Good bourbon?

Emptied 2 bottles of Weller blue- not a bad tasting

 

Haven't tried it yet, but next time I am in Ontario I am picking up a bottle of this.

 

Meh, Canadian gimmick. Ice wine is sweet as Hell. Freezing the water in the grape concentrates the sugars. I don't like sweet wines so I have no use for ice wines. So you take these super sweet wines and let them sit in barrels, ostensibly infusing the barrels with the sugars in the wine. Then you age whiskey in the sugared barrels? I'm confident it is sweet, but that doesn't make it better.

Interested in what you think vis-a-vis what you like and normally drink. Do you drink bourbon or Canadian whiskey? If the latter, I'm done here . . . .

I'm a huge fan of the Great One, but I wish he'd chosen a different avenue. Hell, its not even a bourbon . . . it's a Canadian whiskey for Christ's sakes! I guess if you like that sweet stuff, it is probably quite tasty.

Cheers,

Dave

 

Ice wine is a dessert wine really. A little sip is all you need. I am a fan of bourbon normally, but I wanna try this one just to see what it is like. I have seen other posts here talking about rye and some other whiskies. So I thought it was an open topic.

 

Absolutely an open topic.

Cask finishing of whisk(e)y generally has become a major area of exploration in the last decade or so. Used to be mostly sherry cask finished scotch whisky and has gone nuts from there. I've seen rum, port, sherry, brandy, madiera, various red wines (cabernet usually), etc. It's fair to say that all of these are intended to add a certain amount of sweet complexity to the nose and flavor. I've never seen ice wine casked before, but there's no reason it wouldn't be interesting. I appreciate the complaints that these ideas can get taken too far, but...as always, YMMV.

Edit to note that this is not the same thing as the Basil Hayden Dark Rye, which actually adds a small amount of actual port wine into the mixture. Which is too much for my taste.

Indeed, one of my favorites right now is a multi cask finished monster (that would be too sweet if not for the high alcohol):

 

If any of you bourbon guys haven't tried Jim Beam Old Tub yet, do yourselves a favor and grab a bottle. It's $20, 100 proof and super smooth. I enjoy it neat. In my opinion the best budget bottle of bourbon out there. I also like Ezra Brooks on the low price end.

 

Grass Widow out of Detroit is my favorite

 

I also picked this one up a while back. Haven't made myself a proper drink with it yet, but I did finally crack it open during Thanksgiving week. I was fighting off FLU and COVID and I dropped some in some tea. I'll post up here after I've tried it. Anyone have any experience with it?



Edit: it's a 94 proof KY bourbon, aged in white oak.

 

Yup, so good we saved the empty bottle as a bar trophy. Made us some mean Hot Toddy’s over Covid anytime the throat got a tickle.

 

Was at a company event last night. After dinner, was able to get 2x snifters of this with desert

https://www.caskers.com/bruichladdich-octomore-12-3-single-malt-scotch-whisky/

 

Any of you guys use the drink smoker contraption they sell online ?

My buddy made us a round and was bad ass

 

That is my go to bourbon. Not expensive and really great tasting with a smooth finish. Not gonna lie, I sat down last year and was watching college football all day and killed a bottle. Woke up the next morning and felt fine.

 

it’s an easy drinker and enjoyable. A drop of two of water in a dram opens it up nicely.

 

Can we get back on track please since the thread title is Bourbon not Scotch, Ice wine or blended Whiskey?

FYI, Bourbon was recognized in 1964 by the U.S. Congress as a "distinctive product of the United States". Bourbon sold in the U.S. must be produced in the country from at least 51% corn and stored in a new container of charred oak.

 

So, to be clear... Bourbon is almost always a blended grain whiskey (indeed, the difference between a bourbon and rye is often <5% total corn/rye). And a bourbon aged in new oak can be alternate-cask finished and still be bourbon.

 

My favorite for a while has been Evan Williams Honey, with ice. It's all I drink actually but I'm not a big drinker, sip on a little Friday and Sat. nights.

 

So I was just in my likker store, and I saw that I have enough points with them to buy a bottle of Elijah Craig select 18 for 150 bucks.

Their reward system is to sell high end, hard to find bottles at cost.

What's my move?

 

I’d snatch that up. It’s probably delicious.

 

I'd only spend triple digits on likker for an investment. I drink Busch Light. My go to bourbon is Old Forester. It is pretty good, as far as I can tell, but my palate isn't sensitive (pretensious?) enough to discern anything above that level.

I see the same bottle listed at 250 elsewhere. Problem is, how do you even sell it? Prove provenance? They sometimes have Pappy's Van Winkle for a whole lot more points than I have, but I could get there in about 3 years or so, and 750 bucks. I see that stuff listed for twice that.