Our New Crush - Nasa Liquor's SAOS

March 30, 2015

Our New Crush - Nasa Liquor's SAOS

It just seems like every private barrel of Smooth Ambler Old Scout we taste is better than the last. The other night some friends came over to SmokyBeast headquarters to enjoy bourbon. We poured some standard favorites: Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch 2014, a nice Willett 10-Year, but the real stand out was this cask strength Smooth Ambler 8-year private barrel from Nasa Liquor.  So much so that two different buddies independently messaged us the next day to find out where they could buy some.  Go figure.

What Is It?

See our history of posts about private barrels and specifically Smooth Ambler.  These are hand picked barrels released for private stores and restaurants.  Nasa Liquor is a shop in Houston that specializes in high end whiskey and craft beer.  They take an interesting approach and invite five of their best whiskey customers to a tasting to choose the barrel on behalf of the store.  This eight year bourbon is a high-corn mashbill of 65% corn, 30% rye.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Wicked crisp punchy bourbon with a lot of hay and cinnamon in the nose, nice uppercut of charred oak, and a little backdrop of chocolate covered peanuts.  Right at the end there's a nice oily thing going on - like aloe hand lotion maybe.

Palate: It's very nutty and clean on the tongue.  There's not a huge richness going on, but it doubles down on the salted peanuts and crisp rye goodness.  And shit damn it's just so smooth for almost 120 proof (119.8 to be exact).  There's just no way we'd have pegged this for an 8-year at that proof.  No way.

Finish: Sweetness comes out on the finish like buttered corn.  It all really comes together here with very - VERY little alcohol burn and a really nice medley of spice, honey, and bbq flavors.

Review

It's just great to see a few things come together: whiskey done right - i.e. non-chill-filtered, cask strength, straight from the barrel stuff at a good and fair price point with honesty and very little marketing hubbub.  Scoop up these private barrel gems if you can find them and enjoy.

Cheers/SB

Bourbon Past vs Present

March 27, 2015

Bourbon Past vs Present

Our friend Jim Parisi has recently opened Xavier Wine Company in the meat-packing district.  It's a small store with a friendly vibe that has a great hand-picked selection of wine and spirits.  We've been working with Jim on building a whiskey selection and audience.  (Right now there is some construction out front, but don't let it deter you from finding the front door, they're open!!!).

Jim reached out to us about doing a whiskey tasting and we wanted to break the ice with something really special.  We called our homie Josh Feldman from CooperedTot to brainstorm ideas.  We wanted to feature some gems from our personal collections as well as some favorite new whiskies that would soon be available at Xavier.  The concept of a "Past vs. Present" tasting was born.

We ended up with two expressions of Old Forester: A beauty of a 1973/1979 Bottled-in-Bond handle versus a 2014 Old Forester Birthday Bourbon (OFBB being one of our favorite limited releases, of which admittedly 2014 was not the best year); and an Old Taylor 1978 vs the new EH Taylor Barrel Proof (another favorite).

We debated long and hard about the order to present them in.  We knew that the EH Taylor, coming in at a whopping 129 proof, should be last.  We wanted the old and new bourbons to be next to each other.  But we figured that the '73 Forester BIB would be the star of the show.

The narrative of the tasting led us to the above lineup.  Josh came in with some amazing history lessons.  Bourbon used to be sold directly to saloons in barrels.  The problem with that was that the proprietors could dilute and tamper with the contents.  The "Bottled-in-Bond" concept was to seal each bottle with a stamp guaranteeing its authenticity.  This raised the overall quality of the bourbon industry and also allowed Brown-Forman to produce a "medical grade" bourbon product so that they could stay in business during Prohibition.

The story led to Colonel EH Taylor, a historical figure (nephew of President Zachary Taylor) who established "The Castle" distillery near Frankfort, KY. Taylor was a pioneer of the modern whiskey industry and his story takes us all the way to Buffalo Trace, the current producer of EH Taylor which today is one of the most prolific distillers of bourbon (see Pappy Van Winkle, George T Stagg, Weller, Taylor, etc.).  Showcasing the EH Taylor Barrel proof was a nod to the recent trend of over-proofed bourbons that are wow'ing our taste buds in the 21st Century.

1973 Old Forester BIB vs OFBB

Well it wasn't a big surprise that this wasn't much of a contest.  The '73 had a rich, dark, sightly musty, flavor backed up with massive vanilla, oak, and molasses that totally blew away the OFBB.  By contract the Birthday Bourbon seemed thin and hot, with more spice but nowhere near the body.  A solid victory for the old bourbon...

Old Taylor vs EH Taylor Barrel Proof

It was a reversal of fortune on the Taylors, with the new EHTBP winning most of the votes.  In hindsight it wasn't really fair to pit the old 80 proofer against the monster 129 proof modern day version, but on the other hand, they didn't bottle barrel proof bourbon back then, so it's a good statement on how tastes have changed.

Fierce Debate

The best part about this was the awesome crowd, who really seemed to appreciate how unique it was to taste 40 years of bourbon side by side.  There were a lot of great questions, some animated discussion, differences of opinion, and a few new friends made along the way.

Thanks so so much to everyone who joined us and made our first tasting a big success!

Cheers/SB

1977 Brora 35 Year - Oh Yeah We WENT THERE

March 10, 2015

1977 Brora 35 Year - Oh Yeah We WENT THERE

vi·car·i·ous
vəˈkerēəs,vīˈkerēəs/
adjective 

experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person.
"I could glean vicarious pleasure from the struggles of my imaginary film friends"

You have two choices at this moment: A) Go spend $1,000 on a bottle of scotch (that's $83/glass or $40/ounce) and sip it slowly while you cry yourself to sleep or... B) Live vicariously through us. Unless you wear a toupee that resembles a blond hyena and write your name in gold letters on the sides of buildings, we recommend the latter.

Yes that's right, beasties, it's time for another unicorn bottle.  Today's selection is Brora 1977 35-Year.  If you know scotch, you've heard the legend that is Brora, though chances are you've never tasted it.  Brora is perhaps the most coveted of malt whisky, being one of the most prized brands that has been closed since the early 1980's, it's getting more and more impossible to acquire.  Along with Port Ellen and Karuizawa, these are some of the most collectible bottles in the world.

Clynelish Distillery

Clynelish Distillery, 1968 - Brora, Sutherland, Scottish Highlands

Our Donald Trump reference above wasn't entirely without purpose.  In nineteenth century Scotland, the most notorious land owner and deal maker was one Mr. Levenson-Gower, aka The Marquis of Stafford, aka the Duke of Sutherland.  He was famous for the "Highland Clearances", which were basically large scale robbery of the lands of more than fifteen thousand local farmers in order to create the first modern day industrial farming.  In this case, sheep.

Aside from sheep the Marquis owned vast plains of barley, which local moonshiners had used to distill spirits for a few hundred years.  The Marquis had a brilliant plan to kill two birds with one stone.  In the early eighteen hundreds he founded the Clynelish Distillery - a way to monetize his stocks of barley while simultaneously putting the moonshiners out of business by being the only licensed spirit producer in the region.  Clynelish built a name for itself by being very exclusive, only selling to private customers and not supplying it's stock for blends.

Brora

The Clynelish Disillery changed hands many times over the next hundred and fifty years but eventually ended up in the hands of Distillers Company Ltd.  DCL built a new distillery in the late 1960's named, creatively, "Clynelish B", but to avoid confusion they changed the name of Clynelish A to "Brora".

Around this time there was a drought in Islay and so major brands like Johnnie Walker were seeking contracts for peated whisky to mix into their blends.  Brora started producing a peated malt and became one of the main suppliers. Sadly in the 1980's the market had another shift.  The drought in Islay was over and the market for whisky was in decline, so Brora was mothballed never to reopen.  Well, evidently they were doing something right with those peated batches because when Diageo stopped using Brora for blends and started releasing it as a single malt, it quickly became a massive cult favorite.

Tasting Notes

Nose:  Wow this one is very complex and unmistakable.  It starts off with salty sea air and light smoke.  Then there's a lot of apple cider and lemon cake.  The sweetness takes over with dripping honey.  Then we get the oak and leather.  It all sort of comes together into a lovely perfume.   It lives in the middle place between Islay, Highland, and Spey, we've given it ten minutes to open up, spent five more nosing it, and are now simply dying to take a sip.

Palate:  On the tongue it's sweet and nutty.  Lots of citrus, like hard lemon candies.  The apple cider is back in a big way.  Apricots.  Coconut.  There's some nice oily texture and it's a front of the tongue sweet fruity palate.

Finish:  Back to the smoke and iodine on the finish.  It's really surprisingly smoky and leaves a nice little spirit burn on the back of the throat.

Review

Ok first of all we'd drink this all day.  It's rich and nutty and sweet and smoky and a lot of good things.  And all the good things magnify the goodness and integrate together magically. BUT, it's tough to imagine spending a thousand dollars on this bottle. Ok, granted, it's tough to imagine spending a thousand bucks on any bottle. But there are some that we feel are forgivable. Some vintage ryes that will never exist again, some old Stitzel-Weller bourbon, a vintage Lagavulin or Port Ellen. But this one, dunno, it just doesn't make our list. It's great, but it's not life-changing. It's delicate and, we hate to say it, but it's a little bit forgettable.  We hate to sound unimaginably jaded here...  If this was a $200 bottle we'd be nutzo for it. But for this outrageous exclusivity, forgetting for a moment that it's a piece of history, there are bolder flavors that hold more of a place in our whiskey bucket list.

Have you tasted Brora? What are your thoughts? Does it burn a hole in your soul and leave you craving more? Let us know.      Cheers/SB