Bourbon

Ron said:
It was bound to happen. I knew it would but I hoped it never would.
For probably 10 years my personal go to was McKenna 10. I harped on it to the point I even made @UTfball68 like it I think. Among friends it’s a bit of a joke. I mean it isn’t the absolute best but it’s as good as anything and cost half as much.

Well it’s plagued by the internet community as having a bunch of bad barrels. I’ve read the reviews. I’ve never personally had a bad bottle. As I look in my bone yard there are currently 9 bottles and plenty have been tossed previously and there are 6 on the shelf full. I cracked a bottle tonight…regretfully a barrel # I have two more bottles in waiting from. The cork was completely dry and made a “popping noise” more wine reminiscent than bourbon. The pour has an almost mint waff on the nose….thats different. Never had that smell before.
A nice pull…smack smack…what?!?!

Dammit I’ve got a skunk bottle.
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Yes you converted me. Don’t let it get you down champ, happens to the best of them. But care to share a barrel #…so some of us to have the same fate? Looks like this is the only bottle I have at the moment.

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UTfball68 said:
Yes you converted me. Don’t let it get you down champ, happens to the best of them. But care to share a barrel #…so some of us to have the same fate? Looks like this is the only bottle I have at the moment.

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Here is the skunk
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The offender in question

Exactly 300 barrels apart



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And a special one I’ve been saving for a time with friends who will enjoy it. My last 4 digit bottle.

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Notice the color variation over the years…(07bottle right)


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I have a fear of my good stuff, that I've opened, doing that. Every once in a while I'll flip them over to rewet the cork. It's probably just a mind thing but it makes me think I'm protecting it.
 
McCracken said:
I've got a question and it's definitely OT. I got this dude I would like to thank for his help. He drinks Tequila and I don't know jack squat besides that it's not for me. What's a good one that would show my appreciation?
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Milagro is good, but you should find out if they like silver, resperado, or anejo.
 
technologyteacher said:
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Glad I don’t have a skunk bottle
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It comes down to heads, tails and hearts…happens in the distilling process and reintroducing distillates. You can redistill the heads, but depending on the distiller, they may cut sooner or later, and where that cut is varies from batch to batch and reusing the distillates then obviously varies too. Especially in small batch/single barrel instances, it’s very possible to end up with a head heavy (giggity) or tail heavy (double giggity) batch. I won’t pretend to know the process of a large volume distiller, but I’d imagine there’s automation involved, and where to make cuts is a very imprecise skill set. So I say all that to say, you may or may not be safe, there could be consecutive bad batches…but bad batches/barrels always have to be the outlier, otherwise they won’t sell very much.
 
No fries said:
Milagro is good, but you should find out if they like silver, resperado, or anejo.
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I'm hoping this is a surprise. I think if I told him or started asking too many specifics then it would give it away.
 
McCracken said:
I'm hoping this is a surprise. I think if I told him or started asking too many specifics then it would give it away.
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Most people I know like the silver, the ones who like the resperado or other aged tequilas also like bourbon.
 
UTfball68 said:
I won’t pretend to know the process of a large volume distiller, but I’d imagine there’s automation involved, and where to make cuts is a very imprecise skill set.
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I was surprised to see that George Dickel processing was damn near identical to Old Nick Williams. And they couldn't be further apart on the spectrum of size.

My old boss is a true fan of George. We use to make the trek to Tullahoma at least once a year on motorcycles to tour the distillery, as well as take the master distiller to dinner. We saw the process and got some good time in with Mark (he's since passed away)
Contrary to that, my current boss has a daughter that is partner in Old Nick Williams here in Lewisville. It's the oldest distillery in the US (buffalo CLAIMS that, but ONW was established in 1768 where buffalo was 1775) She use to be our secretary till ONW event center took off and she couldn't juggle both. I've watched ONW process and spoken to their master distiller numerous times. The SCALE is much much smaller, but the 2 facilities do things virtually the same, with very little automation on either side.

The thing about Dickel is, that once it's barrelled, and sent up the hill to age, that's the end of the similarity. Since Dickel is owned by the same lot that owns crown and numerous other labels, the barrels are then shipped off after aging to a bottler..That's where all the automation takes place, and where the similarities end.

All that to say I'm very surprised how similar the "making" process of both bourbons are. It's just the size of the containers that vary. But the master distiller does the same manual job of determining, heads, hearts, and tails in a very rudimentary way.
 
CasterTroy said:
I was surprised to see that George Dickel processing was damn near identical to Old Nick Williams. And they couldn't be further apart on the spectrum of size.

My old boss is a true fan of George. We use to make the trek to Tullahoma at least once a year on motorcycles to tour the distillery, as well as take the master distiller to dinner. We saw the process and got some good time in with Mark (he's since passed away)
Contrary to that, my current boss has a daughter that is partner in Old Nick Williams here in Lewisville. It's the oldest distillery in the US (buffalo CLAIMS that, but ONW was established in 1768 where buffalo was 1775) She use to be our secretary till ONW event center took off and she couldn't juggle both. I've watched ONW process and spoken to their master distiller numerous times. The SCALE is much much smaller, but the 2 facilities do things virtually the same, with very little automation on either side.

The thing about Dickel is, that once it's barrelled, and sent up the hill to age, that's the end of the similarity. Since Dickel is owned by the same lot that owns crown and numerous other labels, the barrels are then shipped off after aging to a bottler..That's where all the automation takes place, and where the similarities end.

All that to say I'm very surprised how similar the "making" process of both bourbons are. It's just the size of the containers that vary. But the master distiller does the same manual job of determining, heads, hearts, and tails in a very rudimentary way.
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Zeb at ONW is awesome. Our group just did a Barrel proof rye single barrel pick with them. It’s a stellar pour
 
Van-go said:
Zeb at ONW is awesome.
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Zeb is her Fiance.
Turns out to be a pretty small world. Derek went to school with Zeb. And Zeb's dad Van is who did my cedar bar top at the Barndo

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Of course, he did all the bar tops at ONW as well, hence where I found out he could do mine.

They're all some damn fine peoples
 
Polishing off some Jim Beam Devils Cut.....been a good day.

I really like it. On ice and I'm good. Was great with a cigar a fella gave me this weekend. Cant tell you anything about it other than it had a very vanilla flavor and he thought it was strong. I found it mild and it smoked very quickly.
 
Went up to the mountain house for the first time in a while and stopped by the ABC in Banner Elk…snagged a couple bottles of Black Saddle since it doesn’t show up locally for me that often. Couldn’t remember if I liked original Bardstown or not, so snagged one too. Never had the Clermont and liking malt whiskey more and more.

For you rye guys they did have a a couple bottles of Lock Stock & Barrel 21 for $500…first time I had seen that in the wild.

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UTfball68 said:
Went up to the mountain house for the first time in a while and stopped by the ABC in Banner Elk…snagged a couple bottles of Black Saddle since it doesn’t show up locally for me that often. Couldn’t remember if I liked original Bardstown or not, so snagged one too. Never had the Clermont and liking malt whiskey more and more.

For you rye guys they did have a a couple bottles of Lock Stock & Barrel 21 for $500…first time I had seen that in the wild.

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I was in Banner Elk yesterday. I wanted to stop but by the time I loaded up on BBQ from the Pedalin' Pig I was in full blown honey bee mode.
 
McCracken said:
I was in Banner Elk yesterday. I wanted to stop but by the time I loaded up on BBQ from the Pedalin' Pig I was in full blown honey bee mode.
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Don’t think you missed out on much on the bourbon side…did see some hard to find Ryes…and almost snapped some pics of Tequila just for you, but didn’t know if it was still an open item
 
UTfball68 said:
Don’t think you missed out on much on the bourbon side…did see some hard to find Ryes…and almost snapped some pics of Tequila just for you, but didn’t know if it was still an open item
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I went with the George Strait tequila. Dude said it is very good. So I consider that a win.
 
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