NOT Single Malt Report: Pikesville 6 year old Rye (and Rittenhouse BIB)

WHHHHHHHUT?!  Yes, another of-the-moment whiskey.  I don't know what's gotten into me.  Okay maybe some whiskey.  I really do structure my reviews months ahead of time, but sometimes circumstances call for an audible.

Two weeks ago the man in the fedora belched out The New Murray Testament causing people with tastebuds to ponder his competence and/or his intent.  I have zero interest in reviewing his World Whisky of the Year, but I did have some interest in trying the runner-up: Pikesville 6 year old Rye.  Then just this week, a mensch known for his crisp reviews and sample labels and certain recent eats presented me with a sample of this Very Murray Rye.

And, it was just my luck that I had a bottle of Rittenhouse BIB Rye (Pikeville 6's younger sibling) open for comparison purposes.  To be honest, our home has had bottles of Ritt open almost nonstop for the past two years.  I've been finding the quality of Ritt BIB slipping with each successive bottle, and as a result this bottle has taken a long time to finish.  This decline is not fun, and I keep hoping for the next one to bounce back, but...

RITTENHOUSE RYE BOTTLED-IN-BOND
Brand: Rittenhouse

Owner: Heaven Hill
Type: Straight Rye Whisky (no 'e'!)
Age: minimum 4 years
Region: Distillery - Louisville, Kentucky; Warehouse - Bardstown, Kentucky
Maturation: New American oak
Mashbill: 51% Rye (per Cowdery here and here)

Bottle Code: B3474
Bottle Year: late 2014

Alcohol by Volume: 50%
(from my bottle, bottom 1/3 of bottle)

Its color is the lighter of the two whiskies.

The nose is very bourbony and corny, in fact I'd guess this was a bourbon if I'd nosed this blindly.  There's also caramel, rock candy, and hazelnuts.  Some flower blossom notes peek out here and there.

The palate is very nutty: walnuts, hazelnuts, halvah (yes, it's not technically made of nuts), and burnt peanuts.  Then comes salt and some rye-ish pepper.  There's a woody bitterness that starts out small but then expands with time in the glass.

The rye spices show much stronger in the finish, joining up with some wood smoke, walnuts, and burnt peanuts.  Like the palate it grows bitterer with time.

And now the older sibling...

PIKESVILLE 6 YEAR OLD RYE
Brand: Pikesville

Owner: Heaven Hill
Type: Straight Rye Whiskey (with an 'e')
Age: minimum 6 years
Region: Louisville, Kentucky
Maturation: New American oak
Mashbill: 51% Rye (per Cowdery here and here)

Alcohol by Volume: 55%
Thanks to Sku for the sample!

Its color is the darker of the two whiskies.

There's a mild soapy note in the nose at first, but it fades after a minute or two and is replaced by a green grassy note.  Meanwhile much larger bursts of cherry candies and caramel candies sound out.  Definitely some toffee.  Maybe a little mango.  A nice fudgy moment and an occasional perfumy floral whiff.  A barrel char note appears after 20+ minutes.

The rye grain is bigger in this one's palate than in the Ritt.  Louder spice.  Louder pepper.  Though there's a little bit of sweets, it's less sweet than the nose led me to believe.  The nutty note has been pushed way back, as has the bitterness.  It's still sort of bourbony though.  Mint leaves develop after 20+ minutes.

Quite a spicy zing at the front of the tongue, while black pepper hits the back of the throat in the finish.  Then rye bread and bourbon.  A mint/menthol note lingers the longest.

---

Well, Pikesville is without question the better of the two.  While my first two bottles of Rittenhouse (old label) were comparable or better than the Pikesville, this current Ritt bottle continues the quality decline.  Which sucks.  Two years ago, I would have been happy to pay $30+ for the quality in the bottle.  Today, I wouldn't pay more than $20.  In fact, this may be my last bottle of Rittenhouse BIB unless Kristen requests we get another.

The real quality difference between the Pikesville and the Rittenhouse is in the palate.  I do like the Ritt's nose.  While it isn't particularly deep, it's very pleasant.  But it's just not that enjoyable to drink.  The burnt nuttiness and woody bitterness is almost abusive at times.  Meanwhile the Pike is brightly spicy with a touch of sweetness and that good mint note.  Its finish is much more pleasant as well.

All that being said, I wouldn't pay $50-$60 for the Pikesville.  There's real competition in the whiskey world at that price range.  It does have the qualities that I would love Rittenhouse BIB to have at its $25-$30 price range.  I almost wonder if the first few batches of Heaven Hill's (DSP KY-1) Rittenhouse BIB were 6+ years old, like Pike, and the new Ritts are barely 4.  In any case, Pikesville 6yo is not only not the second best whiskey world, it won't even be the second best whiskey you drink this week.

RITTENHOUSE RYE BIB (code B3474)

Availability - Most US specialty retailers have Ritt BIB in general

Pricing - $22-$30

Rating - 78

PIKESVILLE 6 YEAR OLD RYE

Availability - Some US specialty retailers

Pricing - $50-$60, though some shops are now trying to sell it for $100

Rating - 84

Brenne Estate Cask and Brenne Ten

Alison Patel of Brenne has confidently entered the giant boys' club of whisky, an industry that has been, at best, dismissive of 50% of the population or, at worst, determinedly misogynistic (also see booth babes, Dewar's "The Drinking Man's Scotch" and "The Baron" campaigns, and a number of contemporary bottle labels with women in states undress and/or riding phalluses).  But while I'd love to support independent progressive venture like Brenne, it still needs to put a good product on the shelf.  (I feel the same way about the rise of independent "craft" American distillers.  While I'd love to support American small businesses, if the whisky isn't good -- and much of it isn't -- then I'm not going to buy it.)

Brenne gets its whisky from a single small distiller in Cognac, France.  The barley is from Cognac.  The whisky is distilled, matured, and bottled there as well.  The distiller does a double distillation on his alembic still, as he does for his cognac.  The spirit is then aged in "new Limousin oak barrels before being finished in Cognac casks."  Until this year, Brenne had one product, the Estate Cask, which was a series of single barrel releases, bottled at 40%abv and without an age statement (though the website says the casks were seven years on average).  Last month, a second product entered the market, Brenne Ten, a ten year old single malt with a different maturation process and bottled at 48%abv.  Ms. Patel selects the Estate Casks herself and was responsible for the blending of Brenne Ten.

Full disclosure: I have met Alison Patel and I can tell you that she can out cuss the rest of the room like any self-respecting former Joffrey Ballet dancer can.  It was a pleasure talking to her about Brenne and a bunch of non-whisky things.  Likely the result of this conversation, her company sent me the samples I am reviewing today.  Due to the sample size I'll be using a letter grade range for these two whiskies.


BRENNE ESTATE CASK

Distillery: Brenne
Region: Cognac region, France
Grain: Malted Barley
Age: around 7 years
Maturation: first in new Limousin casks, then finished in ex-Cognac casks
Alcohol by volume: 40%

Color -- Light gold

Nose -- Saltwater taffy and circus peanuts, big time.  Then there's the white chocolate and orange blossom notes I've previously found in these casks.  Here and there arise smaller notes of strawberries, Twizzlers, and burnt grain.

Palate -- A swirl of taffy, caramel, and white chocolate.  After a few minutes, it develops a bit of malt and herbal bitterness.  Gradually it focuses in on the herbal notes and white chocolate.

Finish -- Sugary.  Circus peanuts, white chocolate, and cocoa.  It picks up the bitter note after a while.


BRENNE TEN

Distillery: Brenne
Region: Cognac region, France
Grain: Malted Barley
Age: around 10 years
Maturation: "a blend of 4 barrels of Brenne. I'm using a combination of virgin French Oak and ex-Cognac casks as I've done for Brenne Estate Cask but choosing this time to have some that have been in both barrels and others that are exclusively aged in either the virgin French Oak or the Cognac barrel for the full 10 years."
Alcohol by volume: 48%

Color -- Amber, lighter than the Estate Cask

The nose is very floral and almost smoky.  Notes of pine needles and nectarines merge with just a hint of the Estate's taffy.  The occasional whisper of soap shows up.  A note of fresh coffee grounds develops after ten minutes.

The palate is darker than the Estate's.  Roasted and toasted nuts and grains sit up front.  Mocha and a slight menthol nip meet hints of flower blossoms and barrel char.

On the finish, the menthol bit turns into a wormwood bite.  There are some caramel chews, limes, and a little bit of oak.

---

The Estate Cask has tended to be polarizing when I've tried it in groups.  Some people like it, some don't.  Perhaps it's the floral element or its occasionally cognac-like nature.  It's not an overall crowd pleaser, but its uniqueness gives it a spot in the marketplace.  The quality or tenor of the Estate Cask varies from cask to cask; though this sample did not have a cask number listed it's pretty representative of the product's general characteristics.  If you're interested in the Estate Cask, I'd recommend trying to find a bar that has it and sampling it there.  My wife liked it when she tried it a couple years ago.  I do like the nose better than the palate, which sometimes seems like a curious liqueur-like blend of Lowland scotch and young cognac [Ed. note: Crap, Sku already said this.].  Grade range: C+/B-

Meanwhile, Brenne Ten is a very different whisky and will appeal more directly to single malt scotch fans.  Perhaps it's a combination of the age, the oak, and the strength, but it provides a more familiar experience for some of us.  It's less sweet, the floral notes are quieter, the grain itself is louder, as is the good oak.  Some will balk at the price, $100, which is a reasonable response.  I do like it enough that had it been at the $70ish level, I'd spring for a bottle.  Grade range: B

Single Malt Report: FEW Spirits Single Malt Whisky

Evanston, Illinois was a dry city until 1972, almost forty years after national prohibition was repealed, partially thanks to the efforts of suffragette Frances Elizabeth Willard a century before.  When naming Evanston's first post-prohibition distillery, distiller Paul Hletko honored (or insulted) Willard's efforts by using her initials, F.E.W.  From distiller Hletko's interview with Martha Stewart Magazine:

A true grain-to-glass distillery, Few [sic] ferments, distills and bottles all of its products from scratch on-site. All the grain used in our products—corn, wheat, rye and barley—is grown less than 100 miles from the distillery, and other ingredients are sourced from even closer: I planted hops in my own backyard for my American Gin.

I went with Martha Stewart's site since FEW's official site provides nothing but vague gibberish about the company's origins.  Anyway, FEW makes a bourbon, rye, white gin, and barrel aged gin, with similar easily recognizable labels depicting the 1892 Chicago World's Fair.  They also made this single malt whiskey once upon a time, though I'm not sure if they still do.  It no longer appears on their site and it's starting to get scarce on the West Coast.

Distillery: FEW Spirits
Region: Evanston, IL, USA
Grain: Malted Barley, a portion of which was smoked using cherry wood
Age: damfino
Maturation: American oak
Alcohol by volume: 46.5%

I obtained this sample at a paid LA Scotch Club event, a curling event actually.  The whisky intrigued me since Serge and Whisky Jug were very enthusiastic about it.  But when two of the LASC members, who are both LAWS members as well, emphatically encouraged me to take the bottle away from them, I started to have my doubts.  And I declined taking an additional sample.  Was that a good decision?

Tasting Notes:

NEAT:
It's color is a dark bourbon brown.

Immediately the nose is homemade cinnamon applesauce, then Hostess apple pies, then real peach pies.  Buttery dough.  It's all very vivid, with lots of barley running through it.

First there's just a ton of cinnamon in the palate.  Then peach lambic and a sweet witbier.  A few minutes later it's clover honey, sawdust, halvah, and Play-Doh.

It finishes plenty sweet.  Cinnamon, honey, and Play-Doh.

WITH WATER (~40%abv):
Cinnamon schnapps and apple schnapps on the nose.  And then here comes the Play-Doh, along with a little bit of banana bread.

How about cinnamon Play-Doh on a palate?  Small notes of black pepper and apples.  Not that sweet.

It's also less sweet than before in the finish.  All black pepper and cinnamon.

More words:

I'll start with the positives.  It really is its own creature and is bottled at a good ABV.  The nose is unique, in a positive way.  Lots of lively spirit kicks around throughout...

...but then in the palate that whole uniqueness turns into an awkward curiosity.  While the beer notes are certainly palatable, the sweetness and oak are not.  And it begins to feel like a lot of American craft/artisan/handmade whiskies, somehow both undermatured and woody.  Adding water turns it into a total jumble, though it does cut down the sweetness.  Meanwhile, I don't understand its pricing at all.

Caveat: Almost everyone online seems to like this whisky more than I do.  Until the LAWS dudes post their reviews, the only other folks who have released less than positive reviews are a few of the Booze Dancing guys.  If you've tried this whisky let me know what you thought of it in the comments section below.

Availability - Many liquor specialists
Pricing - $60-$80 (yeesh)
Rating - 76

Whisky #501: Highland Park 18 year old

After a review of a whisky that probably can't be had here's a whisky that probably can be had! Yes, there are a dozen of the classics that I need to review or re-review someday.  But I have this one right on hand.  And it's good.

Highland Park 18 aka The Good All 'Rounder aka F. Paul Pacult's Honeybaby aka Damn, Remember When This Cost Only $XX!  Well, I indeed found a bottle at its three-years-ago price and brought it to the tasting I led for the OC Scotch Club last week.

Distillery: Highland Park

Ownership: The Edrington Group

Region: Islands (Orkney)

Type: Single Malt Whisky

Maturation: rumored to be 45% first fill sherry and 55% refill sherry casks, mostly European oak

Age: minimum 18 years

Alcohol by Volume: 43%
Chillfilltered? Probably.
Colored? Probably not, since both the man in the fedora and the man in the bothy say HP doesn't
Bottle code: see below, may be a 2010 bottling

Tasting Notes:

NEAT:

Color -- Rosy gold

Nose -- It starts out with orange sherbet, roses, and hints of peach candy.  While there's definitely sherry the mix, it isn't grapey sugary, rather it's something drier and mellow.  Then toasted walnuts and a peppery peat.  After some time, notes of smoky prunes and salted caramel ice cream come out.

Palate -- Lightly sweet and malty.  Much more European oak / Oloroso sherry showing through.  Dried berries and grape juice.  Lots of milk chocolate and toffee.  Dried apricots and a gentle herbal bitterness.  Peat is in the waaaaaaay back.  Yeah it's "heathery" if heather was smothered in toffee.

Finish -- Hints of smoke and malt mixed with larger notes of dried berries and milk chocolate.  A little bit of a peppery zing.  A burst of sherry arrives retronasally.

WITH WATER (~40%abv):

Nose -- All of the neat notes merge together and get a little blurry, though the sherry feels louder.  More tobacco, less fruit.

Palate -- A little more herbal and bitter, in a good way.  Less sweetness.  Dried cherries and a hint of sherry.  The texture goes watery, though.

Finish -- Very dry sherry now, along with a hint of wasabi.  Some salt and dried grass.

Verdict:  Much better when neat.

Comments:

Somehow I keep forgetting how very reliable HP's age-stated whiskies always are.  The 12, 15, and 18 are unerringly solid, each with their character.  The 18yo is the most graceful of the trio and the most luxurious feeling in nature.  The sherry element is good, but much more restrained and a better team player than in Macallan (HP's Edrington mate).  There's peat, but it's a quiet thing.  Meanwhile, the whisky is loaded with well-matured malt notes.

Would I like this at 46%abv and unfiltered?  Of course.  It seems to hit a wall at 43%abv, and begins to crumble at 40%.  But since HP bottles many of their products at 40%abv in Europe, I guess we should be glad they didn't do so with this one.

Once upon a time, this whisky was a no-doubter.  But then economics had to come along and spoil the fun.  In 2007, the average US price was $75.  As of today, it's around $135.  That's an 80% increase (versus 15% inflation) in eight years and that's a chasm many of its fans (including this one) hesitate to leap.  Still, considering that Macallan 18 is now $235, HP18 almost looks like a bargain.  But it's not.  I'd still buy it over Mac 18 if they were the same price, and I happily recommend it over Mac 18 any day to anyone who has that kind of walkaround money.  And if you can find it for under $100, that's even better.

Availability - Most liquor specialists and even the occasional corner liquor
Pricing - $100-$150
Rating - 89

Whisky #500: Abraham Bowman Virginia Rye (exclusive to The Party Source, barrel #2)

And some of you are going, "Huh?"

Okay, maybe some backstory?  I'll try to keep it brief.

Abraham Bowman is a whiskey brand owned by A. Smith Bowman, which is in turn owned by Sazerac.  A. Smith Bowman does have its own distillery in Virginia and (according to Sku) rather than distilling grain mash, they distill spirit that has already been distilled by Buffalo Trace.  In 2011, they released three single barrel ryes exclusively through The Party Source in Kentucky.  For these whiskies, Bowman took Thomas H. Handy rye spirit (sources here and here) and re-distilled it.  They were all left to matured longer than Buffalo Trace's Handy releases -- somewhere around 10 years -- and all have very high ABVs.

In 2012, Florin (a prince) poured a glass of barrel #2 for me.  It was the best American whiskey I'd ever had.  Over the years it has kept that title.  But I wondered recently, had I begun to inflate this memory?  I've had a lot of American whiskey since then.  And other people (see the links above and also LAWS) raved about barrel #1, but no one to my knowledge had reviewed barrel #2.  Thankfully, I had a sample of this very rye, which I opened on Mathilda's 18-month birthday.

The important thing to remember is:
Change is goo.

Brand: Abraham Bowman
Company:  A. Smith Bowman
Owner: Sazerac
Type: Straight Rye Whiskey
Final Distillation: March 14, 2001
Bottled: May 12, 2011

Age: 10 years

Maturation: New American Oak

Region: Fredricksburg, Virginia (though originally distilled in Frankfort, Kentucky)
Barrel: 2
Retailer: The Party Source

Alcohol by Volume: 67.3%
(Sample acquired via a swap with Florin three years ago. Thanks!)

Tasting Notes:

Color -- A red brown, like cherrywood.

Nose -- Enormous wood notes.  Vanilla beans, butter toffee ice cream, pencil shavings, and Hershey's syrup.  Weaving within the oak desserts are mint leaves, cherry candy, Macintosh apple skins, and (maybe) slivovitz.  It also picks up some orange oil notes after a half hour.

Palate -- Not only does it have most of the nose's notes, but it's also loaded with thick gooey rye, salt, limes, and chili oil.  So much toffee.  Almond cookies, vanilla mingling with toasted nuts.  It's also a little malty at times too.  The peppery spice box notes lift off at the 30 minute mark.

Finish -- All night long.  Chili oil and brown sugar.  Oak smoke and toffee.  Then the rye hammer lands and spice fills the face.

More words:

As wonderful as I'd remembered.  You may ask, "Did you try it with water?"  And I may answer, "Nope."  This should be experienced in its full thunderous form.  Very bold but very composed and, well, delicious.  Multiple times during this tasting I discovered I'd gotten lost in reverie.  I can't think of an American whiskey I've tried that can match this rye.

I'm of many minds about this, partially because I am Sybil, and partially because of the utter shitshow that the premium American whiskey marketplace has become.  It would be wonderful if Bowman would produce more of this rye at full strength because people need to try it.  But it would royally suck if they only released it exclusively through a retailer that doesn't ship.  What would suck even more royally is that if they did release more single barrels today then most retailers and all flippers would sell it for 5x its MSRP and no one would actually open a bottle.  So maybe it was best that it was sold four years ago.  Some people actually drank it.  Change is goo?

Availability - None
Pricing - ???
Rating - 94

Thank You!

Tomorrow I will publish my 500th officially graded whisky.  Yes, there have been an additional two dozen whiskies (or so) that I've given only letter grades to.  And yes, there have been fewer than five hundred single malt reports.  But still, 500.  That's a very round number.

This is still my best drawing ever.

These whisky reviews would not exist without you.  My content exists thanks to my friends with whom I do sample swaps.  My content exists thanks to those friends who randomly send me goodies from their collections.  My content exists thanks to local whisky groups and the good people I meet at events.  But most of all, my content exists because I have readers.  Stories do not exist without an audience, so the simple fact that you voluntarily come to my site to read about my ongoing whisky journey means that it exists on a more significant plane than just notes in my eleven whisky notebooks stacked in the corner of my desk.

While I would love to write more deeply considered meditations on the whisky industry (and/or anything other than whisky), being a stay-at-home father has made that more challenging than before.  I don't drink during the day, I don't blog during the day, and I rarely tweet or facebook during the day.  My recreation in the evening is to plop down in my whisky chair -- it's not made of whisky, yet -- with an ounce (or two?) of whisky, put on some jazz, avant-garde, or classical music that hopefully matches the drink and then attempt to document my discoveries on paper.  On the weekends I type up my scribbles, add in the terrible humor, a few photos, and use a random number generator for the final rating.

Next year will bring some changes, all good, some of which I hope to share here.  I have most of my reviews already scheduled for the next four months, though I'm still sorting out the extent to which I'll review non-whisky spirits.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, a full sequel to What Was the Scotch Boom is on the docket for the new year, unless the SWA chickens out and doesn't release their full report.

In the meantime, welcome to the new divingforpearlsblog.com!  Look for Whisky 500 to be published tomorrow, and Whisky 1000 by 2019...

Single Malt Report: Caol Ila 31 year old 1984 Cadenhead 20th Anniversary London Special Edition

On the same night that my friend asked me to grade a blind sample of Craigellachie 13, I was given a second blind pour.  That one was awesome.  I was asked to name the distillery.  It was definitely an old whisky, super duper fruity.  I declared it a Speysider, and guessed that it was an old fruity ex-bourbon Longmorn (because I do love them so).  My friend asked, "Do you find any peat in there?"  "Nnnnnnnnnnno," I replied cautiously.  "Yeah, neither do I.  It's a Caol Ila."

I've had long matured peated whiskies whose phenolics go light and floral over time.  But this was the first time I'd had one whose peat totally melted away like this.  A few months later I had the pleasure of sampling it again at Peatin' Meetin' (the whisky gets a brief mention in this week's boozedancing post), and I walked away with my own sample before the bottle was emptied.

Keep in mind this whisky is only sold at Cadenhead's London shop (whose twentieth anniversary this bottling celebrates) and they don't ship outside the UK.  So I guess if you're in Cadenhead's London whisky shop and are googling for a review of this whisky, then here is a review of this whisky.

pic from the official site

Distillery: Caol Ila
Ownership: Diageo
Region: Port Askaig, Islay

Independent Bottler: Cadenhead's
Range: 20th Anniversary London Special Edition

Age: 31 years old (1984 - May 2015)

Maturation: first fill ex-bourbon barrel (source)
Limited bottling: 168

Alcohol by Volume: 54.3%

Its color is amber, lighter than Tuesday's "Unpeated" 12yo.  The nose starts with fruit, lots of fruit.  Peaches, nectarines, loquats.  Later on there's honeydew.  Strawberry candy and orange blossoms.  Turkish delights.  There's a little bit of butter, honey, toffee, and musty oak.  On the palate it's malt and toffee first.  Then tart oranges and lemons.  The texture is so silky it's almost erotic.  Almost.  A soft mouth-filling oak spice lingers and lingers and lingers right into the finish [note: this description is getting saucy], where it's reminiscent of old armagnac.  Then malt, salt, and lemon oils.  It's not loud but it's long.

Oh man.  I'd violate my $200 rule and several moral standards for one bottle of this stuff.  If you're in the shop and looking for peat, then find a younger CI (or one of the usual suspects).  But if you're searching for something of the old gorgeous Speyside style and don't want to spend $500+, this is a viable option.

Anyone going to London soon?  I'm kidding.  Sort of.

Availability - At the shop itself

Pricing - £176

Rating - 93