My Wandering Eye: J. Carver Barrel Gin

My Wandering Eye is an ongoing series reacting to the rising prices in the bourbon world. We’ve reached a place where even average products have hit the range where they compete price-wise with other types of aged spirits. If I’m going to be asked to drop $40 to $70 on a mid-range bourbon, I might as well see what else I can get for that money. I hope to see if another spirits category offers something downright tasty in that price range. The goal isn’t to find cheap spirits but to maximize the quality I’m getting at a particular price point. The reviews in this series will all be written through a bourbon drinker’s lens.

We are going wandering through the liquor store again for this one. This is another of the late December purchases and tastings from pre-Dry January. This time, I decided to wander into the Gin section to see if something there struck my fancy that could be had for a reasonable price. In this case, I decided on a locally distilled gin from craft distiller J. Carver. And this one is very local. The distillery is just over a half-hour’s drive from my house.

I’ve found that there are times when I really like gin, especially in cocktails. In those times, I’ll reach for a cocktail made with gin over one made with whiskey. I think of it this way: sometimes I want Diet 7-up, and other times I want coffee. Both are calorie-free, but I have completely different mindsets when I reach for each of them.

This particular gin, though, blurs the line between coffee and Diet 7up…err…gin and whiskey. This gin has spent some time in the barrel, you see. Here is what the producer has to say about it:

Yes!  It's gold in color!  Yet this "whiskey-lover's gin" has become the darling spirit of top mixologists across Minnesota.  Dynamic and complex, this gin is distilled with eleven botanicals including orange and cinnamon and finished in new charred oak barrels coopered in Minnesota.  This hearty, 96-proof gin adds something special to gin and whiskey-based cocktails, and begs to be sipped neat or on ice. 96 proof

So, let’s dig in!

J. Carver Barrel Gin

Purchase Info: $37.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $2.53

Details: 48% ABV.

Nose: Juniper, lemon, white pepper, and coriander.

Mouth: Sweet barrel notes of vanilla, caramel, and oak hit first with notes of juniper, cinnamon, lemon zest, orange, and mint.

Finish: Medium to long and tingly with lingering notes of juniper, lemon, and mint.

Thoughts: While I don't think I would ever sip gin neat, this one comes close. I'm enjoying the tasting quite a bit. But since gin is used for cocktails in my house, I need to see how it tastes in those before I pass judgment. First, I did a gin rickey, my favorite deck drink. It works ok in a rickey. It's not my favorite, but it's ok. It makes the rickey a little sweeter than I'd prefer. My favorite winter gin drink is a Negroni (not that it has to be winter to enjoy it, that’s just when I seem to want one.) Now here is where this one shines. The cinnamon notes I noticed in the mouth come through and play very nicely with the vermouth and the bitterness of the Campari. Very nice cocktail. And also a very nice gin. I like it.

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My Wandering Eye: St-Rémy VSOP French Brandy

My Wandering Eye is an ongoing series reacting to the rising prices in the bourbon world. We’ve reached a place where even average products have hit the range where they compete price-wise with other types of aged spirits. If I’m going to be asked to drop $40 to $70 on a mid-range bourbon, I might as well see what else I can get for that money. I hope to see if another spirits category offers something downright tasty in that price range. The goal isn’t to find cheap spirits but to maximize the quality I’m getting at a particular price point. The reviews in this series will all be written through a bourbon drinker’s lens.

Last month, my wife and I decided that we were going to participate in Dry January this year. Not for any real reason. It just seemed like something to kick us out of our rut. Because of that, I needed to look ahead and see what I could find that I could taste ahead of time. I had a couple of things hanging around that I hadn’t gotten around to writing about yet, but that wasn’t enough for an entire month. So I went to the liquor store, set myself a price limit of $150, and bought everything I was going to taste for the coming month. What follows is one of those purchases.

I’m in my local liquor store a lot, which is one reason I am participating in Dry January this year. I just buy way too much bourbon. Most of it is for reviews, but I also have stuff on hand outside of that. And since I buy way too much bourbon, that probably means I consume too much as well…as my ever-expanding waistline can attest to.

So, as I spend a lot of time at my local liquor store, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise anymore when I hear the familiar refrain “Anything I can help you find in Bourbon?” from one particular salesperson. If he’s working, he asks me that question every time I go in. And usually, I just politely decline the offer of help. He’s a helpful guy, but I know a thing or two about bourbon already. Really, the only thing he might be able to tell me that I don’t already know is if people are buying a product or not.

This is why when he asked me his usual question in late December, I didn’t decline the offer of help. Instead, I asked him a question. I told him that I write about spirits and am looking for something non-bourbon to write about. “So, what are people buying?” He told me that people have been really liking an inexpensive brandy from St. Rémy.

And so folks, we are wandering tonight. I’m not going to lie. I know nothing about this brandy. I only have it because the salesperson walked up to me and recommended it when I asked. And to be honest, I didn’t have high hopes once I got home. Minnesotans are known for their bland tastes in food. And every time I’ve seen something advertised as “Minnesota’s Favorite” it has lived up to that stereotype. Plus I found this description of it on the liquor store’s website:

St-Rémy VSOP embodies the iconic and historical taste of St-Rémy It is a translation of the original recipe that made St-Rémy renowned around the Globe. The right choice for a great authentic taste. St-Rémy VSOP conveys the taste of small, freshly-picked red berries, while bringing out the sweet vanilla flavor of oak. It is a round, balanced spirit that is easy to drink. With its light and subtle nose, St-Rémy VSOP is excellent neat, on ice or with a simple mixer.

So St-Rémy VSOP tastes like St-Rémy. Helpful. Well, let’s dig in and see if it is any good, shall we?

St-Rémy VSOP French Brandy

Purchase Info: $12.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Viking Liquor, Prior Lake, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $0.87

Details: 40% ABV.

Nose: Green apple, brown sugar, honey, and cinnamon.

Mouth: Not much going on here. Very delicate. Faint notes of floral apple and honey.

Finish: Gentle and short with apple, honey, and cinnamon notes.

Thoughts: This is possibly the most delicate brandy I've ever tasted. At the same time, it doesn't taste of ethanol, like so many cheap spirits do, so it's not terrible either. If you take the time to tease out the notes, they aren't bad. The salesperson I talked to said my fellow patrons were really enjoying it. Which, since Minnesotans have a reputation for loving bland foods, makes sense. This one is very bland. It’s not for me but it isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination. This one gets a neutral face rating.

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Soul Boxer Brandy Old Fashioned, ready-to-drink-cocktail

Before we get started, I have a severe case of Covid-Brain brought on by a relatively minor bout of Covid…please excuse, well, everything.

Last month, my wife and I decided that we were going to participate in Dry January this year. Not for any real reason, it just seemed like something to kick us out of our rut. Because of that, I needed to look ahead and see what I could find that I could taste ahead of time. I had a couple of things hanging around that I hadn’t gotten around to writing about yet, but that wasn’t enough for an entire month. So I went to the liquor store, set myself a price limit of $150, and bought everything I was going to taste for the coming month. What follows is one of those purchases.

Although I now claim Minnesota as my home state, I spent the first thirty years or so of my life in Wisconsin. I was born there, grew to adulthood there, got married, graduated college and started my career there. I also learned to drink there. Which is especially relevant to tonight’s discussion mostly because somehow, I managed to miss out on one of the state's iconic libations—the Brandy Old-Fashioned. In fact, I’d never even heard of it until I started getting into spirits and cocktails about fifteen years ago.

It's a tad perplexing, since it wasn’t like I avoided places that would serve them. I’ve been in Wisconsin bars and taverns that range from dive bar to upscale, small town local joints to places that cater to sophisticated tourists. I just never noticed it. I was a beer drinker, along with the occasional glass of wine, why would I look at the cocktail menu? If the place even had one, most didn’t when I was younger.

So when I went looking for things to taste for this month, I saw this ready-to-drink cocktail at my local liquor store. It is from Soul Boxer, a company specializing in ready-to-drink cocktails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Honestly, I picked it up, knowing that I have no idea how a properly prepared Brandy Old Fashioned should taste. I just figured that folks in Milwaukee probably would, and I hoped that would be enough.

From my research a properly made Brandy Old-Fashioned is served a number of ways. It starts out much like any other Old Fashioned, with a sugar cube and bitters. To this they add a cherry and an orange slice and muddle those together. So far this is fairly normal though muddled fruit in an Old Fashioned has fallen out of favor in many places…including in my home. Then they add brandy and ice. Still pretty normal, but then things get weird. At this point, you top it with one of a few things. If you want it “sweet,” you add Sprite, if you want it “sour,” you add either sour mix or Squirt, and if you want it “press” you top with either a mixture of club soda and Squirt or just club soda.

All of this info comes second-hand from recipes on the internet, though. As I said, I have never had one of these prepared by anyone who knew what they were doing. If it is wrong, feel free to correct me in the comments. Here is a short video on the subject from the folks at Drink Wisconsinbly.

One day I will order a proper one, but in the meantime, you are probably wondering how the ready-to-drink version tasted. It has all the sugar, bitters, fruit flavors and brandy in it already so let’s dig in, shall we?

Soul Boxer Brandy Old Fashioned

Purchase Info: $19.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Viking Liquor, Prior Lake, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $1.33

Details: 31% ABV.

Nose: Orange, cherry, baking spices.

Mouth: This tastes like you'd expect. Its got orange, cherry, and bitters at the onset with fruity brandy notes underneath.

Finish: Medium length. Notes have been the same throughout and continue here in the finish.

Thoughts: I'm really digging this. You could pour this over a ball of ice and be very happy. But, of course we need to try it in the more “authentic” way too.

So I tried four variations: Sweet (Sprite), Sour (Squirt), Sour (sour mix), and Club Soda. Out of all of them my wife and I both preferred sweet if we were adding soda to it. Though to be honest, we much preferred the pre-mixed cocktail over ice with a cherry and orange zest garnish over all all of the soda versions. The flavors were already good enough that I didn’t think it needed to be covered up with a favored mixer and adding club soda to give it carbonation just watered it down. All in all, I’m happy with this purchase and am even more determined to try a proper one one day when I’m back visiting family and out for diner.

Did you enjoy this post? If you want to support the work going on here at BourbonGuy.com, please consider a one-time donation at ko-fi.com/bourbonguy or paypal.me/BourbonGuy. Or you could buy some merch that I’ve designed and/or built (tasting journals, stickers, pins, signs, posters, and more) at BourbonGuyGifts.com.

My Wandering Eye: Laird’s 12 Year Old Rare Apple Brandy

My Wandering Eye is an ongoing series reacting to the rising prices in the bourbon world. We’ve reached a place where even average products have hit the range where they compete price-wise with other types of aged spirits. If I’m going to be asked to drop $40 to $70 on a mid-range bourbon, I might as well see what else I can get for that money. I hope to see if another spirits category offers something downright tasty in that price range. The goal isn’t to find cheap spirits but to maximize the quality I’m getting at a particular price point. The reviews in this series will all be written through a bourbon drinker’s lens.

I hope everyone had a fun Halloween! I took the day off and spent it wth my wife. We went out for lunch, did some record shopping, did a Costco run, stopped off at Fleet-Farm and then came home to hand out candy to the kids. While we manned the door for the nine kids that braved the cold to wander down our practically lightless street, we put together a puzzle and listened to a few of the records that we had purchased during our day off.

It wasn’t until bedtime that I realized that I had forgotten to write this.

Do you ever do that? You’ve been doing something on a schedule for over a decade and then you just…space it out? Happens to me a lot. I’ll blame it on getting old, but I’m pretty sure those that know me well will attest that this is something that I’ve been doing for decades now. I’ve been a space cadet for almost as long as I’ve been alive.

Anyway, let’s move away from my failings of memory and over to tonight’s…brandy? Yes brandy. I’ve been sitting on this one for a bit now (purchased mid-July) as I worked through all the samples sent to me. Though I love my local liquor stores, not everything is distributed to Minnesota so when I learned about Curiada a few years back (coincidentally while buying another Laird’s product) I’ve kept it in mind as a way to purchase things that either are not distributed here, or are distributed in such low quantities that you need to win a lottery to purchase it. And this 12 year old Apple Brandy fit the bill for that.

Here is what the distillery has to say about it:

Laird’s Rare Apple Brandy is the finest, most elegant expression of the Laird’s Apple product line. The aged barrels used in this exclusive brandy are carefully selected by eighth generation Larrie Laird and Master Distiller Danny Swanson for their exceptional taste and character. When first conceived in 1995, tasters agreed 88 proof was the optimum alcohol percentage to highlight the rich and complex flavors of this fine spirit. After peacefully ageing for a minimum of 12 years in our New Jersey barrel-ageing warehouse, the product is then bottled by hand. Each bottle bares a handwritten batch number, date of bottling and bottle number.

So now the I’ve put this off for about 6 months, let’s see how it tastes, shall we?

Laird's 12 year old Apple Brandy

Purchase Info: $122.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Curiada.com

Price per Drink (50 mL): $8.20

Details: 12 years old. 44% ABV.

Nose: This reminds me of a baked apple. Notes of brown sugar, caramel, baking spices, and sweet apple.

Mouth: Baking spices and barrel notes predominate with just a hint of apple underneath. After a couple of sips notes of caramel and brown sugar appear.

Finish: Warm and on the longer end of medium length. Notes of floral apple and cinnamon blossom after swallowing.

Thoughts: This is a wonderfully apple-forward brandy. In the past, I've had a few apple brandies that were very dried fruit forward, but this is more like a sweet and floral apple note. And 12 years in a barrel has allowed sweet caramel and spicy cinnamon notes to develop and come through even at a relatively low 88° proof. I really like this. And due to the cost, it will be going on the special shelf for sure.

Did you enjoy this post? If you want to support the work going on here at BourbonGuy.com, please consider a one-time donation at ko-fi.com/bourbonguy or paypal.me/BourbonGuy. Or you could buy some merch (tasting journals, stickers, pins, posters, and more) at BourbonGuyGifts.com.