Single Malt Report: GlenDronach 8 year old 'The Heilan'

Speaking of young whisky to be appreciated now, I just tried this one last night...

...and decided to call my second audible (both Glendronachs, actually) in two weeks.  I had tried this whisky as part of an OC Scotch Club tasting that I led in July, but didn't really register it then since we were outdoors in 95 degree heat and there were cigars all around.  A lot of people, many of them new to whisky, liked this one the best -- even more than the 33yo Bunnahahbain.

'The Hielan' replaces the 8yo 'Octarine' in GlenDronach's range.  This new whisky is (I think) the first member of the regular range that is made entirely from spirit distilled by the current owners, the BenRiach Distillery Company.  Two elements about this whisky I liked from the start: 1.) Like the Octarine, it has ex-bourbon casks in the mix.  The rest of the official range is made up entirely of ex-sherry casks.  And since Glendronach indies are rare, it's difficult to chase down anything but very sherried 'Dronachs.  Yes, sherried 'Dronachs are often quite swell, but my two experiences with ex-bourbon cask 'Dronach indies were also very positive.  2.) The producers give this starter malt the same presentation as its older siblings: 46%abv, no chilfiltering, and no colorant.  So -- as I often like to say -- there's more whisky in my whisky.  In fact I'm making that my catchphrase.

Let's give this newbie a spin.

Distillery: GlenDronach
Ownership: BenRiach Distillery Company Ltd
Region: Eastern Highlands (on the edge of Speyside)
Age: minimum 8 years old
Maturation: ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks
Alcohol by Volume: 46%
Chillfiltration? No
Added Colorant? No
(Thanks to OCSC for the sample!)

Its color is the lightest gold I've ever seen on a Glendronach official bottling.  The nose is freshly grainy and even a little yeasty, lots of malt.  A hint of savoury herbs.  White stone fruits and milk chocolate.  Small notes of pine sap and peat moss.  A slight ethyl prickle.  Hints of Cow Tails candy and hot carpet.  Cookies in the palate, though light on the vanilla.  Then a burst of pipe tobacco.  Milky hot cocoa, then very dark chocolate.  Some peppery heat on top and a zesty bitterness underneath.  Maybe a little bit of toffee and tart fruit.  In the finish there's a huge hot cocoa note.  S'mores.  Roasted things (malt and nuts).  A citrusy tang.  Thick creamy dessert things minus the sugar.  Not a complex finish but has some decent stamina, especially the hot cocoa part.

Though this isn't the deepest whisky, it's a good bold drink.  The milky hot cocoa thing was so loud (and enjoyable) that I had to see if anyone else experienced something like it.  Luckily most folks do reference milk chocolate and MALT.  So much malt.  Together the milky chocolate and malt shine much brighter than the vanilla note.

Almost as impressive as its quality is its price of €30-35 in Europe.  If 'The Hielan' does make it to The States and the distributor can find it in their cold hearts to price the whisky at $30-35, then we're looking at a significant development.  There are very few age-stated whiskies at that price range now, and even fewer that are of any sort of quality.  But knowing GlenDronach's US distributor's pricing history, they'll put it at $50 and they'll lose me.

But anyway, for other opinions check out Serge's review and also Ruben from whiskynotes.  Though Serge digs this stuff, Ruben finds it "much too malty" and is disappointed by its lack of sherry.  Those are the very reasons I like it.

Availability - Europe only, as of the date of this review

Pricing - €30-35

Rating - 85

The Life of a Whisky Bottle: Port Charlotte PC7 Sin An Doigh Ileach

Quick history
From approximately 1829 to 1929, the town of Port Charlotte (two miles south of Bruichladdich) was home to an active Lochindaal Distillery.  In honor of this late neighbor, Bruichladdich distillery named its new heavily peated (40ppm) malt whisky, Port Charlotte.  For eight years, 2006-2014, 'Laddie released large cask strength batches of Port Charlotte, naming them them 'PC'.  The number following the 'PC' was the age of the single malt.  Thus the series went from PC5 to PC12.  Around 2010, lower priced and lower ABV versions of Port Charlotte started to appear on the market with names like An Turas Mor and The Peat Project, along with an official 46%abv 10 year old.  Recently all of these have been replaced with the NAS Port Charlotte Scottish Barley bottling.

The once and not really future Port Charlotte Distillery
Though there was official discussion and a lot of rumors regarding the Bruichladdich ownership building an actual Port Charlotte distillery, most of that talk went silent once Remy Cointreau bought the company.  They may actually own the land to build the distillery, but according to the official website, "no decisions on the future of the old site have yet been taken."  I don't think anyone should keep his hopes up for this distillery being built this decade, if at all, because two stills which had been intended for use at the distillery to be were sold to Bruichladdich's former owner's new distillery in Ireland.  But because I don't want to leave you saddened, just know that a new small independent Islay distillery, Gartbreck, started production this year.

And now, my bottle
It's Autumn and I'm finally getting around to reviewing one of my winter whiskies, the PC7.  My other big winter whisky, a Ledaig 15yo bottled in 2001, received its review in August.  I bought my PC7 back in 2013 when some of the PCs could still be had for just under $100.  Now they can't be.  It was nice knowin' ye, PC.  Anyway, I'd tried this whisky previously and liked it enough to dump that chunk of credit card into a 7 year old whisky.  When I opened the bottle eight months ago, I kinda hoped I still liked it.

This sticker was on the bottom of the tin. I noticed
it was covering something up...

Hiding under the label, this is what was actually printed
on the tin bottom.

A nice proletariat glamour photo on the side of
the tin. But is The Worker really going to
spend £100 on a bottle of whisky?

Like with the Ledaig, I took samples from the top third, mid-third, and bottom third of the bottle, in January, early March, and April.  Like with the Ledaig, I'm tasting various points of the bottle at the same time in order to compare and see how much it changed in the bottle.  And just to clarify, I tried the uncut versions against each other, and then later compared the reduced versions.

Distillery: Bruichladdich
Brand: Port Charlotte

Ownership: Remy Cointreau

Region: Islay

Type: Single Malt Whisky

Maturation: probably ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks (as per Serge)

Age: 7 years
Distilled: 2001
Bottled: October 25, 2008 
PPM: 40

Alcohol by Volume: 61.0%
Limited release: bottle 23442 of 24000

This bottle's usage:
40% - Swaps and shares
0% - Whisky experiments
20% - Graded tastings
40% - Casual drinking

---

FIRST THIRD OF BOTTLE, January 2015
NEAT:
Nose - First it's peat cinders, toasted sesame seeds, raspberries, and hot tar.  Then it gets a little bready.  A hint of cheese.  Dark cherries.  It gets farmier with lots of time in the glass
Palate - The leavings of a forest fire.  Peated raspberries.  Talisker's pepper, but squared or cubed, like red pepper flakes.  Anise and hay.  A very keen sweetness that never goes overboard.
Finish - Very big and very salty. Charred meat crumbs and mushrooms.  Hay and anise.

REDUCED TO ~50%abv:
Nose - Farmier and cheesier.  Salted smoked meat.  Caramel and greenish peat notes.  There are some stinky socks in there but also berry shisha and molasses candy.
Palate - Big on pepper.  Slightly sugary peat without the berries but with a little more anise.
Finish - But now it gets more berried(!), think cherry gelato.  And in comes a rush of cinnamon candy.

---

MIDDLE THIRD OF BOTTLE, early March 2015
NEAT:
Nose - Less tar and sesame, more fruit, more grassiness.  A bit of melon and a fruity tea.  Tires, orange peel, and caramel sauce.  I think the peat sniffs a little mossier.
Palate - A very rich syrup of peat + cinnamon + brown sugar + pepper + salt.  Smaller notes of orange and vanilla.  Less of the berries.
Finish - Pepper first.  Then salt, dusty peat, and anise.  Maybe some prunes.  This is the hottest it reads during the tasting.

REDUCED TO ~50%abv:
Nose - Again fruitier and grassier than the top third.  Prettier too, with strawberries, cherries, and honeydew.  Also hella peat.
Palate - Pretty much perfect.  Crossing off that shitty tasting note.  Okay, the syrup has softened, balanced out by a slight bitterness.  Fruit punch without the sugar.  And there's even a hint of barley peeking through the covers.
Finish - Gets sweeter now.  The sugars ride the peat into a pink sunset. <---???

---

BOTTOM THIRD OF BOTTLE, late April 2015
NEAT:
Nose - Salty sea.  Toasty nuts/seeds/grains.  Sage smudge, leather coat, a frappuccino-ish thing, and a hint of yeast.  The mossy peat remains strong throughout.
Palate - Basically the same as the middle third.  Maybe some more cherries and a hint of bitterness.
Finish - Peat first, cinders and ash.  Then tangerines, nuts, some sweetness, and a bitter nip.

REDUCED TO ~50%abv:
Nose - Similar pretty honeydew note from the mid-third.  Peat smoked almonds.  More vanilla bean and a bit of farm.
Palate - Similar to the middle third.  Perhaps more fruit and peat.  Dark chocolate.
Finish - Tobacco and bitter coffee, but the sweet berries remain.

---

Observation #1: With the pepper and berries and anise, and its massive and (esoterically) dark style, PC7 is the Petite Sirah of whisky.

Observation #2: A not inconsiderable amount of PC7 was consumed for this review, but it was stretched out over two hours.

Observation #3: While I would love to drop some hate on an expensive young product, I just can't here.  This is excellent whisky.  Though my notes make each pour appear to be very different, most of the time the differences were subtle.  And, I'm happy to say that I liked each iteration.  Great with water, great without.  Great at the bottle top, great at the base.

Observation #4: Not too long ago, there were a number of young but very good whisky brands -- Kilkerran, Kilchoman, and Port Charlotte -- about which so many people ended their reviews with "I can't wait to see how great this is when it's 12 years old!"  I may have been part of that group a couple of times, but then I realized that these were great whiskies right now.  While WIP #2 is my favorite of the Kilkerrans, that brand remains consistently excellent.  I do yearn to try older Kilchoman but it's out of my fascination about what happens to this malt whisky, purposely designed to be good young, when it gets older.  What if it doesn't necessarily get be better at 8+ years old?  And then there's Port Charlotte.  The older it got, the more expensive it became, until they gutted the age statement and watered it down.  I've had The Peat Project, An Turas Mor, the 10yo, and Scottish Barley.  None of them are in the same league as the PC7 (or the PC6 or PC8).  Again, this isn't to say that whisky in general is getting worse (that's for another post), but perhaps we should appreciate what we've got now because we have no idea what happens next.

Availability - Used to be the easiest PC to obtain, but now it's been mostly obtained

Pricing - was $90-$100 as recently as two years ago, is now $150-$200 in the US and much more expensive in Europe

Rating - 91

A week of wut? Teemu's Mystery Spirit sample

Earlier this year I had the distinct pleasure of completing a sample swap with Finland's own Mr. Whisky Science himself: Teemu S.  If you haven't gone to Whisky Science yet, you should leave this post right now and go there.  You will learn something there.  Comparatively, this blog don't learn you nothing good.

Anyway, when I received my parcel I discovered what I thought was an error......there were too many bottles.  Oh shoot, had I accidentally requested a higher number than I had thought?  And the extra one had no label.  Turns out, the extra sample was purposeful.

MK's email: What is the 7th mystery dram???
Teemu's email: For me to know and for you to find out.. I'll tell after you have tasted it.

Of course, just then Southern California was hit with a 90-95ºF heat wave.  But I couldn't wait, a week later I tried it and send him my notes.

MK's email: The nose is full of bourbony goodness. Vanilla and butterscotch. Minty menthol, anise, and ripe banana. Hints of charred meat, butter, and buttermilk pancakes. My empty glass has a maple syrup thing going on. The palate is less sweet than the nose leads on. A little woody and salty, but still some corn syrup and creamed corn. A little bit of spice, menthol, and (maybe?) sweet basil. Pretty lengthy finish. Sea salt, caramel, and slightly dusty.  I'm going to go with my nose and say it's bourbon. The nose reminds me of my favorite old-style bourbon by the defunct National Distillers. If it's a current bourbon, I'd be pretty excited.

Yes, sadly, I email my notes in a similar fashion to the way I post them on this site.  But how close was I?  This was good stuff, especially the nose!  Teemu responded quickly:

Teemu's email: Your notes are spot on, very much a "sugarfree heavyhitting spicy bourbon"
It is actually a great old rum.
Albion Velier 1994/2011 casks 7100-7103, distilled in a wooden coffey still in Demerara.
Very much a whisky drinker's rum.
This is "a light young version" of Albion ;)

Well, shoot.  When I drank the second half of the sample, four months later, I found a little more molasses in the nose and palate, but it was never a sugar bomb.  Judge me as you'd like, but I liked this Albion better than the majority of whiskies (and definitely better than any bourbon) I've tried this calendar year.

There's a good reason why a number of prominent whisky bloggers are now reviewing non-whisky aged spirits (or malternatives).  Okay, two good reasons.  Firstly, whisky prices have ascended quickly while the quality has at best remained the same.  Secondly, the universe of hedonistic pleasure gleaned from spirits doesn't end at whisk(e)y.  In fact, there's a lot of sensory overlap between aged rums, brandies, mezcals, and whiskies.  Many of us have been ruined by the goopy sweet bestseller rums, the Korbels and Martels of the brandy shelves, and J. Cuervo.  Had we written off whisky after only drinking Dewar's White and Johnnie Red, then we wouldn't currently be in the middle of our personal whisky voyages.

That's just something I'll ponder for now.  While I doubt there will be any non-whisky reviews this year, I cannot say I'll never go that route...

A week of wut? A GlenDronach single cask goes fakakta

Three months ago, I reviewed my bottle of GlenDronach 10yo 2002 Virgin Oak Hogshead #4530.  I gave it an 83 rating, declared it Scottish Bourbon, and noted that the cask influence was pleasant.

At that time (early June), the bottle which had been open for two months was at its halfway point.  But ever since I got to its bottom third (early August), it's become less and less enjoyable.  I'm reminded of a quote from a wise whisky friend from Irvine who once said of an open bottle that lingered and lingered in the cabinet, "It's just so much fucking work."  My bottle of GlenDronach has become just so much fucking work to drink.  So I thought it best to review it a second time.

The final four ounces of oak...

Distillery: GlenDronach
Ownership: BenRiach Distillery Company Ltd
Age: 10 years (June 2002- October 2012)
Maturation: Virgin Oak Hogshead
Region: Eastern Highlands (on the edge of Speyside)
Alcohol by Volume: 57.1%
Cask: 4530 (selected by The Nectar Belgium)
Limited bottling: 298

NEAT
Color -- Dark gold.  That hasn't changed.
Nose -- All bourbon. Or should I say, all oak.  More sawdust than vanilla.  Wood varnish.  Imitation mint extract.  A slight nuttiness, like hazelnuts or Nutella or praline.
Palate -- A slab of bitter oak is the first guest to the party and the last to leave.  Some aromatic wood notes as well.  Vanilla.  Lots of salt and sour lemon.
Finish -- Vanilla and caramel.  Sawdust and heat.  The sour lemon shifts to vinegar.

WITH WATER (~46%abv)
Nose -- This trims off the rougher oak parts, but is otherwise a load of vanilla, caramel, and barrel char.  Smaller notes of nuts and brine.
Palate -- Very bitter, salty, and oddly sweet.  It's like the many off-kilter craft bourbons that have been bottled too young after being aged in tiny barrels.  Like liking a stave.
Finish -- Sour, salty, and bitter.  Also vanilla.

And, may I add, it's even bitterer on the rocks.  As you can see from my notes, adding water isn't a good idea, so I still prefer it neat.  If "prefer" is the right word.  The nose is still somewhat recommendable for those who are bourbon fans.  Meanwhile, the difficult palate is all I can think of right now.

For my fellow completists, I'll also add that I never applied any Private Preserve, but I did decant the whisky into an 8 ounce bottle, and then later into a 4 ounce bottle, hoping the decanting would help it out.  It did not.  Perhaps oxidation is responsible for the degradation?  The bottle was opened five months ago and was best at the start and still good at the midpoint.  So, I suppose I'd recommend that the bottle be consumed within three months or less before things start to fall apart.  Or maybe there's something to these single Glendronach VO casks that doesn't work for me, since I also did not care for cask #4525.  In any case, I have no interest in trying any more of these VO single casks, ever.

And one final note for those who obtained a sample of this from me, please know that yours did not come from this last third of the bottle.

Availability - Auctions?

Pricing - I bought it for €59 (€49 w/o VAT)

Rating - 73

A week of wut? Michael's Solid Number Two, the review

After three months, WTF Is This? has come to a (temporary?) close.  But it's a stylish close!  This week I'll be honoring that series with three unique(ish) reviews you won't find anywhere else, hopefully.  First up, my whiskey.

I am a terrible whisk(e)y blender.  The blending failures not published to this site are vast, vast, vast in number.  Vast.  But even a poor blender is entitled to some half-assed success.  Enter Michael's Solid Number Two.  One year and one week ago, I wrote a post about three whiskey blends made from the cask strength version of Balcones's True Blue Corn Whiskey and Rittenhouse Bottled-in-Bond Rye.  Out of the three blends the second one turned out to be very good, thus the subtle literary post title, Michael makes a solid number two.

It was an ultra high (is that name my invention too?) rye bourbon, with a mashbill of approximately 51/40/9 and an ABV of about 51.4%.  For the experiment I made a 30mL sample and let it rest for 18 days.  After discovering the resulting success, I scaled it up to 650mL in the bottle above.  Would've done the full 750mL but I was out of ingredients.  Anyway, I drank it all.  Except for one sample...

Color -- Dark gold
Nose -- Big rye, just like the old label Ritt I had used (and used to love).  Meaty/savory but also highlighted by flower blossoms.  Lots of mint and caramel sauce.  Some saline.  A vanilla bean note grows with time.  It sometimes seems like it's getting younger with time, too, picking up some yeast and new make notes.
Palate -- Hotter than the nose.  And (woo!) really peppery too.  Very thick texture.  A medium sweetness level, mostly fueled by corn syrup.  There's a nuttiness that leans towards roasted peanuts.  A slight burnt note.  Bitter coffee.  Gets drier with time.
Finish -- Extensive and sweet.  Brown sugar and cayenne.  Lemon and lime candies.  Black cherry soda and vanilla.  The bitter note from the palate does an upswing into tangy.

Yep, hits the spots.  Similar to the lower rye mashbill versions of rye (like Rittenhouse) with some more youth and sweets.  It works very well on the rocks, keeping much of its flavor.  Man, I miss this stuff.  I can't tell you how many days this summer I sat praying for another number two.

Availability - All gone, unless you make your own

Pricing - You'd have to buy a bottle of a sold out cask strength corn whiskey and the old label version of Rittenhouse BIB

Rating - 85

WTF Is This? Michter's Toasted Barrel Finish Bourbon

I've been struggling to figure out how to write this post's introduction.  This is my fourth and final attempt.  Here it goes...

I don't understand the lengths to which some new whiskey companies go and the resources they commit to deceiving customers and distorting their brand.  For instance, Michter's.

There once was a distillery near Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania, that was briefly called Michter's in the 1970s and '80s.  Distilling had been going on at the site for almost 240 years when it shut down in 1990, and had gone by other names throughout that time.  Several years after the distillery was closed and abandoned a company named Chatham Imports bought the brand, and have been a Non-Distilling Producer (NDP) ever since -- releasing whiskies distilled (and occasionally bottled) by other companies.  (As of last month, they finally do have their own Michter's distillery up and running, in Kentucky.)  But several years before they distilled anything they had given an employee the title of Master Distiller, parading him around at as many events and distillers' conferences as they could.  And from the sound of it he was out of his league as he shared stages with men who had been actually distilling for decades.  In their advertising they used images of photoshopped barrels and CGI'ed stills that didn't exist.  They created revisionist history about their distillery, keeping things blurry about what distillery they were actually referencing: the non-existent one or the closed one that didn't distill their whiskey.  No, it (whatever it was) wasn't the oldest distillery in the country nor did George Washington's army slake its thirst there.  Chatham Imports seem to be distancing their "Michter's" history as far from the original distillery's history, even suing its surviving Master Distiller into silence.

While some of this depends on the veracity of independent reports, what is clear is that a lot of effort has been spent on distortion.  And I don't understand it.  How many more bottles of bourbon is Michter's really going to sell by committing to this approach?  Why burn so many bridges so early in the game?  And (to Michter's, as well as Templeton and Whistle Pig), why hide or lie about the source of one's whiskey -- especially when it's a good source -- rather than focusing on showing pride in being a successful American small business with big dreams on the rise?

Unlike Bourbon Truth, I do not have unbridled rage over this.  But Chatham's actions do make me uncomfortable enough to avoid buying their products.  There is SO MUCH whisk(e)y on the market right now, so I'll stick to the stuff with less of the creep factor.

I'm going to end this section here and provide you with links below if you want to wade further into this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomberger%27s_Distillery
http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-can-non-distiller-be-distiller-of.html
http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2014/03/where-is-michters-distillery.html
http://www.cooperedtot.com/2014/03/considering-michters.html
http://thebourbontruth.tumblr.com/post/79568476215/deceit-vs-deception-the-heroes-and-hobos-of
http://thebourbontruth.tumblr.com/post/101297586796/the-battle-for-bombergers-david-vs-whiskey
http://whiskycast.com/battle-over-bombergers-whiskey-brand-heading-to-court/
http://thebourbontruth.tumblr.com/post/125014187151/some-times-the-bully-wins-bomberger-vs-chatham
http://www.fredminnick.com/2015/08/10/the-new-stoll-wolfe/

---

Okay, so after all of that, what the hell is this whiskey and why the hell am I reviewing it?  Well, we don't know who distilled the stuff, though it was distilled in KY.  And it is bourbon.  In this case, Michter's takes their sourced straight bourbon (which is at least 4 years old) and finishes it for "an additional period".  They don't state the length of the finish, but do share that the barrel's staves were air-dried for 18 months.  That's a curious random detail which almost led me to think that the finish was 18 months long at first glance.  But the finish was likely not 18 months long.  I'm reviewing this whiskey because I'm curious to see how a toasted oak finish would affect a bourbon.  And I'm kind of expecting a disaster.

Brand: Michter's
Owner: Chatham Imports
Region: Kentucky
Type: Bourbon Whiskey
Age: at least 4 years old
Finish/Length: Toasted Barrels for "an additional period"
Alcohol by volume: 45.7%
Thank you to Smokypeat for the sample!

NEAT
The color is dark rosy gold, almost the same shade as the 9yo Knob Creek Single Barrel.  The nose is curiously fruity.  Fresh grapefruit, lemon candy, and gummi worms.  Lots of caramel too.  After 10 minutes the oak rolls in.  More vanilla, but also some mint.  At first, there's not much going on in the palate.  Just non-descript sweets and sawdust.  But gradually some savory bits and salty cheese appear.  Then corn syrup and mint.  A mild peppery spice and a slight plasticky note.  The finish is slightly perfumy.  Then black pepper, barrel char, and distant cardboard note.

AS A HIGHBALL (1:1 ratio of whisky and club soda)
Caramel, orange candy, black pepper, and barrel char.

While I wouldn't call this great whiskey, it was much better than I had expected.  The early nose was good and the resulting highball was pleasant.  When neat, the palate doesn't do anything for me, though at least it wasn't hot.  Perhaps that's where the toasted oak came in, tempering some sharper edges, because otherwise I don't see much in the way of new stuff happening.  Usually when I find fruit notes (like those in the nose), it's related back to the original spirit.  And I don't find any spice or nuttiness that I often find in toasted oak whiskies.

But it's okay stuff.  If it were half its price, like $20-$25, and it came from a cleaner parent company then I'd consider buying it.  But it's $40-$60 and from Michter's, so no thanks.

Availability - Some US specialty retailers

Pricing - $40-$60

Rating - 78

NOT Single Malt Report: Russell's Reserve Small Batch 10 year old Bourbon

Follow me as I leave Beam Suntory for Gruppo Campari.

Russell's Reserve is a brand within a brand (Wild Turkey).  It's a line of age-stated bourbon and rye honoring the Russell family who have been Wild Turkey's master distillers for decades.  There's a 10 year old small batch bourbon (45%abv), a 10 year old single barrel bourbon (55%abv and usually sold as exclusives through specific retailers), and a 6 year old rye (45%abv).

I have mixed feelings about Wild Turkey's products.  While I enjoyed their 101 rye before it was pulled from the shelf (then put back on the shelf) and find Rare Breed to be a reasonable bird, I do not like the current version of their regular 101 bourbon.  I've tried and re-tried it more than I should have and plan on doing an official review of it next year.  With that in mind, I've never gone out and bought a bottle of Russell's.  But Jordan of Chemistry of the Cocktail helpfully supplied me with a good sample.

I tried this Russell's alongside yesterday's unfortunate Maker's Mark and there was really no competition.  Aside from having very different mashbills (rye versus wheat), there was so much more heft and body to one of them...

Owner: Gruppo Campari
Brand: Wild Turkey
Sub-brand: Russell's Reserve
Distillery: Wild Turkey Distillery
Location: Lawrenceburg, Kentucky
Mash Bill: around 13% rye (probably)
Age: minimum 10 years old
ABV: 45%
(Thank you to Jordan for the sample!)

NEAT
Its color is dark maple syrup.  The nose shows halvah, rye seeds, and hints of orange peel.  Alternating notes of toasted and charred oak.  More butter and caramel than vanilla.  With 20+ minutes in the glass, there's more barrel char.  An almond torte, too.  And a lot more rye than one expects from the rumored mashbill.  The palate has lots of peppery rye.  Mint, musty oak, tart apples, and black cherry syrup appear in the mid-ground.  Smaller notes of orange candies in the back.  It feels big without being hot, and never gets too sweet.  It finishes with some aromatic woody notes, as well as the familiar caramel and vanilla.  There's are also some orange candies and black peppercorns.

AS A HIGHBALL (1:1 ratio of whisky and club soda)
Big vanilla.  Woody.  Maybe a little creamed corn in there.

This was such a relief to drink after each sip of Maker's Mark.  On its own, it won't WOW anyone, but it's very solid.  The rye element here is my favorite part.  I'm fascinated by how strongly it registers considering how little of it is in the mash.  The balance between the nose, palate, and finish is admirable.  Unlike the Knob Creek Single Barrel (KCSB) I tried, the oak is relatively reigned in.  I recommend it neat, though as a highball it isn't terrible.

In the current (2015) market, its price is reasonable for its age.  It appears to be $5-$10 cheaper than KCSB, but I'd pick this one first any day.  It's a few bucks cheaper than Rare Breed and I think I'd pick the Russell's over that one too, though it's a close call.  But it's nice to know that one can still find decent American whiskey at $30ish, while the prices on the whiskies across the pond continue to expand seemingly beyond control and logic.

Availability - Most specialty retailers

Pricing - $28-$45

Rating - 84