W.L. Weller 12 Year Review

W.L. Weller 12-Year Old
Buffalo Trace - Sazerac
$44.95 (Website Only) -- 90 Proof

Earlier this summer, the LCBO offered a few interesting Buffalo Trace products as a direct order for customers online -- the E.H. Taylor Bourbon (which I believe was bottles from the 3rd distinct release of that specialty brand in recent years), Buffalo Trace White Dog (unaged whiskey from the still), and the W.L. Weller 12 Year. Old Weller Antique used to be one of my go-to value bourbons in Kentucky (along with Kentucky Tavern and Very Old Barton, depending on how much money I had at the time), and while that bourbon line is gone, the Weller 12yr and the Weller 107 proof are still around (for now).

What makes the Weller notable is that it is the "baby" version of the famed Pappy Van Winkle line. Julian Van Winkle serves as the master distiller for the Weller, Rip Van Winkle, and Pappy Van Winkle lines, and he uses recipes based off the old Stitzel-Weller recipes; most notably, all the aforementioned whiskeys are wheated bourbons (like Maker's Mark). The Van Winkle family were the master distillers at Stitzel-Weller; S-W is a legendary distillery among bourbon nerds, known for its wheated bourbons with rich, cognac-y flavours.

The Weller line tops off at the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection's William Larue Weller, which is released unfiltered at barrel-strength, often well above 120 proof (60%). Previously, the Weller name was used to distinguish between whiskey that contained mostly Buffalo Trace-distilled product (the Wellers) and whiskey that also contained product distilled elsewhere (the Van Winkle line, which contained some aging whiskey from Stitzel-Weller and other defunct distilleries). Nowadays, the stock of old Stitzel Weller has dried up (the last was distilled in the early 90s), so the younger bourbons in the Van Winkle line (the 12yo Lot B and the 15 year old) contain mostly Buffalo Trace product, making the lines extremely similar. To my taste buds, there isn't much appreciable difference between the W.L. Weller 12 year and the much-hyped Rip Van Winkle 10-year and Pappy 12 Year Lot B.

The nose isn't anything remarkable, but it is good. This whiskey sparkles -- when I hold it on my tongue, I can feel the grain interplay tingle my tastebuds. It's mouthfeel is thicker and oilier than Makers, but, as a wheater, it's taste is light and playful enough to drink almost incidentally. It's like a good Collins in whiskey form. Unlike other wheaters, the finish lingers just long enough without vanishing.


This is a GREAT (4 out of 5) whiskey. While I prefer the toughness of the 107 proof version, we don't get it up here, and the extra age adds a bit of complexity to the finish.

It is also a VERY GOOD value. While there are lots of good bourbon at this price range, and while we're paying almost $25 more than Kentucky prices for this bourbon, the uniqueness of the Van Winkle line and the huge markdown compared to the similar Van Winkle products make this an awesome value. Hopefully the LCBO leans on Buffalo Trace to make this bourbon a regular feature north of the border!

BBQ -- Basic Bourbon Question #2

I get a lot of questions about bourbon at work. In the hopes of saving myself some effort, I am putting some answers to common questions up here on the blog. That way, if you have been referred to here from my work, you can get a more in-depth answer than I could likely give you at the bar.

WHAT DOES PROOF MEAN?

Alternatively, why does this bottle say "proof"?

Proof is pretty simple -- figure out how much alcohol, by overall volume, is in the spirit, and double that number. You found its proof! (Basic algebra tells us we can reverse that too -- half of proof is ABV.)

The term proof came from how they used to measure alcohol -- they would mix a gunpowder with a bottle of booze and then set it on fire. If it burst into a bright flame (usually blue!) it would be "Proof" that the alcohol was good -- at least 50% ABV. Nowadays we have much more accurate ways of telling the amount of alcohol in a spirit (proof back then was actually a bit higher than the aimed-for 50%), but that was where the term came from, and it mostly just stuck.

Bourbon, to be bourbon, must be at least 80 proof, or 40% ABV. That means that in addition to containing weird flavoured additives that keep them from being real whiskey, a lot of "flavoured" and "spiced" whiskies are under 80 proof, further disqualifying them from true whiskeyhood. They're not my cup of tea, but if you like 'em, though, more power to you.

Maker's Mark Review

Maker's Mark
Maker's Mark Distillery - Beam Global
$42.95 -- 90 Proof (45% ABV)

Maker's Mark is one of the greatest branding success stories in the spirits world -- scratch that, one of the biggest successes period. They apparently sell out of their complete volume every year -- despite that, you can find it pretty much everywhere. The red wax is iconic and the distillery aimed for a premium market from the get-go; one of their first advertising campaigns is brilliant:

 For decades, Maker's entire strategy has been to tout their consistency; they rotate barrels in their warehouse and claimed to put out only a single product. (This is false -- one of my collection's treasures is a bottle of 100 proof extra-aged premium Maker's from the early 90s; the lower dilution and extra time really makes the normally-mild wheat shine compared to the current offering.)

Maker's is, above all, incredibly easy to drink. While most bourbons are made with corn, rye, and barley, Maker's substitutes wheat for rye. Wheat is a more subtle flavouring grain than rye; it takes very well to aging, backing off and allowing complexity from the wood to shine through, but as Maker's is typically 6 years old (according to their official line; it has no age statement, so it could be as young as 4), the mild wheat takes center stage.

For people who want their drinks to be "smooth" above all else, Maker's is probably the way to go. There's not a lot in the nose -- corn and wood chips, really; it's hard to tell if Maker's is so basic because that's what the company taught us normal bourbon should smell like, or if middle-of-the-road was entirely what they were aiming for. The taste is very sweet, a tiny bit of the wheat tingle, a little diluted syrup. It's smooth, smooth, smooth; well balanced but thin. The finish is blink and you'll miss it -- sweet; wheat; spice; gone. It really requires a shot for the taste to linger at all, and that doesn't overwhelm, which is probably why it is so popular for bourbon shots.

Makers is a completely average bourbon (2 out of 5) and a great introduction to whiskey. There's nothing wrong with it, just not a lot that's interesting. That makes it the perfect thing for a lot of folks, and there's nothing wrong with that -- I like a good well-balanced pilsner every now and then.

Value-wise, the whiskey itself isn't a fantastic value. 90 proof for $42 isn't great, and there's a ton of competition from more interesting whiskeys around that price. What a bottle, though! That, and its universal appeal, means it deserves a place on most shelves, bumping it up to an OK value. Just don't hoard it or anything.

Bourbon Ratings

As I revise the blog, I'm removing some of the older notes on how I rate bourbon and replacing them with hopefully more succinct and understandable ones. Early blog entries from 2011 break down my own personal system for rating bourbon; if someone manages to steal one of my tasting notebooks, that's what they'll find. For you folks, be you a thirsty LCBO shopper, one of my patrons at 3030, or just a curious internet citizen, I want to make things more simple.

When you break down a ranking into something exact, you are basically calling yourself an extreme expert -- after all, what is the difference between a 93 and a 96, really? Bourbon makers, especially, aims for a specific flavour profile, and thus have fewer "colours" to play with their palette, so quality is often a matter of degrees. Additionally, a large part of enjoying whiskey, like enjoying any sensory experience, comes from the ambiance and situation.

So, my rankings will break bourbon down into general categories -- taste and value. Taste will be a simple score out of 5, with half points if my personal rankings require them. A zero is undrinkable, a two is average, and a five is among the best whiskies I have ever had. As per my previous ratings, I have very little desire to make ratings look great, so expect a lot of stuff around the 2.5 average mark.

The more important ranking will be value, and it will also be on a basic four tier descriptor -- Terrible, Poor, Good, and Great. What do these rankings that mean? Well, it's pretty much an all-inclusive, non-mathematic judge of how grumpy I am to buy this whiskey from the LCBO. Some whiskies, like Old Forester 100 Proof, cost three to four times more at the LCBO than at an equivalent store in the US. Sometimes, this could be due to overall rarity, but too many times it is just due to the LCBO bringing things in at lower volume. I tend to be fine with paying $10-15 more for a bottle of whiskey here in Canada than in higher-cost areas of the US (comparing prices to Kentucky prices would just be cruel). $45-55 more (like the ridiculous initial price for the already-odd-and-mediocre Bernheim Wheat Whiskey) is just outrageous. I also try to take into account things like general availability in the United States -- Sazerac and Rittenhouse Rye have a pretty standard $15 or so mark-up here, but they can be so difficult to find in the US that they are actually a pretty good value here.

Elijah Craig 12 Year Revisited -- Capsule Review

ELIJAH CRAIG 12 YEAR OLD KENTUCKY STRAIGHT BOURBON
HEAVEN HILL DISTILLERIES  
94 Proof (47% ABV) -- $39.95


In the States, Elijah Craig 12 Year Old is pretty broadly available. Here in Toronto, it seems to be a twice-yearly event. I remain baffled by the general lack of Heaven Hill whiskies at the LCBO -- Evan Williams Black is the #2 selling Kentucky Bourbon, globally, and here we get, what, the single barrel every other year?

The nose of this new bottle of Elijah Craig is nothing spectacular; sweet but not very strong for a bourbon. There's all the standard brown sugar and a little medicinal/minty plant-y flavour (consulting a flavor chart says eucalyptus) and a lot of oak. The finish is predictably great; Heaven Hill products can run a bit wood and oak-y, so unless the whiskey is completely overwhelmed by wood, it often has all that caramelized oak that I am after.

Elijah Craig is usually one of the first bourbons I give to new bourbon drinkers (after their cheap bourbon of choice and Maker's) and does a great job of being a slightly complex exemplar of a rye-flavoured bourbon. I dub it GREAT (4 out of 5).

Value-wise, if they bring it back at the same $40 price point, it goes blow-for-blow with the other whiskies at that price point. There's a lot more competition there these days, but I prefer it to Buffalo Trace, and it has enough going for it that it is a worthy alternative to both Bulleit and Four Roses Small Batch. I think it is a GOOD value. (3/4)

BBQ – BASIC BOURBON QUESTION #1 -- Where Does Bourbon Come From?

Since I've stumbled my way into the “whiskey guy” role at 3030 (the fantastic new bar at 3030 Dundas West, in the once-dry Junction neighborhood of Toronto), I get a lot of people asking questions about bourbon – as they should! There's a lot of romanticism and myth-making in whisk(e)y marketing. Each country is basically its own brand, and each distillery also aggressively defends its own processes. It makes for some good storytelling, but it can be pretty confusing. I've heard reps for various companies tell me that all American whiskey is 100% corn (false), that all Scotch whiskey is smokey single malt (false), and that all bourbon must be made in Bourbon County, Kentucky (false). It's annoying for a generally laconic dude like me, since I don't want to be "that guy." Y'know who he is-- the one who plays gotcha when he stumps his bartender with a rare drink order; the guy who turns his nose up and bobs his head side to side when he gets to look like a know-it-all. 

So, in the hopes of saving myself some effort, I am putting some answers to common questions up here on the blog. That way, if you have been referred to here from my work, you can get a more in-depth answer than I could likely give you at the bar.

Note that a lot of my information comes from a bunch of old books I have lying around, including some by fanastic bourbon writers like Chuck Cowdery, Mark Waymack and Jim Harris, Gary Regan, and 

DOES ALL BOURBON HAVE TO COME FROM KENTUCKY?

Long story short, no. "Bourbon" currently has a very specific meaning, but only for the last fifty years or so. Prior to that, it was a term referring to a style of corn-based whiskey made in the United States. Back before Prohibition gutted the American whiskey industry, there were distilleries all across the United States, but they primarily were located in Kentucky, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Indiana. (Basically, the central-east part of the US -- the early "frontier" states with easy access to the Ohio River/Mississippi River transportation system.) Way back in the day, the type of whiskey was based on the common cash crops -- Pennsylvania and Maryland were known for their American rye whiskey (considerably different than the modern Canadian style; I'll talk about it in the future), while the other states had a large amount of corn and were known for a whiskey made with a corn-dominated mixture of grains. 

For a decent amount of time, anyone could call their whiskey bourbon, but a series of laws began to specify the meaning of the term. In 1897, the Secretary of Treasury, John Carslile, teamed up with Col. Edmund H. Taylor to sponsor the Bottled in Bond Act, which defined Bottled in Bond whiskeys as being "at proof" (100 proof, or 50% alcohol), and contained only distilled grains, distilled during one season (there are really only two distilling seasons a year) at a single location. Previously, unscrupulous distillers would add neutral grain spirits, colouring, mix young whiskey with old, and add all sorts of non-whiskey elements (sugar, turpentine, other gross stuff) to give it bite and touch it up. Bottled in Bond was a sign of quality, a measure of safety, and a great marketing tool. 

Then, in 1964, Congress passed a resolution declaring Bourbon to be the official spirit of the United States and a "distinctive product" of the United States, much like how Scotch whisky is made only in Scotland, Irish Whiskey is made only in Ireland, Canadian in Canada, and so on. Most of the international community has recognized this in some way or another, though not all the same rules and regulations are enforced.

Back in December of 1969, the United States Federal Government passed a law defining how spirits are delineated. Basically, bourbon must be made in the United States, must be aged in new wood barrels, must be a grain mix in the initial "mash" with at least 51% of the grains being corn, and it has some restrictions on the proof of the whiskey (distill it to too high a proof initially, and you end up with a flavorless neutral grain spirit, like most vodkas). So, there's nothing saying bourbon must be made in Bourbon County, or even Kentucky specifically. Funnily enough, it also means that Jack Daniels is technically a bourbon, though they prefer to use their own clever sub-definition of Tennessee Whiskey). LDI, a mysterious distillery in Indiana, produces a ton of bourbon which is bottled and sold by various other companies (see my previous post on Jefferson's Bourbon for more provenance discussion). 

In fact, there are no distilleries in Bourbon County; there haven't been any in years -- if you want to visit one, you're much better off going to Nelson, Bullit, Jefferson, Frankfort, Anderson, or Woodford County. And I've had a few bourbons made in various other places -- most notably a young-but-promising prototype from Garrison Brothers in Texas, and the overpriced but interesting Hudson Baby Bourbon from New York.

 

New Updates

So a year or so has passed since I began spottily updating this blog, and and a lot of changes have happened since then, both in my life and the Ontario bourbon market. The LCBO has learned quite a bit since I first moved here, when there was really only 7 or 8 bourbons on the shelves, from two major companies. The Vintages program did a great job of introducing various brands to the Ontario market, and several of them have, happily, gained enough traction to remain more-or-less constantly on the shelves (I'm sipping on a glass of the dependable and tasty Four Roses as I type this).

Additionally, I have been working as a bartender, so I have gotten a slightly better feel for what the average drinker knows and wants to know about bourbon. With the start of my public bourbon tastings (another one taking place at 3030 at the end of the year) and sitting in on some rep talks for various spirit brands, I have a pretty reasonable idea of what information and misinformation is out there.

So, what does this mean?

Well, first, my reviews will become simpler. I plan on revising all my old reviews and replacing them with more capsule-style reviews. More and more, I am convinced that rating systems are bunk, so while I plan on tasting, taking notes, and evaluating whiskies in the same way, my ratings will become even less granular and more generally descriptive (I plan on still including a rating, for easy reference, but it will be rounded to be out of five rather than ten), and a seperate value rating for the whiskey. This latter element I believe to be pretty important here in Ontario, as we get a lot of whiskies brought in as “super premium” finds, due to their previous unavailability here, despite the whiskies themselves being niche experimental bourbons or, more often, barely a step above a value brand.

So, here we go!