My wife was wandering through a liquor store the other day. In and of itself, this is not an unusual occurrence. But on this day, she was looking for something that might be interesting for us to review, which is pretty unusual since I am the one who tends to handle that. I like when she is the one buying, and not just because she is buying. No, I like that she comes at things with a different perspective than I do. I tend to look at a shelf full of whiskey and think about what I could buy that will taste good. She looks at a shelf of whiskey and thinks about what she can buy that is inexpensive.
I mean, she likes good whiskey too. She is just more apt to take a flyer on an inexpensive one that she’s never heard of than I am these days. But since you guys are almost as frugal as she is, these flyers do tend to lead to some interesting posts. Which is how a bottle of Cooper’s Mark Bourbon landed on our kitchen table.
So what is Cooper’s Mark Bourbon? That, my friend, is a very good question. The brand has no website. Which is more than a little weird. A Google search brings up a couple of reviews, but mostly serves up results for Brown-Forman’s Cooper’s Craft Bourbon and Beam Suntory’s Maker’s Mark bourbon. So I turned to look at the bottle. A bottle that looked was a close match to the shape of Brown-Forman’s Woodford Reserve bottle. Not much there either. In fact, almost half of the 112 words on the label came from the government warning. And a lot of the words that were on the label were repeated, see below.
Front label:
Cooper’s Mark Bourbon Whiskey
Small Batch
Charcoal Filtered • Extra Smooth
Uniquely hand crafted from specially selected barrels for a superior smooth flavor.
45.5% Alc/Vol (91 proof)
Genuine Cooper’s Mark small batch bourbon whiskey
750 ml Net Cont.
91 proof
Left Side:
Genuine Cooper’s Mark small batch bourbon whiskey is carefully hand crafted for a complex balance of flavors & aroma.
Right Side:
Government Warning
Produced & Bottled by Cooper’s Mark Whiskey Company, Princeton, MN 55371
To be honest, I’m more than a little surprised that I haven’t seen an article about Cooper’s Mark being sued for trademark infringement for this bottle. When most of the search results that come back are about other products, and your bottle looks like a third’s? That seems to be the definition of market confusion. In fact, there was another product a while back, Bison Ridge Canadian Whisky, that was sued by Sazerac for trademark infringement. So it wouldn’t be unheard of.
Anyway. This made me wonder who made this particular bottle of whiskey. So I decided to do more in-depth searching. Doing a COLA search with the TTB gave me the name of the company that is selling the whiskey, United States Distilled Products Co. in Princeton, MN. Of course, I still had no idea who that was, but after checking out a few job postings on LinkedIn, I found their website www.usdp.com which forwards to the Phillips Distilling website.
Being from Minnesota, I should have known. Until we finally got our craft distilling laws worked out, we had only one beverage alcohol distilling company: Phillips Distilling. They are the biggest liquor company in the state. They, or their parent company, United States Distilled Products Co., own Johnson Brothers Distributing, a multi-state alcohol distribution company; Prestige Beverage Group, the owners of Bison Ridge Canadian Whisky mentioned above; and others.
So, I can easily say that I am not a fan of a lot of what is in USDP’s portfolio. There are a lot of vodkas (high-end, low-end, and flavored), flavored whiskies, Scotches, liqueurs, ready-to-drink cocktails, and Windsor Canadian. Though I haven’t had Windsor Canadian in over 20 years, I still remember what it tasted like. I feel no need to try again. I do, however, like a few of the wines in their portfolio and I’d probably give the one bourbon they list on their portfolio pages a try.
I came into this just wanting to know who produced the bourbon I was tasting. As you might notice, when I want an answer I’ll spend a stupid amount of time trying to find it. So now that we know who is selling Cooper’s Mark bourbon (no mention of the state of distillation so who knows who actually distilled it), let’s see how it tastes.
Cooper's Mark Small Batch Bourbon
Purchase Info: $22.48 for a 750 mL bottle at Marketplace Foods, Menomonie, WI
Price per Drink (50 mL): $1.50
Details: 45.5% ABV. No age statement.
Nose: Caramel, wood, mixed nuts, and delicate red fruit.
Mouth: There is almost nothing to this. Hints of caramel and vanilla and a touch of eucalyptus.
Finish: Warm and of medium length. Notes of caramel, cinnamon, and something super funky that I cannot place.
Thoughts: I do not like this. It was a very "meh" bourbon until the finish. Then it fell off of a cliff. My wife summed it up best when she exclaimed "it tastes like a cinnamon red hot that went bad!" It's just…not good. I'd give it a very wide berth at the liquor store.
For my future tastebud’s sake, I hope that the bourbon Phillip’s claims online is better than this one. Maybe there’s a reason that the company doesn’t talk about Cooper’s Mark Bourbon.
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