Double Blind Review: 3 Unrelated Ryes

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I recently realized I had about one pour left of two different rye whiskies. I needed the shelf space so I poured them into small bottles and stuck them onto one of my shelves. They sat there for a while. 

A long while.  

I like rye. But unless it is amazing, I normally put it into a cocktail. A sazerac or a manhattan made with a decent rye whiskey is one of the best things that a person can imbibe. I'd had both of those in cocktails and neat. I mostly preferred them in a cocktail. But I like rye. And these two had only one pour left. If I was going to review them, I was going to have to not put them into a cocktail. I was going to have to put them into a glass all by themselves and think about them. 

Cocktails are good. They do not tend to lend themselves to the contemplative tasting. But that's part of their charm. They taste good. And that's their purpose. A bad whiskey can be interesting, a bad cocktail needs to be dumped out. 

So here is a double blind tasting of those two ryes that I normally used in cocktails and another that I felt belonged since I like three way tastings way better than two... 

So there. 

I started in the usual double blind fashion of pouring and then letting my wife mix them up. I knew which whiskey equaled which number, she knew which number equaled which letter and neither of us knew what was in any of the glasses.

Rye A:

Nose: Honey, slightly soapy. Hints of grass follow.

Mouth: Sweet up front, mint and grass follows

Finish: This is a hot one. There's a tingle through the entire mouth. It fades into a bitter citrus pith in the throat.

Overall: I like this, but I'm not sure this is something I would drink alone. It hits all the notes I want a rye to hit, but it isn't one that I'd go to neat on a regular basis. 

Rye B: 

Nose: Sweet. Butterscotch with a hint of baking spice

Mouth: Soft is the best word I can use. This is a sweet one. 

Finish: Minty cool plus heat. This is the Icy-Hot of finishes. But it fades pretty quick. 

Overall: I loved the mouthfeel of this one. There was an elegant softness that I wasn't expecting. I know that two of these are 100 proof or over and one is 80. So I'm guessing this  is one of those. I don't care. I think I'm in love.

Rye C:

Nose: Fresh mown hay, then a hint of banana and mint.

Mouth: Thin. There isn't a lot of flavor here. Sweet and spice with a hint of bitter, but you gotta search for it.  

Finish: Finish is where this brings its game. It fades from the sweet into a bitter spice. There isn't a lot of heat, but this leaves a tingle.  

Overall: Standing on it's own, this is a meh. I wouldn't put it into a glass, but if I was at a bar I wouldn't turn it down depending on what else was back there. It's really just ok.  

So what was what? You can see which three were being reviewed in the image above. So I'm just going to spill it. A was Rittenhouse Bottled in Bond. B was Wild Turkey 101 proof. C was Old Overholt. I was a little surprised at how much I liked the Wild Turkey, because none of these are very expensive. If you can find Wild Turkey Rye 101, it's pretty reasonable. Rittenhouse is under $25 and Old Overholt was bought for like $11 or so. Not really surprised that they ended up where they did. 

My wife checked my work tonight. She thought I was mostly right, but when she tasted the Rittenhouse she proclaimed: "ooh. I don't like this." Since she doesn't actually like rye neat, I wouldn't take that too hard if I were them.

Well, now I'm off to pour what's left together and make the world's most strangely concocted manhattan.  Well, as far as the whiskey is concerned. The manhattan will follow my standard recipe. 

A Head-to-Head-to-Head Tasting: Very Special Old Fitzgerald 12 Year, Larceny, & Old Fitzgerald Bottled in Bond

Has it finally happened? Has my nose unclogged? Have my senses of smell and taste returned to me? Am I ever going to stop asking questions and get on with this?

Yes. To all of them. My wife and I have finally come close enough to kicking the cold/flu that felled us in the late December/Early January that we can breathe again. We can laugh without coughing again. And most importantly, our tastebuds and our sniffers work again.

Last year, round about September, I hit on the idea that to really know the minute differences of different bourbons, I needed to compare them to one another. Have them side by side. Smell one, smell the other, smell my hand*, and start over again. So while I was in Kentucky, the land of bourbon, I decided to start picking up a few things with an eye toward head to head tastings. Some of them were planned. Some of the stuff I lucked into. I was checking out when I'd notice a small bottle of something. Maybe it was a different proof than what already had. Maybe it was a mini of another release of something I had at home. I collected things all autumn long, buying bourbon in at least 6 different states along the way. It was fun. 

But by the time I was about to get started on the tasting fun. BLAM! Laid out by tiny little viruses. So unfair. And now we're back to the present. About to dig into a trio of wheaters from Heaven Hill. so how did I decide on these? Well, a little bit of luck and a tiny bit of planning. I've had the Very Special Old Fitzgerald 12 Year Old since a visit to Des Moines, Iowa this summer. I picked it up because it was something I knew I couldn't get here in Minnesota. Or at least I had never seen it. The Larceny was released right about the time I was going to Kentucky. I got a $10 rebate on the bottle and it was also on sale for roughly $22. Buying that was a no brainer. At that point it seemed I had a pretty nice head to head going. It wasn't a planned one, but hey, I'm not one to sneer at dumb luck. One problem, those two wheaters were both MSRP'd like premium bourbons. One of the things I had read about Old Fitzgerald was that it was a good value bourbon. So with the head to head in mind, I went ahead and picked up a bottle of Old Fitzgerald Bottled in Bond for ~$18 for a liter. And just like that it became a head-to-head-to-head. Three times the fun!

Here's how the wife and I did the tastings. With her out of the room, I poured each into identical Glencairn glasses. One set for me, one set for my wife. I had them on a piece of paper and in front of each I wrote a number 1-3. Then I left the room. My wife came in and moved each glass onto another prepared sheet that was labeled A, B, C. So I knew which bourbons were 1, 2 and 3 and she knew which letter corresponded to which number and neither of us knew which bourbon was in which place in front of us. A perfect double blind tasting.

So what did we think? Well, we both agreed that there were a lot more similarities between the bourbons than there were differences. In the glass all three were the same color. Though in the bottle the VSOF was a bit darker. None of these were overly complicated bourbons. All of them were sweet with a hint of spice in the mouth. So knowing that, let's dig in.

Bourbon A:

Nose: Sweet with a hint of something smoky. Once I was hit with something  sharp, almost acidic, but it was gone as soon as it appeared and never came back. I found the same thing at another time in my wife's but it was still gone so fast I couldn't place it.

Mouth: Sweet, but not overly sweet. Brown sugar with a little spice. This one was a bit thin when compared to the other two. 

Finish: Short and sweet. Not hot. Dried the mouth.

Overall: This one confused me. I smelled things that I couldn't catch before they were gone and couldn't pick out anything beyond a very gently spicy brown sugar sweetness. This is a bourbon that I could drink the heck out of though. I like it and I'd enjoy having it at my side while watching a movie or talking with friends. This was probably our favorite of the three.

Bourbon B:

Nose: Tangy and sweet play a game of cat and mouse with each other while nosing this one. One time it's a hard maple bomb, the next it's tangy, then they swap back again.

Mouth: This is a sweet one. Not as sweet as the nose, but there is a slight maple or brown sugar there amongst the alcohol. I found this one to be a bit on the thick side. Not oily, but syrupy. I guess that goes with the maple in there.

Finish: Finish was the best part of this one. There is that tang in the back of the throat that the nose promised, sweet spice on the sides of the tongue, and a hint of smokiness all around.  

Overall: My wife found this to be the harshest one out of the three we tasted. Said she only tasted alcohol. I agree it was the harshest one, but not overwhelmingly so. I like this one as well. Though good, this was probably our least favorite of the three. 

Bourbon C:

Nose: Right away I was hit with sweet baked apples. After a bit I got a lot of brown sugar sweetness.

Mouth: Sweetness at first on this one getting spicier as it moves back. I get a lot of corn in this one as well. 

Finish: I found this to have the most burn in the finish out of the three. Really drying the back of the throat.

Overall: This is a good bourbon. It won't blow you away analyzing it, though I found those backed apples on the nose to be interesting. But I drink a whiskey more often than I taste it and this is another one I'd enjoy drinking over conversation with friends or along side a movie or good book.

So which was which? Bourbon A was the Very Special Old Fitzgerald 12 Year Old. No Surprise here, my wife loves older Heaven hill bourbons. Bourbon B was Old Fitzgerald Bottled in Bond, which explains the harshness comment by my wife. And Bourbon C was Larceny.

I like all of these in their own way. Like I said, our favorite was the Very Special Old Fitzgerald, but I wouldn't turn down any of them. And in fact, before I did the tasting, I enjoyed each and every one on numerous occasions. The BiB was great in cocktails or on it's own. The VSOF made a wicked good manhattan. And Larceny is just plain tasty.

If I could only buy one moving forward, I'd pick the BiB because it is so much cheaper and almost as good. My wife, the accountant, though disagrees with me and would choose the Larceny. She like the VSOF the best, but initially had a hard time finding differences between them. So since it is a little cheaper, she'd go that route. If you're buying though? Give either of us the VSOF.

*By the way, that hand smelling thing isn't a joke, it seems to reset the ol' sniffer for some reason.

An Empty: Parker's Heritage Collection, Barrel Finished

So yes, I realize that this isn't an empty bottle in this photo. But, I guarantee you this, by the time I finish this blog post it will be sitting in two glasses, ready to be enjoyed by my wife and I. So I call it close enough. 

I bought this bottle on a whim. At the time I liked to dole out my monthly whiskey money over the course of a couple weeks. And over the course of a couple of bottles. But I thought to myself: "20 bourbons is a lot, I've got enough bottles on hand. I'm going to buy myself something nice"

Apparently I thought that way for approximately a month since I'm sitting somewhere north of 45 right now. But to be fair, a lot of them are "nice."

And this was the one I picked up. I distinctly remember buying this bottle because I remember the nod the clerk behind the counter gave me as he looked at the bottle. Was it admiration? Awe? Lust? Wonder...that anyone would pay $80 for a bourbon (yes, sometimes the stores I frequent are more of the beer-run variety). In any case, I took it to mean I had something special on my hands.

After bringing it home, I realized...it was ok. Not blow your socks off good, but fine. My wife didn't like it. She just gave me a look that said: "Really? $80? Gone just like that, huh?" Needless to say, as we revisited it, we've both changed our opinions of this one. This is one damn fine whiskey.

Color: This one is a deep reddish amber.

Nose: Carmel apples, cola and baking spice.

Taste: Initially sweet, think toffee or honey. There's more spice, this is a hot one.

Finish: I found that this had a sweet finish that faded to a mouth puckering dryness as time went on.

So, yes. I love this whiskey. I bought it on an excited whim and was initially disappointed. I don't know if I just wasn't feeling it that day. It was my first "finished bourbon' maybe my palette just wasn't ready for it. As I spent more time with it, I grew to love it more and more. And since my local stores are out of it, I will miss it. But there's always a new one to try so I won't miss it for too long.