year’s Knob Creek bottling commenced in October.

The Jim Beam group that owns this brand ran advertising in the Wallstreet Journal and the Washington Post about this ‘shortage.’ Much was made of this shortage, but I would not read too much into it. Their definition of such scarcity is a little self-serving. Oban, Lagavulin and many other single malt scotches have a limited production run each year and typically sell out too within the same calendar year. These distillers do not describe the sold-out situation as a ‘shortage.’ I guess the Jim Beam people just have more creative advertising/marketing people.

Nose (undiluted)
Sniff deeply, tilt the glass, so the bourbon almost touches the bottom of your nose. Big yellow dandelion flower up front, followed by minty, honeyed, rye and orange scented marmalade aromas. Southern refinement and sophistication is what you are enjoying.

Palate (undiluted)
The secret to drinking bourbon (and enjoying it) is a tiny sip. Very tiny! Take a big swig of this and you will instantly regret it as you feel a nasty burn triggering thoughts of air sickness. By taking a little sip the burn is limited or eliminated and in its place are many warming flavors to savor like: sweet corn, crème brule, maple sugar, slightly burnt caramel (but in a most pleasing manner!), a little dark chocolate, big oak, expansive smoked hickory and of course classic Jim Beam charcoal and vanilla.

Finish (undiluted)
Sweet honey/caramelized sugar and vanilla play a tug of war with drying charcoal/oak that eventually wins, as it evaporates across the palate with impressive spiciness.

Add Ice?
Add ice and you have a great party drink! I had a little Christmas party and was pouring this with ice and it was the surpsise hit of the night. Most of the guys were skeptical, but I urged them to try it and within a couple of sips I was hearing "That's good . . ." I must admit that drinking it neat is more for the serious bourbon fan, but with ice, it becomes enjoyable by anyone who likes a little hard stuff on the rocks.

General Impressions
A total pleasure! Big bodied with larger than life flavors of smoked hickory, vanilla, oak, charcoal and maple sugar just impress the heck out of me. This is refined, sophisticated, and balanced. Every element of the flavor profile fits. I wouldn’t change a thing, even if I could.

That being said, I think if you are new to bourbon, this would not be suitable as your first ‘toe in the pond.’ Why? For the novice, if they make the error of taking to big a sip of this spirit, they will likely find it revolting and forever after never try bourbon again. That would be a terrible mistake! I want you to discover the secrets and wonderment of bourbon. So, if you are novice, start with Jim Beam White label or Wild Turkey, add a little ice and take a sip. Once you become accustomed to the standard bottling, it will be time to move on to Black label and other premium bourbons before finally arriving at Knob Creek, Wild Turkey 101, Woodford Reserve and others. A process that would take several months in my opinion if not a year.

Woodford Reserve is direct competition for Knob Creek. I tasted them both side by side and preferred the Knob Creek by a wide margin.

Bottom Line
A fantastic, big bodied bourbon, serving up maple sugar, vanilla and charred oak flavors with sophistication and charm that the American south is known for! This is the reason Knob Creek is the No.1 selling ultra premium bourbon in the world.

Cheers!

© Jason Debly, 2009-2011. All rights reserved.