11th Annual BourbonGuy.com Brackets: Round 1: Old Grand-Dad 114 vs. Ezra Brooks 99

March 26, 2024 Eric Burke

Hello again my friends! Let’s continue with the brackets, shall we?

If you’ve been following along, you know that these were tasted in an order only known to my wife as another bit of obfuscation to hide what was being tasted. So Round 1 of the 2024 BourbonGuy.com Brackets continues with Division 1’s Number 3 seed Ezra Brooks 99 taking on Number 2 seed Old Grand-Dad 114.

Ezra Brooks 99 recently replaced Lux Row’s Ezra Brooks 90 proof. Much to the dismay of certain commenters. I happen to enjoy the fact that they bumped the proof up. I’m guessing the dismay comes from the fact that they also bumped up the price at the same time. They didn’t go too high, though, since it still meets bracket parameters. When I picked this up at South Lyndale Liquors in Minneapolis, MN, it cost $24.99 for a 750 mL bottle or $1.67 per pour.

Their opponent is another bourbon that wears its proof right in the name. Old Grand-Dad 114 is Beam Suntory’s highest-proof product using the Old Grand-Dad mashbill. This bottle was purchased at Total Wine in Burnsville, MN. It cost $26.99 for a 750 mL bottle or $1.80 per pour.

All of the competitions this year were tasted blind and we knew the winner of the competition prior to any reveal. Notes, thoughts, and conclusions were all from before we knew what was what. Needless to say, some of my conclusions were surprising to me. Tasting notes may be a little unusual since they were being tasted at the same time and probably influenced the perceptions of one another.

Whiskey A (Ezra Brooks 99)

Price Per Drink (50 mL): $1.67

Details: 49.5% ABV.

Nose: Spearmint, caramel, and almond.

Mouth: Sweet and spicy. Strong caramel notes along with cinnamon, mint, and a slight grainy note.

Finish: Medium in length and warmth. Notes of cinnamon, mint, and red fruit.

Whiskey B (Old Grand-Dad 114)

Price Per Drink (50 mL): $1.80

Details: 57% ABV.

Nose: Toffee, red fruits, and baking spice.

Mouth: Baking Spice, caramel, and red fruit.

Finish: Medium in length and warmth. Notes of cinnamon, mint, and red fruit.

Thoughts:

Pre-Reveal Thoughts: Once again, both are delicious, but “B” is the winner on the strength of the overall experience. “A” shows some grain on the month which leads to a slight bitterness on the finish. “B” is sweet and spicy throughout with a nice full mouthfeel. On another day this might have gone another way, but today is “B’s” day.

Post-Reveal Thoughts: I’m both surprised and not surprised by the reveal on this one. On one hand, it is not unusual in these competitions that the higher-proof bourbon wins the day. On the other hand, it didn’t in the last post. In that one, the 100° Old Tub lost to the 90° proof Buffalo Trace. And usually, I’d grab a pour of Ezra Brooks 99 before a pour of Buffalo Trace. So that threw me for a moment. But then again, I really tend to like both of these. So going back to proof being the deciding factor, Old Grand-Dad 114’s win shouldn’t be a surprise.

Winner: Old Grand-Dad 114 is advancing to round 2.

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11th Annual BourbonGuy.com Brackets: Round 1: Buffalo Trace vs. Old Tub Bottled in Bond

March 21, 2024 Eric Burke

Here we go! Let’s get down to the competitions. I hope that you guys are as excited by this as I am. These were tasted in an order only known to my wife as another bit of obfuscation to hide what was being tasted. So Round 1 of the 2024 BourbonGuy.com Brackets starts with Division 2’s Number 4 seed Old Tub taking on Number 1 seed Buffalo Trace.

Buffalo Trace is the flagship product of Sazerac’s Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, KY. It can be hard to find in this area, and I’ve heard tell of it costing in the $50 or more range from commenters in other states. When I happened across it at the Burnsville, MN Total Wine, it cost $27.99 for a 750 mL bottle or $1.87 per pour.

Their opponent recently replaced Jim Beam Bonded in the Jim Beam brand line-up. Old Tub is a bottled-in-bond, unfiltered bourbon that is named after the brand the the Beam family made before they started producing Jim Beam branded products. It was distilled in Clermont, KY at Jim Beam’s distillery DSP-KY-230. This bottle was purchased at France44 in Minneapolis, MN. It cost $21.99 for a 750 mL bottle or $1.47 per pour.

All of the competitions this year were tasted blind and we knew the winner of the competition prior to any reveal. Notes, thoughts, and conclusions were all from before we knew what was what. Needless to say, some of my conclusions were surprising to me. Tasting notes may be a little unusual since they were being tasted at the same time and could have influenced the perceptions of one another.

Whiskey A (Buffalo Trace)

Price Per Drink (50 mL): $1.87

Details: 45% ABV.

Nose: Vanilla sugar, cardamom, nutmeg, and oak.

Mouth: Nutmeg, mint, vanilla sugar, and a nice spicy tingle.

Finish: Medium in length and warmth. Nutmeg, cardamom, oak, and a slight mineral note.

Whiskey B (Old Tub Bottled-in-Bond)

Price Per Drink (50 mL): $1.47

Details: 50% ABV.

Nose: Cinnamon, caramel, oak.

Mouth: Spicy cinnamon, caramel, cedar, and dried grain.

Finish: Warm and on the longer side of medium.

Thoughts:

Pre-Reveal Thoughts: “B” hits hard at the start, is spicy, and continues strong into the finish. “A” starts soft and sweet but then blossoms into a nice spice as it transitions into the finish. Ultimately this was really close, but I think I enjoyed the journey that “A” took me on a little more.

Post-Reveal Thoughts: Honestly not surprised by the results of this one. While I tend to think of Buffalo Trace as severely overhyped, it is a very good bourbon. And while I like Old Tub, it is marketed toward the lower end of the Premium Bourbon market. After going back and reading the notes, you can really tell that these had influenced each other. I don’t know that I’ve ever described Old Tub as “spicy” in the past. but that is why we put the disclaimer up there. When you move back and forth from glass to glass to see which you like better, you are doing a different thing than the typical sensory evaluation that full tasting notes would require. It’s a more roughshod and sloppy tasting experience. That said, it does it’s job in telling us which one we liked better. And as I would have expected going into the competition, Buffalo Trace, the most expensive entry in the competition, beat out Old Tub, the least expensive in the bunch.

Winner: Buffalo Trace is advancing to round 2.

11th Annual BourbonGuy.com Brackets: The “Not Quite Bottom-Shelf” Edition

March 19, 2024 Eric Burke

Welcome back, my friends, to my favorite posts of the year. It’s bracket time!

Historically, this has been a series where we take a look at the cheapest of the cheapest bourbons, pit them against each other, and decide which you should pick up and which you should leave down on that bottom shelf. The 2022 edition broke me; I dumped out about 7 liters of bourbon, so last year, I tossed out all pricing requirements and did a series of Bonded Bourbons. This year, I’m reinstating the price requirements, but I’ve decided to keep them a bit “relaxed.” My goal was to find readily available bourbons all at about the same price point, in this case, the $20 to $30 price range.

Here is how we set everything up. And it is an oh-so-simple process. I seed the whiskey in the bracket, in this case, by price. Then, I pour 200 mL bottles of each contestant whiskey and label them with a nonsense name. Finally, I make a separate bracket with the nonsense names and give that and the 200 mL bottles to my wife. After that, she takes care of everything. She has no idea what is in each bottle due to the nonsense name. She pours and keeps track of the winners while we do our tastings. And all I need to do is taste and write. It’s a pretty slick system.

So, who are the participants, and how did they get chosen?

Well, every year, I try to put in limitations that will force me to choose a new set of participants. Well, mostly new, anyway. We still have four this year that were in previous editions. Because the “bottom-shelf” ones have gotten so much worse than they used to be due to inflation and strategic price increases, this year, I limited myself to only bourbons priced between $20 and $30 for a 750 mL bottle. This allowed me to get some names that are familiar to the general public but that might be overlooked due to the general public’s idea that “more expensive equals better whiskey.” A while back, I also asked what you guys wanted to see included as part of a giveaway. I included as many of those as I could. Some weren’t available in my market. Others were quite expensive. Some had just been in so many contests that I looked for fresh faces. But I included what I could.

The contestants were seeded by price. If there was more than one at the same price, the tie was broken by proof.

Division 1, Seed 1: Old Forester 100: This was purchased at South Lyndale Liquors in Minneapolis, MN, for $27.99 or $0.037 per milliliter.
Division 2, Seed 1: Buffalo Trace: This was purchased at Total Wine in Burnsville, MN, for $27.99 or $0.037 per milliliter.
Division 1, Seed 2: Old Grand-Dad 114: A reader suggested Old Grand-Dad Bonded, but since I saw this fit the price constraints, I upgraded. This was purchased at Total Wine in Burnsville, MN, for $26.99 or $0.036 per milliliter.
Division 2, Seed 2: Wheel Horse Bourbon: This was a reader suggestion. It was purchased at Top Ten Liquors in Chanhassan, MN, for $25.96 or $0.035 per milliliter.
Division 1, Seed 3: Ezra Brooks 99: This was purchased at South Lyndale Liquors in Minneapolis, MN, for $24.99 or $0.033 per milliliter.
Division 2, Seed 3: George Dickel Bourbon: This was purchased at France 44 in Minneapolis, MN, for $24.99 or $0.033 per milliliter.
Division 1, Seed 4: Elijah Craig: This was purchased at Top Ten Liquors in Chanhassen, MN, for $24.96 or $0.033 per milliliter.
Division 2, Seed 4: Old Tub: This was a reader suggestion. It was purchased at France 44 in Minneapolis, MN, for $21.99 or $0.029 per milliliter.

I’m going to tell you right now, that there were some real surprises here. I was honestly shocked at the winner. But that is for the future. In the mean time, who you got? Let us know down in the comments.

High West Cask Collection, South Lyndale Liquors Selection

March 15, 2024 Eric Burke

Happy Friday! Yeah…about that. I had a tax appointment last night and completely forgot about writing anything. Sorry about that.

Next week, we start one of my favorite series of the year: The BoubonGuy.com Brackets. While I was out picking up all of the contestants from around the area, I also kept an eye out for other tasty treats that I could write about. This is how today’s bourbon ended up in my cart.

I was at South Lyndale Liquors in Minneapolis, picking up a couple of inexpensive items, and noticed this sitting on a barrel near the checkouts. Having noticed that I hadn’t covered anything from High West in a while—yes, I picked this up prior to the High West sample from the last post arriving on my doorstep—I picked it up. Especially since I tend to really like the store picks that South Lyndale gets. I don’t have much information about this one. All I really know is that this particular bottle of whiskey is a bourbon finished in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels.

But despite that, let’s take a look at it. I’ve seen barrel picks of High West Cask Collection, Cabernet Sauvignon Finish in a few of the local liquor stores, so it might be nice to see if it is worth picking up.

High West Cask Collection, South Lyndale Liquors Selection

Purchase Info: $64.99 for a 750 mL bottle at South Lyndale Liquors, Minneapolis, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $4.33

Details: Blend of Straight whiskeys finished in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels. 50% ABV

Nose: Floral vanilla, brown sugar, red fruit, and oak.

Mouth: Cinnamon, nutmeg, sweet red fruit, vanilla, tobacco, and oak.

Finish: Spicy and medium length. Notes of red fruit, baking spice, and tobacco.

Thoughts: This is good? The wine cask accentuates the red fruit and tobacco notes. It has a bit of dryness to it, which is balanced by sweet, floral vanilla notes. All in all, I'm very happy with this purchase.

High West Bottled in Bond Rye

March 12, 2024 Eric Burke

I’d like to thank High West for providing this review sample with no strings attached.

It has been a long damn time since we took a look at any products from High West around here. And it’s not because I didn’t like them when we last looked. No, this has to do with shelf placement.

The liquor store that I frequent most often is a small place packed to the gills with wonderful libations. It has narrow aisles and high shelves. High West sits on the top shelf at the end of the whiskey aisle. Below it are Wild Turkey and Russell’s Reserve, 1792, and Four Roses. Good company if you can get it—well, if you are a normal consumer.

I am far from normal.

I go in looking for things to write about, and, in my mind, that end of the aisle is filled with wonderful things to drink, but nothing to write about, so High West tends to get forgotten about on my local shopping trips. This is really too bad because they make some delicious whiskeys, and some of them are even decently priced at around $30 for a 750. So when their PR person reached out to me offering me a taste of their first ever Bottled in Bond Whiskey, I jumped at the opportunity to reexamine the offerings from this company that I had neglected. And boy, am I glad I did.

But before I get ahead of myself, let’s run down a few interesting items they included in their press release. This bottled-in-bond whiskey is four years old, having been barreled in the Fall 2018 distilling season. As a bonded whiskey, it is 100° proof. The mashbill is made up of 80% rye and 20% malted rye. It was distilled by High West in Wanship, UT. It was released in February 2024 and will be available “across the nation” for a suggested retail price of $79.99 (though at the time of writing this, it is currently sold out on the High West website).

So, onto the most important part: how does it taste?

High West Bottled in Bond Rye

Purchase Info: This was sent by the producer for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $79.99 for a 750 mL bottle.

Price per Drink (50 ml): $5.33

Details: 50% ABV. Batch: 23L19 H218. Mashbill: 80% rye, 20% malted rye.

Nose: Honey, vanilla, cedar, and mint.

Mouth: Cedar, allspice, vanilla, honey, mint, and oak.

Finish: Medium length and warmth with notes of cinnamon, mint, and oak.

Thoughts: Bright and vibrant with good spice. This is delicious. It reminds me of an MGP rye with depth and a nutty under current. And even though I’ve long thought that I didn’t like malted rye in my whiskey, I really like this one. It must be that I only disliked the ones that I tasted first. This is why I try not to write off an entire ingredient’s usage. It also makes a killer Sazerac cocktail. Though at $80 per bottle, this probably won’t be going into many cocktails in most peple’s homes. All in all, I really like this one.

Bernheim Barrel Proof, A224

March 8, 2024 Eric Burke

I’d like to thank Heaven Hill for providing this review sample with no strings attached.

I had my weekly allergy injection this afternoon, and it is knocking the shit out of me tonight. So, let’s jump right into the review, shall we? Luckily for all of us, tonight’s whiskey is another of Heaven Hill’s Barrel Proof series of whiskeys, and since we’ve covered the other two during the last couple of weeks, we should all be up to speed on them. Or at least close enough.

Bernheim Barrel Proof is, as the name suggests, a barrel-proof version of Heaven Hill’s Bernheim Wheat Whiskey. The mash bill is 51% wheat, 37% corn, and 12% malted barley. This batch was aged between seven and nine years before being bottled at 125.2° proof. The A224 designation means that this is the first batch (A) of 2024 (24), and it was released in February (2). The suggested retail price is $64.99.

Let’s see how it tastes.

Bernheim Barrel Proof, A224

Purchase Info: This bottle was provided by the producer for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $64.99.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $4.33

Details: 62.63 ABV. Mash bill: 51% wheat, 37% corn, 12% malted barley. Aged 7-9 years.

Nose: Nutty and floral with caramel and oak.

Mouth: Spicy, floral, and nutty with cinnamon, caramel, mint, cherry, and oak.

Finish: Hot, spicy, and on the longer side of medium length. Notes of toasted nuts, cinnamon, and cherry.

Thoughts: Hot, spicy, and nutty are the three words I would use to describe this. It's quite good, but not quite as good as the Larceny or Elijah Craig Barrel Proof whiskies. This doesn't have the same level of richness that they do. But if you like a nutty whiskey, then this is one for you.

Comparison to B923: A224 is much more vibrant on the nose. A224 is nuttier and hotter in the mouth, but B923 is much sweeter. I'd personally pick B923 if given the choice because it is a little gentler if such a thing can be said about something that is over 120° proof.

Copper & Cask Singel Barrel Bourbon, Toasted Cask Finish: Top Ten Liquors Selection

March 5, 2024 Eric Burke

It’s March again. And around here, March means brackets. Not those silly basketball or hockey ones, but Bourbon ones. Which means that last weekend, I needed to get my butt out of the house and go buy a whole mess of bourbon. Now, most of those have nothing to do with tonight.

I mean, I haven’t even started looking at the bracket bourbons yet. That will start this weekend.

But you don’t expect me to go on a cross-Metro shopping trip to four different liquor stores without picking up a few extra things, do you? Yeah, luckily, my wife didn’t either. Because I did find a few goodies that will pop up both before and after the upcoming Madness. The first of which is the bottle of Copper & Cask Toasted Barrel Finish shown above.

Copper & Cask is a Non-distiller producer (NDP) of sourced bourbon. I like two things about them. The first is that they are very transparent about the fact that they didn’t make what’s in the bottle. The second is that they actually tell you who did. As a big fan of transparency, I love that. Most of their whiskey is sold as single barrel store picks so unless you are buying a bunch, every time you see a bottle it will be different juice inside it. This is one of the reasons I bought a case of one that I particularly loved a couple of years ago.

As far as I can tell, only one store chain sells Copper & Cask in the Twin Cities, and that is Top Ten Liquors. That said, I haven’t been to every liquor store in the country, so you will need to do that legwork on your own. They do sell limited quantities on the Copper & Cask website from time to time, though.

The last time we looked at this, I was looking at both an MGP 95% rye whiskey and an MGP 21% rye bourbon. Tonight’s bourbon is the same 21% rye MGP mashbill, but this one has been finished in toasted barrels as well. Let’s see how it tastes.

Copper & Cask Singel Barrel Bourbon, Toasted Cask Finish: Top Ten Liquors Selection

Purchase Info: $59.96 for a 750 mL bottle at Top Ten Liquors, Chanhassen, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $4.00

Details: 59.5% ABV. Barreled: July 2016. Bottled: Sept 2023. 7 years old. Distilled in: Lawrenceburg, IN. Mashbill: 75% corn, 21% rye, 4% malted barley.

Nose: Cinnamon, nutmeg, caramel, and oak.

Mouth: Spicy cinnamon, caramel, almond, citrus zest, and tobacco.

Finish: Warm and long with notes of cinnamon, oak, citrus zest, and mint.

Thoughts: This is delicious, which I sort of expected. Seriously, I've never had a bad bottle from this brand. If the chain of stores that regularly carries it here in the Twin Cities had a store closer to me than 30 minutes away, I'd consistently have at least one bottle on hand. And this toasted barrel-finish version is no exception. It's deliciously spicy with strong cinnamon and nutmeg notes throughout. Big fan. Not so big that I’ll be buying a case for the whiskey closet, but still a big, big fan.

Dashfire Ready-To-Drink Cocktails: Bourbon Old Fashioned and Fig & Cascara Manhattan

February 29, 2024 Eric Burke

I will start tonight by saying that I honestly don’t care about how much traffic this site gets. I don’t take advertisements, so I don’t have advertisers breathing down my neck. I get enough samples and am on enough press release lists that I don’t need to “introduce” myself to PR folks anymore (except Brown-Forman; I just can’t get a hold of anyone there and have given up trying). But this morning, I went down a rabbit hole while procrastinating doing actual paying work. While in that rabbit hole, I looked at the BourbonGuy.com site analytics for the first time since 2021.

Holy shit, folks! Almost 50,000 of you visited in December! I am incredibly humbled by that fact. So thank you.

For a little perspective on that, I also looked at the earliest available analytics for the site. Way, way back in 2014, I had about 80,000 visits all year. The main reason that 2014 was on my mind this morning was when I interviewed one of the founders of a then-new bitters startup called Dashfire, which, if you saw the photo above, you will know is relevant to tonight’s post. I went back to reread it. I still think it was a great interview.

Shortly after that interview, I started making my own bitters, so I hadn’t thought of Dashfire in a while. Well, until I saw these cute little canned cocktails at the checkout counter of a local liquor store last night. I’d had a product lined up for tonight’s post that fell through, and serendipity was working in my favor to provide a replacement. They have expanded well beyond bitters in the last decade or so. Their offerings now include not only bitters but liqueurs, boozy coffee drinks, THC drinks, and, of course, ready-to-drink cocktails like we are exploring tonight.

I like making cocktails, but with the fact that I’ve cut way back on my drinking (I’m trying to move away from my Wisconsin upbringing and be a bit healthier about my relationship with alcohol), I don’t always have the more perishable ingredients on hand. For example, it is unlikely that I will ever use a 750 mL bottle of vermouth before it starts to feel the effects of being open for too long. I don’t make enough Manhattans to use that bottle in a year, much less the month (to a few months) the experts say it will take for the flavor to start going downhill. But occasionally, I want a Manhattan all the same. In those times, I can either buy a bottle of vermouth, knowing I will dump most of it out in a couple of months. Or I can buy a ready-to-drink version like I bought last night.

Dashfire currently makes ten different ready-to-drink cocktails. We are going to look at the two that I found last night: the Bourbon Old Fashioned and the Fig & Cascara Manhattan. I served each of them as instructed on the can, including garnish.

Dashfire Bourbon Old Fashioned

Purchase Information: $5.99 for a single-serve 100 mL can at Lunds & Byerly’s Liquor, Burnsville, MN

Serving Instructions: Pour over a large ice cube and garnish with orange zest.

Nose: Cherry and orange.

Mouth: Thick, rich, and sweet with notes of brown sugar, cherry, orange, vanilla, and baking spice.

Finish: Sweet with notes of cinnamon, caramel, vanilla, and orange.

Dashfire Fig & Cascara Manhattan

Purchase Information: $5.99 for a single-serve 100 mL can at Lunds & Byerly’s Liquor, Burnsville, MN

Serving Instructions: Stir with ice to chill and garnish with a cocktail cherry.

Nose: The sherry comes through strongly, along with some cherry notes.

Mouth: Thick and rich with notes of caramel, cocoa, orange, and baking spice.

Finish: Smoky notes of chocolate-covered raisin and cherry.

Thoughts: These taste like well-made Manhattans and Old Fashioneds from a fancy cocktail bar. I'd be happy paying bar prices for something that tastes like either of these. Hiking? Camping? Just don't want to keep the ingredients on your home bar? Toss a few of these in your pack or cupboard, and you'll have a tasty treat with little to no prep. And for $5.99, they are as good as you'll find in a good cocktail bar.

I look forward to trying their other offerings in the near future. The THC drinks sound delicious, I love coffee, and that Orange Bourbon Liqueur will certainly be coming home with me as soon as I find it on the shelf. You can look forward to that one being talked about here soon.

Blog

Whiskey A (Ezra Brooks 99)

Whiskey B (Old Grand-Dad 114)

Thoughts:

Whiskey A (Buffalo Trace)

Whiskey B (Old Tub Bottled-in-Bond)

Thoughts:

High West Cask Collection, South Lyndale Liquors Selection

High West Bottled in Bond Rye

Bernheim Barrel Proof, A224

Copper & Cask Singel Barrel Bourbon, Toasted Cask Finish: Top Ten Liquors Selection

Dashfire Bourbon Old Fashioned

Dashfire Fig & Cascara Manhattan