What’s the Best Bourbon for a Mint Julep? Pro Bartenders Weigh in

The mint julep has been the official beverage of the Kentucky Derby since 1938, and for most people, Derby weekend will be the only time of the year it’s on the mind. That’s a shame. Because as delicious as they are watching horses run around a track, they’re equally refreshing on a random summer afternoon.

As far as cocktails go, the mint julep is reasonably idiot-proof — simply mix water, sugar, bourbon and mint over crushed ice. It’s also very booze-forward, meaning the bourbon you use determines almost everything about the drink. So, which bottle is best? Five pros weigh in.

Maker’s Mark

“For me, Maker’s Mark is the perfect bourbon to make juleps because of its wheated mash bill, which gives it a natural depth that complements the mint and sugar perfectly. Plus at 90 proof, you can have more than one. Just make sure your mint is fresh and your bourbon supply is rich.” — Kristina Magro, Sportsman’s Club, Chicago, IL

Koval Bourbon

“[Koval] is a brand that, as a Chicagoan, I stand behind — not just because of the quality but because of the people behind the quality. It was the first Chicago distillery to be founded since the 1800’s. The family uses organic processes and ingredients and micromanages the distilling process, showing their passion for quality and a commitment to excellence. Koval translates to ‘black sheep’ which is a perception of others in the industry that they fully embrace.” — Jeff Shull, Baptiste & Bottle, Chicago, IL

Old Forester Single Barrel

“Old Forester is such a workhorse bourbon for the quality and the price, especially the Single Barrel. The rich burnt-sugar character of the bourbon balances really well with the mint and sugar but also has a lot of character for a spirit-forward cocktail. Also, their master distiller is an avid equestrian.” — Jonathan Strader, Hatchet Hall, Los Angeles, CA

Eagle Rare

“I love this bourbon because it’s super affordable but also tastes delicious. Basically, it’s not going to break the bank but tastes like it might.” — Shawn Stanton, Working Class Outlaws, Detroit, MI

Elijah Craig Small Batch

“[Elijah Craig] is the father of bourbon, and it’s very well priced. The sweetness from the corn pairs beautifully with the other ingredients. I prefer to use simple syrup over a sugar cube in my julep. It tends to blend into the bourbon and mint more thoroughly. With lots of finely crushed ice, it’s a refreshing adult snow cone.” — Tracey Eden, American Whiskey, New York, NY

Note: Purchasing products through our links may earn us a portion of the sale, which supports our editorial team’s mission. Learn more here.

9 Bottles of Bourbon You Can Only Find in Kentucky

Great bourbon isn’t hard to come by. But as any bourbon collector will tell you, the hunt is half the fun. And when it comes to hunting bourbon whiskey, there’s no more-fertile ground than its origin. Here, eight bottles of brown you’ll have to travel to Kentucky to find.

Heaven Hill 6-Year-Old Green Label

Occasionally, bottles of this mysterious bottle of bourbon appear on the bottom shelf of stores outside Kentucky, but not often. Heaven Hill 6-Year-Old Green Label is meant to be a Kentucky-exclusive bottle and few people outside the distillery anything about it. In the Bluegrass, it retails for anywhere between $9 and $12 and Heaven Hill Distillery devotes no marketing toward it — it’s not even on the distillery’s website. Green sits at a drinkable but not-too-watered-down 90 proof and it’s aged for six years. Buy a case if they let you.
Price: $9+
Proof: 90

Old Tub

Once upon a time, Jim Beam was a man, not a brand. And his bourbon was called Old Tub. These days, you can only find bottles bearing that name at the Beam American Stillhouse in Clermont, Kentucky, and it only comes in 375mL bottles. For the record, Old Tub was also Booker Noe’s favorite everyday drinker. If it’s good enough for the man who introduced the world to high-proof, premium bourbon, it’s good enough for you.
Price: $15
Proof: 100

Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse Select

Available exclusively at Jim Beam’s Urban Stillhouse in downtown Louisville, Stillhouse Select is an older, 100-proof version of classic Beam. It’s non-chill-filtered, meaning residual fat and protein compounds aren’t filtered out before bottling. The effects of non-chill filtration are controversial, but it’s generally assumed to have a more rounded mouthfeel and may be cloudier than modern, filtered whiskeys.
Price: $30
Proof: 100

Woodford Reserve Distillery Series

Woodford’s Distillery Series is the largest deviation from the brand’s very classic lineup of whiskeys. It’s also Master Distiller Chris Morris’s playground. Past releases include a double-barrel finished rye and a Bottled-in-Bond offering, both atypical for a traditionalist distillery like Woodford. Available only at Woodford Reserve’s Versailles, Kentucky, distillery and a select few Kentucky retailers, new expressions release three times a year.
Price: $50
Proof: Varies by release.

Four Roses Single Barrel Cask Strength

The only thing that’s missing from Four Roses small but well-respected permanent line of bourbon is a barrel-strength offering. And while an expression exclusive to visitors and the brand’s custom-barrel program isn’t the peak of availability, it can at least be had. Exact proofing and measurables vary bottle to bottle, but it’s typically a nine- to eleven-year bourbon that lands north of 120 proof.
Price: $60-$75
Proof: Varies by release.

Maker’s Mark Private Select

Every barrel used to age bourbon is built with ten wood staves, the wood slats that make up the body of a barrel. Typically, these slats are all identical — the same type of wood (American oak), the same level of char. The Private Select series, available through private order or at the Marion County distillery, does away with this: Private buyers choose which staves make up the barrel their bourbon will go into, with five stave options and 1,001 stave combinations (see the options here). Stocks of Private Select change as the year goes by, and there’s a good chance what’s at the distillery during your visit won’t ever be made again. (While you’re there, look for Maker’s White, the brand’s unaged, very funky white dog — another Kentucky exclusive.)
Price: $75
Proof: Varies by release.

Old Forester President’s Choice

In 1964, Old Forester President George Garvin Brown II started selecting specific barrels for his President’s Choice bottling. Last summer, the distillery’s current president Campbell Brown and master mistiller Jackie Zykan brought it back. The catch? The President’s Choice isn’t a sure thing — it’s only bottled and sold when the selected barrels reach maturity. This means there’s no release date to earmark and no bottle specifics until Old Forester announces it. Good luck.
Price: $90
Proof: Varies by release.

William Heavenhill

Think of Heaven Hill’s bottleshop-exclusive offering as a chance for the brand’s master distillers to flex a bit. Every bottle is a different beast, with past offerings ranging from 15-year-old cask strength monsters to smooth batch blends. If you want a bottle, however, prepare to pony up — the prices at the shop typically float in the $300 range.
Price: $300+
Proof: Varies by release.

Evan Williams 23-Year

The oldest Evan Williams by a country mile is available in some international markets, but unless you’re willing to spend a pretty penny, you’re better off heading to Louisville in search of it. But it’ll be a tough find even in the bourbon capitol — twice named Jim Murray’s Bourbon of the Year, this bottle is prized by bourbon hunters.
Price: $350+
Proof: 107

Note: Purchasing products through our links may earn us a portion of the sale, which supports our editorial team’s mission. Learn more here.

The Best Booze We Drank This Month: April, 2019

Every month, a huge amount of booze moves through the Gear Patrol offices — beer, wine and a whole lot of whiskey. Here are a few of our favorites.

Kentucky Owl Confiscated Bourbon Whiskey

This bottle carries no official age statement, no information on where the juice is sourced from and it costs $125 at retail. No surprise the bourbon-drinking public does not like the look of Kentucky Owl’s widest release to date. But Confiscated is not bad bourbon. The 96 proof mystery bourbon starts with notes of vanilla and cinnamon, and it finishes medium-long with loads of baking spice flavors. And for all the age statement-obsessives out there, a representative for Kentucky Owl told us the new bottle is a mix of 6-, 9-, 10- and 12-year-old bourbons.

Treaty Oak Distilling Antique Gin

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Texas craft distillery Treaty Oak makes distinctly Texan whiskeys, but its gins stand out even more. The Antique gin, aged 18 to 24 in unused new charred oak barrels, is one of those things you put in your mouth and immediately need the person closest to you to try. It’s herbal and almost licorice-y on the nose and palate, but it rocks a far more robust mouthfeel than typical gins. The finish is long, warm and just a bit spicy. Basically, it’s gin on the front, whiskey on the back.

Four Roses Small Batch Select

Small Batch Select is the first addition to Four Roses’s permanent bourbon collection in 12 years, and it is the weirdest of the bunch. It’s the highest proof of the regular line, it’s non-chill-filtered and it shares DNA with one of the most sought-after bottles of Four Roses ever. At the end of the day, though, it’s just a stellar bourbon. Its ultra-creamy mouthfeel smooths out a sturdy 104 proofing, and a tidal wave of herbal, citrus and vanilla notes bleed into one another perfectly. Small Batch Select isn’t everywhere yet, but according to Four Roses, it will be soon enough. Look out.

Recess Sparking Water

Every can of Recess is made with 10 milligrams of cannabidiol from full-spectrum hemp extract and adaptogens. It was pitched as a chiller, but not-too-chill La Croix. We called bullshit. We were wrong. It’s difficult to make claims about the effects of a non-psychoactive substance in small amounts like this, but the claim stamped on the can, “not tired, not wired” puts it perfectly. Is that because of the CBD, adaptogens or the four to six grams of sugar per can? Who can say, but it’s pleasant all the same.

How to Drink Scotch, According to a World-Famous Whiskey Expert

For a span of several months last year, Jim Murray, a whisky writer and reviewer, was unable to walk, stand, and even sit comfortably because of a simple and very telling mistake: for upward of twenty years, he’d spent full days spitting whisky out of his mouth into a spittoon that sat on his right-hand side. His whisky-spitting motion had become so one-sided that he’d shriveled a muscle in his back and thrown his spine out of alignment.

Murray is a principled whisky taster. He achieved some notoriety a few years ago for admitting during an interview that he does not kiss anyone during the writing of his annual whiskey tome, Jim Murray’s Whiskey Bible. He says the germs run the risk of making him sick, which would trash his tasting schedule of up to 30 whiskeys a day. When I watched him give a tasting on Texas bourbons recently, he nearly inspired an uprising among a cadre of Southerners by barring any swallowing at all for nearly two hours, and also stringently enforcing a “no talking” rule. “Listen to the whiskey,” he said. Eventually, most of the Texans came to heel, and later began self-policing in so zealous a manner that it was obvious they’d become disciples.

The form of Murray’s tasting method has been built over his thirty-some years of writing professionally about whiskey. He proudly proclaims himself the world’s first-ever whiskey writer, and his Whiskey Bible is filled with some of the most entertaining, creative, and occasionally crass tasting notes around. (“The alcohol by volume of one of the sexiest whiskies on the planet is 69 … and it goes down a treat. Much harder to spit than swallow.”) You’d expect Murray to have a seriously stringent, coherent and comprehensive set of rules around his tasting. He does. He calls it The Murray Method, and whether you choose to follow it is entirely a question of your own whiskey-drinking principles. Several other notable tasters have at least minimal rules and guidelines for tasting, but Murray’s are especially rigorous; where many tasters bake in some level of personalization, Murray follows strictures.

There are eighteen rules in Murray’s method, chief among them: drink black coffee to cleanse your palate; find a tasting room without distractions and free of excessive smells; drink the whiskey out of a tulip-shaped glass with a stem, at body temperature, and never (never!) add water or ice; nose the liquid naturally, sip it twice, the second one for flavor, balance, shape, mouthfeel, and finish; always taste it a third and fourth time to confirm your suspicions; spit to avoid becoming drunk; and be honest in your assessment. Notably, one of Murray’s final rules is that you should hold your own review higher than anyone else’s, including his. (For the full list of rules, check out his Whiskey Bible.)

There’s a comfort in having a very clear ruleset for tasting whiskey. And Murray’s insistence on being true to yourself, and not being swayed by anyone else’s thoughts (hence: no talking, Texans!) gives his rules a certain “of the people” quality. Whether you agree with Murray’s method or not is an interesting question. Answering means that you’ve tried it, and that you’ve pondered whiskey and the way you drink it thoroughly. “If your old tried and trusted technique suits you best, that’s fine by me,” he writes in the intro to every bible, before listing his rules. “But I do ask you try out the instructions below at least once to see if you find your whisky is talking to you with a far broader vocabulary and clearer voice than it once did.”

After the Texas bourbon tasting, I asked Murray to name a handful of his favorite Scotch whiskies for sipping rather than for work. He agreed, but only if I would try his tasting method. So, below, you’ll find Murray’s guide to Scotch drinking, in more than one way: firstly, it includes several whiskies he favors himself — which, for someone who tries over a thousand new whiskies a year, is high praise. And secondly, it demonstrates his tasting method, which is worth a try. I came away from my demonstration impressed with the technique and surprised by how intricately I could describe what I was tasting. It was proof positive of Murray’s method, and a great course on some delicious whiskies. Just remember: listen to the whisky, or else.

Ardbeg 10 Years Old

An entry-level bottle comes from Ardeg on the Kildalton coast of Islay. Expect to pay around $45 for this non-chill filtered Scotch.

Color: Very light hay, almost like a pale IPA. Golden.
Nose: Sugary sweetness, ginger.
Flavor: Pop of oaky tannin upfront, zesty tropical fruit rind passing quickly into longer notes of peppery spice
Shape, weight, mouthfeel: What I believe to be oiliness very high here. Shape is relatively consistent, with very interesting nuances opening up in the finish, almost one at a time.
Finish: Butter, oak, rock candy sugars, very late, pinyness, some mint.

Jim Murray’s Thoughts: “Like when you usually come across something that goes down so beautifully and with such a nimble touch and disarming allure, just close your eyes and enjoy …”
Final Verdict: A bright, pungent whisky. Initial flavors are relatively straightforward, especially the tannin and the peppery spice, but the finish goes into long intervals with distinct flavors popping through. As Murray often writes of his favorites: lovely.

Glen Grant 12 Year Old

A Speyside distillery, Glen Grant is owned by Campari. It offers 5- and 10-year options, but the 12 Year Old is its standard entry-level Scotch.

Color: Just a touch darker than the Ardbeg. Still very light, hay-colored.
Nose: Minty and floral. Some earthiness and peat. Honey.
Flavor: honey upfront, a medium attack of pepper and peat, then finally moving into some of those aromatic flavors. Orange peel, and some floral notes. Lavender?
Shape, weight, mouthfeel: Much lighter than the Ardbeg. Starts quieter, with the sweet honey, then grows in spiciness (again, not as intensely as the Ardbeg), and eventually calms back down to those nice floral and citrus notes.
Finish: Orange peel, floral notes, and underlying earthy peat.

Jim Murray’s Thoughts: “A subtle nose; a little cream of toffee, but a wonderful sleight of hand for a citrus slant as well as a totally unexpected hint of weak lavender … remains refreshing and determined to show the fresh barley in all its stunning dimensions.”
Final Assessment: The pepper lingers longer the more you drink it, adding some body. Otherwise, it’s a much less vibrant, more mellow whisky than the Ardbeg. Those who like the pairing of floral and peat, along with this mellowness, will like it more than I do.

The Ardmore Port Wood Finish

Ardmore is a Speyside distillery owned by Suntory Beam. Its 12-year-old Port Wood is finished in port casks.

Color: Golden amber.
Nose: Honey and port. Honeysuckle.
Flavor: Sugar sweetness up front. Darker fruits settle in the middle, and later, spice that is more red pepper than black.
Shape, weight, mouthfeel: The port immediately adds a heft to the flavor profile – like I could feel it land on my tongue.
Finish: The sweet sugars that a good red wine leaves behind on your tongue, plus oak’s dryness. Occasional hits of a taste that can only be described as grape gushers.

Jim Murray’s Thoughts: “Here we have a lovely fruit-rich malt, but one which has compromised on the complexity that has set this distillery apart. Lovely whisky, I am delighted to say… but dammit, by playing to its unique nuances it could have been so much better.”
Final Assessment: The port is big in the nose, and the sugars upfront, and the darker middle, and underlays the later spices. It’s what the finish is all about. This is whisky’s love letter to the grape, and it made me pine for a great red.

Chivas Regal 18

The only blend on this list, Chivas Regal 18 Years is made from many whiskies — all of which are at least 18 years old.

Color: A brown that I’m only calling uniform because I know it’s a blend. Beautiful ambergris.
Nose: Honeycomb, oak, light pepper.
Flavor: Traditional Scotch flavors upfront: Light and sweet with honey, with loads of vanilla. There’s no tannin dryness at all, and it’s very wet and sweet. One pop of hot black pepper, just for a moment, and then it’s gone.
Shape, weight, mouthfeel: It’s lighter than I expected given the nose, which was heavy on the traditional Scotch flavors. See finish for note about oiliness.
Finish: The most pleasant wave of sugar ever. Almost maple syrup, almost creme brulee. It’s oily as hell.

Jim Murray’s Thoughts: “A true whisky lover’s whisky.”
Final Assessment: Wow! I sensed in the nose that this would have the traditional “Scotch” flavors, and boy, it did. Honey, vanilla, and slight earthiness, backed with black pepper. As a peat guy, I find it’s missing those smoked flavors. But for those who don’t like tasting dirt, it might be perfect.

Aberlour A’Bunadh

Aberlour is a Speyside distillery owned by Chivas Brothers. A’Bunadh means “the original” in gaelic, and the whisky is a sherried homage to Aberlour’s founder.

Color: Deep dark mahogany.
Nose: Rock candy sugars and oak staves.
Flavor: Did I just drink a flavor serum? A barrage of flavors that hit in quick succession. Honey and maple syrup, peat and clove and pepper. Caramel, always.
Shape, weight, mouthfeel: My senses are under attack. This is a big whisky at 60 percent, but it’s also a shapeshifter, bouncing from sweet to spicy to almost savory and back. My tongue can hardly keep up. Also, it’s thick like molasses.
Finish: Vanilla and creme brulee sugars.

Jim Murray’s Thoughts: “The first ten seconds register among the best deliveries of the year!… A blend of concentrated Manuka and ulmo honey absorbs malt and grape in equal quantities and then blasts off into the palate while simultaneously a bourbon-style licorice and hickory note merges with a surprisingly demure fruitiness.”
Final Assessment: A huge amount of flavor is packed into this one. Murray asks reviewers to remember

Four Roses’s First Mainline Whiskey in 12 Years Riffs on a Cult Favorite

After 12 years of nothing new but limited editions and one-offs, Small Batch Select is joining Four Roses’s small and highly praised permanent collection, and it has a lot in common with one of the brand’s most coveted drops ever.

According to Four Roses Master Distiller Brent Elliot, the brand wanted the new expression’s flavor profile to mirror that of its domineering 130th Anniversary Small Batch — a bottle that earned the title “World’s Best Bourbon” from the World Whiskies Awards. Thanks to Four Roses’ unique approach to recipes, bourbon blending and penchant for total transparency, we know this isn’t just smart marketing.

Where most distilleries select a mashbill and start distilling, Four Roses reaches into its toolbox of recipes. Each of the 10 recipes appears as a four-letter code that clues you into what the stuff is — the first letter tells you it’s made in Kentucky, the second tells you the mashbill, the third tells you it’s straight whiskey and the fourth tells you the specific yeast strain. (If you’re confused, Four Roses has a handy explainer on its website.)

Small Batch Select’s predecessor, the 130th Anniversary bottle, features OBSV, OBSF, OESV, OESK recipes. Small Batch Select is a blend of six Four Roses recipes, including every one of those found in the award-winning bottle — OBSV, OBSK, OBSF, OESV, OESK and OESF. Both bottles are cut to similar proofs, too, with Small Batch Select at 104 and the 130th at 108 (Small Batch Select has the highest proof of any mainline Four Roses).

From there, differences emerge. If you’re able to find the 130th Anniversary bottle, it can run you more than $500 — Go Bourbon is reporting Small Batch Select will run you between $50 and $60 and will eventually become.

Small Batch Select is also a non-chill-filtered bourbon, meaning it isn’t subjected to filtration processes that remove some residual fat and protein compounds in the juice (sort of like a natural wine). The effects of non-chill filtration are controversial — some say it’s just murkier bourbon, others say it gives the whiskey a more rounded mouthfeel. Elliot says it’s mostly a matter of preference. Finally, Small Batch Select is a mixture of six- and seven-year-old bourbon, significantly lower age statements than its pricey relative.

Four Roses says Small Batch Select is available now at the Lawrenceville, Kentucky distillery and will roll out to Kentucky, New York, California, Texas and Georgia soon in the coming weeks. Elliot also confirmed that the bottle will be pushed nationwide over the next couple years. No information on pricingn is available yet.

Four Roses’s New Whiskey Brings a Legendary Bourbon Recipe to the Masses

After 12 years of nothing but limited editions and one-offs, Small Batch Select is joining Four Roses’s small and highly praised permanent collection, and it has a lot in common with one of the brand’s most coveted drops ever.

According to Four Roses Master Distiller Brent Elliot, the brand wanted the new expression’s flavor profile to mirror that of its domineering 130th Anniversary Small Batch — a bottle that earned the title “World’s Best Bourbon” from the World Whiskies Awards. Thanks to Four Roses’s unique approach to recipes, bourbon blending and penchant for total transparency, we know this isn’t just smart marketing.

Where most distilleries select a mashbill and start distilling, Four Roses reaches into its toolbox of recipes. Each of the 10 recipes appears as a four-letter code that clues you into what the stuff is — the first letter tells you it’s made in Kentucky, the second tells you the mashbill, the third tells you it’s straight whiskey and the fourth tells you the specific yeast strain. (If you’re confused, Four Roses has a handy explainer on its website.)

Small Batch Select’s predecessor, the 130th Anniversary bottle, features OBSV, OBSF, OESV, OESK recipes. Small Batch Select is a blend of six Four Roses recipes, including every one of those found in the award-winning bottle — OBSV, OBSK, OBSF, OESV, OESK and OESF. Both bottles are cut to similar proofs, too, with Small Batch Select at 104 and the 130th at 108 (Small Batch Select has the highest proof of any mainline Four Roses).

From there, differences emerge. If you’re able to find the 130th Anniversary bottle, it can run you more than $500 — Go Bourbon is reporting Small Batch Select will run you between $50 and $60.

Small Batch Select is also a non-chill-filtered bourbon, meaning it isn’t subjected to filtration processes that remove some residual fat and protein compounds in the juice (sort of like a natural wine). The effects of non-chill filtration are controversial — some say it’s just murkier bourbon, others say it gives the whiskey a more rounded mouthfeel. Elliot says it’s mostly a matter of preference. Finally, Small Batch Select is a mixture of six- and seven-year-old bourbon, significantly lower age statements than its pricey relative.

Four Roses says Small Batch Select is available now at the Lawrenceville, Kentucky, distillery and will roll out to Kentucky, New York, California, Texas and Georgia in the coming weeks. Elliot also confirmed that the bottle will be pushed nationwide over the next couple years. No information on pricing is available yet.

Japanese Whisky Is Overpriced, Over-Hyped and More Exciting Than Ever

The Task Rabbit was balking, but I had to save the deal no matter what. “Go quickly,” I pleaded. “I’ll tip you heavy.”

“You want me to hit a liquor store?” he asked. “And twenty miles outside of Pittsburgh?”

I told him that’s precisely what I wanted. Task Rabbits are for fetching groceries, maybe hanging a TV, but I’d found a cache of Yamazaki 12, a rare Japanese whisky that had been cleared out of New York already. And it was cheap. The only way to grab it was the gig economy.

“State store number 0212. Make sure it’s the black box,” I said. “Grab what you can but leave enough for others. I’ll follow up with FedEx numbers when you score.”

The gambit was the latest in a line of increasingly desperate measures to stock my bar with Japanese whisky. It worked. A few days later, three neatly wrapped bottles of Suntory’s finest had arrived at my door for a total of $285, or $95 per bottle. That same whisky now sells online for $300 a bottle — and it’s climbing.

This was either a new low or a new high in my whiskey obsession. But anybody who’s trolled StockX for Off-White Nikes or waited on line outside a Kith store knows the tractor-beam pull of the grail; whatever your genre, it’s as much the hunt as the trophy that gets the adrenaline pumping.

Whiskey is different, though. It’s exhaustible, consumable — there’s a layer of urgency that doesn’t extend to sneakers or watches. These are anti-heirlooms, every bottle on borrowed time — or should be, assuming you’re not some cheap profiteer flipping bottles for a quick buck.

I got hooked on Japanese whisky in Japan. During a visit to Nikka’s Yoichi Distillery in Hokkaido, I put down a procession of rare drams in the gift-shop bar for the price of a pickleback in the States. I toured the home of the founder of Japanese whisky, Masataka Taketsuru, and watched as a stout worker shoveled coal into ovens beneath giant copper pot stills, a traditional but highly inefficient method that’s been abandoned by virtually every other distillery in the world.

Back in Tokyo, I trolled a dozen convenience stores and liquor depots looking for a rare bottle to bring home: each shopkeeper would shrug and jab his chin toward a gap in the shelf like a missing tooth as if to say, “You really think it’d be that easy?”

I consoled myself on the top floor of the Park Hyatt, where the Suntory pitchman played by Bill Murray serenaded Scarlett Johannson’s character in Lost in Translation. The 2003 film was one of the first mainstream portrayals of Japanese whisky in American pop culture and sparked a burst of interest among the general public, even if whiskey writers had for years been touting the craftsmanship of Japanese distilling.

Then, back in my room, an electrifying discovery: a tiny bottle of Hibiki 17 in the minibar. I had a start to my collection, even if it was only 50 milliliters.

Back in the States the hunt continued. I craned my neck walking past liquor stores, scanning for telltale bottles and logos. I began to speed-read entire shelves like one uniform glyph. Dusty-bottle hunting is a practice unto itself, the art of finding long-forgotten bottles of old bourbon languishing on store shelves. In the right region, you never know what you might find.

The search wasn’t all shoe leather. I pored over Google maps and left breadcrumbs for future forays; on Instagram, I scanned geo-stamps of “haul pix” from other obsessives, zoomed in on their receipts and slid into their DMs with a sheepish “Any left?” (You haven’t truly experienced ghosting until you’ve asked a whiskey nerd where to get the good stuff.)

Whiskey is meant to be shared, but the profiteering has become fierce. This is especially true for Japanese brands. When a product sits for 17, 21, 30 or more years, it’s hard to size up the demand for future releases, and in 2018 Suntory announced that certain caches of its sublime age-statement Japanese whisky were starting to dry up. As it turns out, two decades ago Japanese drinkers were in the throes of a vodka obsession, so executives crimped the hose on the brown stuff.

Today, price gouging at certain unscrupulous bars means you can pay $100 for an ounce of certain Japanese whiskies, or $700 for bottles that used to retail for a tenth that cost. And while the imbalance between MSRP and bar price hasn’t yet reached the level of Pappy van Winkle, the rare Kentucky bourbon with a legendarily rabid following, anything with an age statement is marked up heavily and sold quickly.

That hasn’t stopped me. My head’s on a swivel and Instagram’s on alert. I’m in California now, and I’ve already found a bar with accessible, practically generous prices on many rare Japanese whiskies. I’ll even tell you where it is: Rye, on Geary Street.

More good news: a $60-bottle of Nikka called From the Barrel was just named Whiskey of the Year by Whiskey Advocate. It’s around. You can buy it, stockpile it, even drink it without restraint. If you’re looking to start your own collection, it’s a way in.

For now.

A version of this article originally appeared in Issue Nine of Gear Patrol Magazine with the headline “Nowhere to Go but Gone.” Subscribe today.

This Is the Most Hyped Bourbon in Whiskey, Yet We Know Almost Nothing About It

In 1916, some 250,000 gallons of Kentucky Owl whiskey were confiscated by federal agents. More than a century later, the Kentucky Owl brand, revived five years ago by one Dixon Dedman, is releasing its first nationwide release, Confiscated. Bourbon nerds crawling /r/bourbon aren’t happy about it.

The first strike against Confiscated? A $125 retail price, which is right up there with the most coveted bourbons in the world (for example, Buffalo Trace’s Antique Collection bottles retail for less). Of course, whiskey enthusiasts are used to ponying up for high-end bourbon, but the real problem is a dearth of transparency: the label lacks an age statement and doesn’t provide any sourcing information.

Other than its posted 96 proof, effectively nothing is known about the juice inside beyond some long-winded tasting notes provided by a press release: “… notes of floral gardenia and honeysuckle, along with grape, red apple, orange cuties, wet banana bread and toasty sourdough bread crust on the nose. The taste is reminiscent of graham crackers, toffee, muted sweet cinnamon spice, and fresh-squeezed orange juice balanced with white grapes and finishing with a hint of cayenne.”

To its credit, Kentucky Owl has quickly become one of the most coveted new names in bourbon. In its five years on liquor store shelves, the brand earned high scores from Whisky Advocate and even won a Garden & Gun Made in the South Award. Just like hard-to-find sneakers, nearly every bottle resells for two-, three- and four-times that, and it should be interesting to see what effect the increased availability will have.

Kentucky Owl Confiscated is available in all 50 states now.

These Are the Best Bourbon Whiskeys of the Year, According to More than 40 Judges

A couple weeks back, a strange thing happened at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition (SFWSC) — a $30 bourbon whiskey won the award for best overall whiskey over hundreds of bottles of Scotch whisky, Irish whiskey and Japanese whisky. Now, from small batch to barrel finished, the full list of bourbon whiskey category winners is available. These are the best bourbon whiskeys of 2019, according to SFWSC.

Belle Meade Bourbon Honey Cask Finish

Best Special Barrel-Finished Bourbon: Belle Meade’s award-getter is a bourbon pun. It could be the location in the rickhouse, the humiditiy, the perfect char or a combination of 100 other factors, but, in distillery patois, the “honey barrel” is a mythic barrel that holds the platonic ideal of bourbon whiskey. This bottle is finished in barrels that have aged honey from a local producer.

Henry McKenna Single Barrel

Best in Show, Whiskey (Best Single Barrel): Only the second bourbon to ever earn the title of “best whiskey” at SFWSC, Heaven Hill Distillery’s 10-year, Bottled-in-Bond bourbon checks every box a whiskey drinker could ask for. It’s affordable, available, delicious and now among the most awarded bottles of bourbon out there.

Redemption Wheated Straight Bourbon

Best Small Batch Bourbon — Up to 5 Years: Redemption’s wheated bourbon is a bit of an outlier. Its mashbill is far more wheat-heavy than most (reportedly 45 percent wheat) and its 4-year age statement is much lower than what we’ve come to expect from a good wheated bourbon. But it isn’t completely unique in the wheat category — like most wheated bourbons, Redemption’s expression can be hard to track down.

Barrell Bourbon Batch 018

Best Small Batch Bourbon — 11 Years and Older: Barrel’s cask strength Batch 018 is not meant to be subtle. The high proof expression is a blend of 11-, 14- and 15-year-old bourbons and exhibits aggressive rye pungency. If you want a bottle that’s nothing like what you’ve got in your cabinet, this could be it.

Ezra Brooks 7 Year Barrel Proof Bourbon

Best Straight Bourbon: Age statement? Check. Barrel strength? Check. Fair price? Check. The $40 SRP “Old Ezra” is one of a dwindling number of do-it-all bottles to stock up on.

Traverse City Whiskey Co. Barrel Proof Bourbon

Best Small Batch Bourbon (Overall): This year’s overall winner for best small batch bourbon comes from Michigan. Situated on the shores of Lake Michigan, Traverse City Whiskey Company’s barrel proof offering is aged five years in new American white oak barrels.

Gear Patrol also recommends:
Knob Creek Single Barrel
1792 Full Proof
Eagle Rare

The 5 Best Things We Drank This Month

Every month, a huge amount of booze moves through the Gear Patrol offices — beer, wine and a lot of whiskey. Here are a few of our favorites.

Booker’s Bourbon Theresa’s Batch

Booker’s is Jim Beam Distillery’s limited run of uncut, unfiltered bourbon. Its “batches” are handpicked from the center of the rickhouse, and they come out quarterly. The latest, named after longtime distillery employee Teresa Wittemer, is a banger. It’s oily and warm, with big notes of brown sugar. We recommend it with an ice cube or two (or at least a couple drops of water).

Iichiko Saiten Shochu

Though someone on our team called Iichiko’s juiced-up shochu “sacrilege,” that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Shochu, which is typically in the range of 50 to 75 proof, is usually served on the rocks, with juice or as a stand-in spirit in various clear liquor cocktails. Because of the low ABV, the latter is a challenge — that’s what Iichiko Saiten was built to fix. Distilled once and kept at a much, much higher than average 43 percent ABV, this shochu makes a Japanese martini deliciously simple.

Dogfish Head Slightly Mighty IPA

The battle to make a good low-calorie IPA has yielded a bunch of beers that taste like nothing. Dogfish Head’s new Slightly Mighty IPA, out next month, is not one of them. Instead of shirking flavor by dumping calorie-inflating ingredients like malt, the brewery opted to leaven the hops with monk fruit. The result is a slightly sweet, bone-dry IPA you could crush after a run or mowing the lawn.

Michter’s US*1 Barrel Strength Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey

Spicy, bold, aggressive — whatever you want to call them, the recipes (or mash bills) for a lot of America’s most popular ryes are exceptionally rye-forward. Michter’s new barrel strength rye is a bit more like rye used to be. It carries a bit of that rye baking spice nose and flavor, but it is made richer and more palatable by a mash bill with a lot of corn and barley.

Bulleit Rye 12-Year-Old

The grain bill, comprised of 95 percent rye, is the big story when it comes to the crowd-pleasing Bulleit Rye, which has been around since 2011. This new extension of the brand takes the same base juice but jacks up the age to 12 years, imparting a kind of rounded softness you don’t get with the OG version. We get notes of caramel apple with a fair amount of baking spice. Available now.

6 Affordable Bourbon Whiskeys to Drink Instead of Pappy Van Winkle

Corn is the soul of every bourbon recipe, but distillers also use rye, barley and wheat — and every mash bill is different.

“Wheaters,” as bourbon fans call them, use wheat as a secondary grain rather than your typical rye. People who drink them say they’re sweeter, softer, fruitier and smoother. Science backs this up: the distillation of wheat is important to the production of 1-pentanol, an alcohol that imparts flavors of bread, cereal and yeast.

So why don’t more bourbons put the wheat ahead of rye? Traditionally, wheat was too expensive for industrial bourbon production. In the early 20th century, the Stitzl brothers and one Julian “Pappy” Van Winkle Sr. believed the use of wheat rather than rye made their bourbons softer; then Maker’s Mark and its red wax brought a wheater to the general drinking public.

Today, history repeats itself: for everyday drinkers, famous wheaters like Pappy and William Larue Weller are too damn expensive — assuming you can even find them. But all hope isn’t lost. Head down to your local liquor store and you’ll come across a handful of solid wheaters collecting more dust than they deserve. The best part: they won’t cost you your next paycheck.

Larceny Bourbon

Looking for an affordable wheated bourbon made at Heaven Hill, the distillery once owned by Pappy himself? Most drinkers choose Rebel Yell but you should spring for Larceny, which is part of Heaven Hill’s Old Fitzgerald line. It has a higher proof than Rebel Yell and carries an age statement — six years.

Proof: 92
Distilled By: Heaven Hill
Tasting Notes: Loads of bready sweetness, butterscotch and toffee.
Price: $20 – $25

1792 Sweet Wheat

Sazerac owns the Barton 1792 distillery and this is its only wheated option. It won a gold medal at the 2018 LA Spirits Competition. Jim Murray liked it, too; in his 2019 Whiskey Bible, he called it “a wheated, honeyed stunner.” That’s good enough for us.

Proof: 91.2
Distilled By: Barton 1792
Tasting Notes: Dried fruits and soft, honeyed caramel, with a touch of oak tannin.
Price: $33

Maker’s Mark Cask Strength

Jim Beam’s red-capped mid-range flagship has been bottled at cask strength since 2014. The high proof gives it the shot at the same bold flavors you’ll find in the Pappys and William Larue Wellers of the wheated world. Expect loads of dark fruits and cinnamons.

Proof: 111.3 (varies)
Distilled By: Suntory Beam
Tasting Notes: Cherries, cinnamon, vanilla, dark fruits, molasses
Price: $50 – $60

Wyoming Whiskey Single Barrel

Wyoming Whiskey got off to a rocky start when it launched in 2015 — early batches just weren’t quite there. Since then, the distillery has figured things out, and its wheated bourbon has caught the eyes of aficionados and judges alike. The Single Barrel uses the same wheated liquid as the standard stuff, aged in the same dynamic western weather, but brings a unique complexity you don’t always get with a blend.

Proof: 88
Distilled By: Wyoming Distillery
Tasting Notes: Nuts, creamy caramel, and honey, with some minerality and vanilla.
Price: $55

Bainbridge Battle Point Organic Wheat Whiskey

This won a World Whiskies award in 2018 as the best wheated whiskey out there. Bainbridge has been distilling small-batch, organic spirits since 2009 in Washington state. Since it uses only wheat, and no corn, it’s not a bourbon. But it is a great study in the best flavors wheat can impart.

Proof: 86
Distilled By: Bainbridge Distilling
Tasting Notes: Vanilla, caramel, and molasses, with a silky mouthfeel.
Price: $49 – $65

Garrison Brothers Cowboy Bourbon

The Garrison Brothers are leading the charge when it comes to Texas bourbon, which is a lot different than the stuff you’ll find from Kentucky. Texas’s immense temperature changes lend to a liquid that gets quick flavorful from its barrels. Thus far, Cowboy Bourbon is its most famous, with a price to match — but it’s a unique approach to wheat (it’s got 15 percent in its mash bill) with a helluva proof.

Proof: 137
Distilled By: Garrison Brothers
Tasting Notes: Oily and rich, with a high-proof heat; cinnamon, graham crackers, baking spices, and chocolate.
Price: $220

The 17 Best Bourbon Whiskeys You Can Buy in 2019

Bourbon has never been more popular than it is right now. This definitive guide of the best bourbons of 2019 explores everything you need to know about America’s favorite brown spirit, including important terminology and, of course, a list of the best bottles you can buy at your local liquor store.

Prefer to skip directly to the picks? Click here.

The Short List

Best All-Around Bourbon: Buffalo Trace, $25+

Good as a sipper and in cocktails, Buffalo Trace’s namesake bourbon is the perfect do-it-all whiskey. What’s more, each bottle is a kind of lottery. Given Buffalo Trace’s lineage of excellent whiskeys from W.L. Weller, George T. Stagg and Van Winkle, there’s a chance you stumble upon something special.

Tasting Notes: Strong notes of caramel and nutmeg, with hints of hay and apricot on the nose and a “snap-crackle-pop mouthfeel.”
Average Price: $25 – $35

Best Value Bourbon: Evan Williams Black Label, $11+

“If Evan Williams were to sell this whiskey to someone else, that brand would mark it up to $40, and people would be happy buying it,” says expert whiskey reviewer Fred Minnick. But Evan Williams is a value brand. So its whiskey, at a great proof point of 86 and an age that Minnick says is roughly five-and-a-half years old, goes for less than $20. “It’s a fantastic bourbon, especially for the money,” he says.

Tasting Notes: Well rounded, with a range of flavors including brown sugar and nutmeg atop the standard range of vanilla and caramel.
Price: $11 – $15

Introduction

Bourbon, the Great American Spirit, is not as simple as one might think. Yes, its definition is writ in but a few sentences on the holy stone of Federal Decree: It must be made in the United States; its grain bill must include at least 51 percent corn; it must be produced at not more than 80 percent alcohol (160 proof) and stored in charred new oak containers at no more than 62.5 percent (125 proof). And yes, it is a blue-collar spirit, made by thirsty farmers, for thirsty farmers. But underneath these fundamentals swims a deep sea of factors — additional rules and regulations, hype machines and deceptive marketing, false myths and a boom that began in 2008 and is still going strong today — that make bourbon more complex than it seems. Sour mash and Bottled-in-Bond, non-distiller-producers and high-ryes. Where’s the thirsty modern man, farmer or otherwise, to begin?

“Because of bourbon’s continued growth in popularity, the misinformed malcontents are spreading like a bad virus,” writes Fred Minnick in his 2015 standout guide, Bourbon Curious. Minnick loves bourbon; he’s written seven books and three of them involve America’s brown spirit. But he’s not afraid to dissect its misguided marketing and secretive practices. Bourbon Curious opens with plenty of stick (“the proof, age, and whiskey type are the only things you can trust on an American whiskey label”) before getting to its carrot: hundreds of pages of information and mouthwatering tasting notes on just about any bourbon you’ll find on liquor store shelves. The key to understanding it all, Minnick says, is transparency from brands combined with an understanding of a term most bourbon drinkers don’t use: terroir.

“Spirits tend to gravitate toward branding, whereas wine gravitates toward terroir,” Minnick says. “But an educated bourbon consumer can piece together terroir — and really, it’s by distillery.” The top bourbon distilleries — Four Roses, Buffalo Trace, Heaven Hill, Wild Turkey, Jim Beam, Brown-Forman and others — distill the bourbon that makes up a large number of brands you’ll find on liquor store shelves that are worth drinking. Minnick’s recommendation for the novice: Familiarize yourself with those distilleries and try to pick apart the distinct flavors produced by each, whether that’s Wild Turkey’s funky note or Four Roses’ spicy flavors. “If someone really wants to get into this hobby and this world, they have to immerse themselves,” he says.

To help you in your bourbon journey, we asked Minnick to discuss the absolute best bourbons across three price points — everyday values, mid-range palate builders and rare gems. Before we get to the bottles, however, a quick primer on terminology and pricing. If you prefer to skip directly to the picks, click here.

Bourbon Terms to Know

Bourbon Whiskey: Whiskey produced in the U.S. at not exceeding 80 percent alcohol by volume (160 proof) from a fermented mash of not less than 51 percent of corn and stored at not more than 62.5 percent alcohol by volume (125 proof) in charred new oak containers.”

Straight Bourbon Whiskey: “Bourbon whiskey stored in charred new oak containers for two years or more. ‘Straight bourbon whiskey’ may include mixtures of two or more straight bourbon whiskeys provided all the whiskeys are produced in the same state.”

Bottled in Bond: “The spirit must be the product of one distillation season by one distiller at one distillery. It must have been stored in a federally bonded warehouse for at least four years and be bottled at 100 proof. The bottled product’s label must identify the distillery where it was distilled and bottled.”

Sour Mash: A fermentation technique used by almost all bourbon distillers that employs pre-fermented mash from a previous distilling in a new mash. The sour mash prevents wild yeast from entering the mash and causing infections.

Proof: The percentage of alcohol, displayed as double that of the alcohol percentage.

High Rye: A bourbon with a higher than normal percentage of mash bill made up of rye (as opposed to using more corn, wheat, or barley, the other main grains used in bourbon mash). This tends to produce spicier flavors in the bourbon.

Wheated: A bourbon with a higher than normal percentage of mash bill made up of wheat (the main grain remains corn). This tends to produce a softer, less spicy whiskey.

Small Batch: A subjective term signaling a bourbon made using a select number of barrels or recipes in a blended bottling.

Single Barrel: A bourbon made using single barrels, providing a higher range of variation in flavor, and the chance at specific, unique characteristics.

Non-Distiller Producers (NDP): Companies that purchase their whiskey from someone else rather than making it themselves. This is not a new phenomenon and it plays a large role in blended bourbons.

Best Budget Bourbons

These bourbons are all under $25. They have some of the same flavors found in the world’s best, most sought-after whiskeys. They just don’t carry the same level of complexity; the flavors tend to come and go more quickly.

“A more expensive whiskey might have this rich note that lasts for ten to twelve seconds,” Minnick says, “whereas a cheaper bottle has that note just for one to two seconds.” Still, this price range has the best value of the entire market, and it also provides opportunities for bourbon to be used in cocktails — or as gifts.

Best Value Bourbon: Evan Williams Black Label

Verdict: “If Evan Williams were to sell this whiskey to someone else, that brand would mark it up to $40, and people would be happy buying it,” Minnick says. But Evan Williams is a value brand. So its whiskey, at a great proof point of 86 and an age that Minnick says is roughly five-and-a-half years old, goes for less than $20. “It’s a fantastic bourbon, especially for the money,” he says. “You can get a lot of satisfaction out of that.”

Proof: 86
Distilled By: Heaven Hill
Tasting Notes: Well rounded, with a range of flavors including brown sugar and nutmeg atop the standard range of vanilla and caramel.
Price: $11 – $15

Best Bourbon for Cocktails: Four Roses Yellow Label

Verdict: “This is such a dynamic whiskey,” Minnick says. “And it’s the best cocktail bourbon out there.” Four Roses is a highly regarded distillery, with a high-rye mash bill that produces an extra spiciness and a concentration on yeast that has been “eye-opening” for the bourbon world. They’ve also led the way in transparency. “They’ll tell you everything there is to know about their whiskey — they don’t hide the mash bill, the distillation proof. I presume you could ask ’em how much their CEO makes and they’d tell you,” Minnick says.

Proof: 80
Distilled By: Four Roses
Tasting Notes: An earthy nose, but spicy on the tongue, with immediate and pleasant notes of cinnamon and baking spices.
Price: $12 – $20

Best Kept Secret: Heaven Hill 6-Year-Old Green Label

Verdict: This is the bourbon Minnick buys as a gift for his family and friends. “It’s 90 proof for around $9, and you just don’t beat it for the money,” he says. “I’ve done some blind tastings with it and it out-tastes Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, even Buffalo Trace in one tasting.” But it’s only available in Kentucky. Why? “I have some theories about that,” Minnick says. “The Shapiras, the people who own Heaven Hill — this label is for them and their employees. It gets zero marketing dollars.”

Proof: 90
Distilled By: Heaven Hill
Tasting Notes: Corn, vanilla, caramel and brown sugar, with oak tannins.
Price: $9 – $12 (only available in Kentucky)

Best Budget Sipper: Larceny Bourbon

Verdict: “This has an incredible sweetness to it,” Minnick says. “It’s not complex, but the sweetness is really nice — the way it hits the palate. It’s a good, inexpensive, wheated everyday sipper.”

Proof: 92
Distilled By: Heaven Hill
Tasting Notes: It’s a wheated bourbon, with loads of bready sweetness, butterscotch, and toffee.
Price: $20 – $25

Best Everyday Bourbons

According to Minnick, this is where the majority of the bourbon world lives. “You start with the six- to twelve-year-old bourbons that you can find regularly.” What changes from the entry-level spirits is complexity. The very best bourbons in this range “will have note after note after note after note, and then you can still taste that dominant note on your palate,” Minnick says.

Best Gateway Bourbon: Four Roses Small Batch

Verdict: Four Roses’s upgrade over Yellow blends 180 barrels of four different recipes per bottling. “If you love cinnamon notes, you’ll love this,” Minnick says. It’s more complex than Yellow, but still drinks easy. “It’s what I want to sip at a ballgame.”

Proof: 90
Distilled By: Four Roses
Tasting Notes: cinnamon, citrus, caramel, vanilla, and an apple-pie sweetness.
Price: $30 – $35

Best Bourbon to Drink Neat: Four Roses Single Barrel

Verdict: Made using a single recipe and barrel per bottle, it’s between 7 and 8 years old and has more complexity than the Small Batch. “For being the same brand as the Small Batch, they taste very different. This one is more of a sipper. I want to really sit there and think about it when I’m drinking it,” Minnick says.

Proof: 100
Distilled By: Four Roses
Tasting Notes: Toasted marshmallow and campfire on the nose, adding cinnamon, caramel and vanilla on the tongue, with a particularly creamy mouthfeel.
Price: $40 – $50

Best Bourbon to Pair with Food: Maker’s Mark

Verdict: Minnick has a unique use for one of bourbon’s classic names. “I drink so much Makers with BBQ,” he says. Its mellow balance — helped by the prominent caramel notes of its wheated mash bill — doesn’t overpower meaty flavors.

Proof: 90
Distilled By: Maker’s Mark
Tasting Notes: On the nose, dried apricot, chocolate, coffee, and corn; on the tongue, bread pudding, caramel-apple, and pumpkin pie.
Price: $30 – $45

Best Rye Substitute: Knob Creek

Verdict: Its “cornbread” note makes this Minnick’s stand-in for rye in Manhattans. That cornbread flavor profile is shared across many Jim Beam bourbons, but Knob Creek’s 100 proof is the perfect expression of the flavor, as opposed to Booker’s 126 and Jim Beam Black’s 86.

Proof: 100
Distilled By: Jim Beam
Tasting Notes: Nutty on the nose, with a distinct cornbread flavor on the tongue.
Price: $30 – $40

The Smoothest Bourbon: Elijah Craig Small Batch

Verdict: Though it shares DNA with other Heaven Hill bourbons like Evan Williams and Henry McKenna, Elijah Craig Small Batch is balanced, with extra maltiness. “It’s got so much caramel, and a beautiful nutmeg note,” Minnick says. “This is all about the sweetness.”

Proof: 94
Distilled By: Jim Beam
Tasting Notes: Caramel, chocolate, vanilla, caramel, and a distinct nutmeg flavor.
Price: $25 – $40

Best All-Around Bourbon: Buffalo Trace

Verdict: Good as a sipper and in cocktails, it’s the perfect do-it-all whiskey. What’s more, each bottle is a kind of lottery, with a chance of something special, given Buffalo Trace’s lineage of “some of the greatest whiskies out there,” Minnick says — they include W.L. Weller, George T. Stagg, and Van Winkle. “Sometimes you get a bottle that just explodes in your mouth.”

Proof: 90
Distilled By: Buffalo Trace
Tasting Notes: Strong notes of caramel and nutmeg, with hints of baled hay and apricot on the nose and a “snap-crackle-pop mouthfeel.”
Price: $25 – $35

Best Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon: Henry McKenna Single Barrel

Verdict: The McKenna distillery was established in 1855, founded by the noted Irish immigrant distiller. Seagrams closed the business in the 1970s, and Heaven Hill purchased the brand name in 1994, but no longer uses the original recipe; as Minnick notes in Bourbon Curious, “The original yeast, mashbill, and flavor profile are gone, lost with time.” But one thing the new bottle does have is time: its 10 year age statement makes it one of the older bourbons at this price range.

Proof: 100
Distilled By: Heaven Hill
Tasting Notes: Rye spiciness, caramel, and vanilla, with a steady undertone of oak.
Price: $30 – $35

Best Craft Bourbon: New Riff Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Verdict: New Riff Distilling was founded in 2014. “Relative to Kentucky, they’ve been around for a few days. The rest of the nation is just kinda getting to know ’em,” Minnick says. The mash bill here, made entirely of non-GMO grains, is 65 percent corn, 30 percent rye and 5 percent malted barley.

Proof: 100
Distilled By: New Riff Distilling
Tasting Notes: Oak tannins and vanillas, butterscotch, sweet corn and some rye spice at the finish.
Price: $40

Bucket List Bourbons

These run north of $60, all the way up to a month’s paycheck. Buying in this range is high risk, high reward. “Sometimes you’re gonna be disappointed,” Minnick says. “Just because a bourbon is 90 bucks doesn’t mean it’s good.” The benchmark bourbons at this range have upwards of 100 flavor notes to pick out, often happening at the same time and lingering on the tongue for ages. Or, as Minnick put it, the best should make you think, “If god gave birth to his bourbon child, this is what it would taste like.”

Best High-Proof Bourbon: Elijah Craig Barrel Proof

Verdict: This bourbon just won Whisky Advocate’s whiskey of the year, and Minnick was on the tasting panel. “It was very, very nice bourbon,” he says, wistfully. It has none of the harshness you’d expect from a 133.2 proof bourbon, and doesn’t undergo chill filtering — instead just using light filtration to remove barrel char flakes.

Proof: 133.2 proof
Distilled By: Heaven Hill
Tasting Notes: Caramels are rich, vanillas powerful. Minnick calls its notes “a party of pies: apple, cherry, blueberry, and even pumpkin.”
Price: $55 – $100

Most Nuanuced Bourbon: Old Forester 1920 Prohibition Style

Verdict: It’s bottled at 115 proof — “for this distillery, that’s the perfect proof,” Minnick says. “I’m going through a bottle a month. The notes kind of just linger. You can have five different notes hitting at once. I believe that to be the definition of nuance.”

Proof: 115
Distilled By: Brown-Forman
Tasting Notes: Dark notes of fruit and burnt brown sugar. Chocolate, creme brulee, and strong nuttiness on the palate.
Price: $60 – $80

Best Blended Bourbon: Barrell Craft Spirits 15-Year-Old Bourbon

Verdict: Barrell is a blender, not a distiller. But its openness about the subject (blends have long been considered “rotgut”) and the flavor mastery of founder Joe Beatrice and master distiller Tripp Stimson have won the old bourbon guard over. “It won my American Whiskey of the Year award last year in a blind tasting,” Minnick says. “It’s got so much flavor to it, so much complexity — it’s just brilliant whiskey.”

Proof: 105.1
Distilled By: Blend of Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky bourbons
Tasting Notes: fruit notes on the nose, with a blast of cocoa and butterscotch on the tongue, finishing with elegance.
Price: $300

Best Wheated Bourbon: Buffalo Trace William Larue Weller

Verdict: “Are we including bottles that are impossible to find?” Minnick asks. Sure. This treasure from Buffalo Trace’s Antique collection does its namesake a service, representing some of the world’s best wheated bourbon, a style Weller himself pioneered. “If God gave birth to a bourbon child, this is what it would taste like,” Minnick says. “It’s so fucking amazing.”

Proof: 128.2
Distilled By: Buffalo Trace
Tasting Notes: A caramel bomb, with immense vanilla notes on the nose. Dried fruits, nutmeg, and honey on the palate.
Price: $800+

Most Complex Bourbon: Four Roses Al Young Limited Edition

Verdict: File it under another bourbon you’ll never find on liquor store shelves. The 50th-anniversary whiskey is made in part of 23-year old bourbon and has, according to Four Roses brand ambassador Al Young himself, flavor profiles of “cinnamon, peaches and cherries, plus aromas of gardenias and magnolia blossoms.” Minnick scored it a 96 for Whiskey Advocate. “It’s just so complex,” he says. “Last I tasted it, I was up to 100 notes that I picked up on it. They have something special there.”

Proof: 109.98
Distilled By: Four Roses
Tasting Notes: On the nose, leather, maple syrup. On the palate, honeysuckle, cinnamon, and floral notes.
Price: $500+

The 7 Best Whiskey Glasses to Buy in 2019

Does your vehicle for drinking matter? Any right-minded drinker, especially those who choose whiskey, will answer with an unequivocal “yes.” There are weight and balance to consider, not to mention all manner of nosing. These whiskey glasses do what you need them to, and they won’t cramp your style along the way.

The Glencairn Glass

Probably the most famous snifter ever made. The Glencairn Glass was designed by a host of Master Blenders in Scotland as a more whisky-focused (notice the lack of “e”) version of the traditional copita glass. Its base is separated from the bulb so your hands don’t warm the glass around the juice. The bulb is wide enough to swirl the liquidy but narrow enough at the top to flush the whisky’s nose straight at you.

The Neat Glass

Here you have the official judging glass at a number of high-profile spirits competitions, including the prestigious San Franciso World Spirits Competition. What sets it apart? The flared rim, a feature that runs in opposition to the mighty Glencairn. The manufacturer says you shouldn’t have to water down good booze in the name of blotting out overbearing ethanol on the nose. As to whether it works or not, you can be the judge.

Fortessa Tableware Solutions Whiskey Glass

The rise of the stemless wine glass casts an uncertain and unfair shadow over this German-made tumbler. Originally designed by Schott Zwiesel, the glasses are made with a Tritan crystal, a patented material that replaces the lead properties in traditional crystal in favor of a mix of titanium and zirconium, making them far more durable than your typical whiskey-toting cup (and scratch-resistant). And don’t let the height fool you, the wide bulb of the glass makes certain your drinks count.

Snowe Short Tumbler

Snowe’s glass isn’t quirky and it doesn’t come with a gimmick — it’s heavy, balanced and elegant. The direct-to-consumer home design company’s whiskey glass is made with leadless crystal and they just feel damn good in the hand — they also stack within each other quite well, somewhat rare in the whiskey glass world.

Norlan Glass

An ergonomic, lightweight riff on a Reidel glass called the Vinum, the Norlan Glass essentially drops the head of that glass inside a tumbler. The whole thing is made of borosilicate glass, which is much lighter than the glass typically used to make cocktail tumblers. Finished off with a thin gold strip around the lip, the Norlan looks as good as it drinks.

Norlan Rauk Heavy Tumbler

Norlan’s second glass is nothing like the other on this list. Whereas the classic Norlan Glass is lightweight and designed exclusively for sipping, Rauk is heavy and built to handle cocktails, too. How heavy is it? How about 1.26 pounds — each. The glass is made in an instant, as molten crystal is slammed by two machine molds, shaping the whole thing in one action. It’s perfect for an Old Fashioned.

Waterford Aras Old Fashioned Pair

Waterford has been making fine crystal glassware since 1783. Fashioned entirely of crystal, these glasses were designed as an homage to turrets lining the castles of the company’s native Ireland. If you’re one for the classics, there’s no other choice.

The Complete Guide to Buffalo Trace Whiskey: Important Brands and Bottles Explained

There is perhaps no American whiskey maker more respected or awarded as Buffalo Trace Distillery. The flags flying under its umbrella are some of the biggest names in whiskey — Pappy Van Winkle, E.H. Taylor, Weller and so on. But the shuffling and mass coalescing of major whiskey brands can make it strenuous to know your Pappys from your Wellers, and harder still to recall the $1,000 difference between Antique Weller 107 and the Antique Collection’s William Larue Weller. That’s why we’re here. From impossible-to-find grails to $10 mixers, Buffalo Trace offers it all. Here’s your cheat sheet.

Mashbills

All Buffalo Trace whiskey comes from one of four recipes. In whiskey-making patois, recipe means mashbill, or the specific levels of corn, malt, rye and barley combined to distill the beginnings of every bottle.

The catch? The distillery has marked the exact balance of barley, corn, wheat and rye as proprietary (though many try to crack the code). So we know which bottles start as which mashbills, but we don’t know specific percentages of each ingredient. Some one-off expressions — like Van Winkle’s Family Reserve Rye — are exceptions to the rule.

Mash #1: a low-rye bourbon mash (Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, E.H. Taylor, George T. Stagg, Benchmark)
Mash #2: a higher-rye bourbon mash (Blanton’s)
Wheated Mashbill: replaces rye content with wheat (Pappy Van Winkle, Weller)
Rye Mashbill: mash made with a little more than 50 percent rye (Sazerac)

Pricing

Bottles from brands Pappy Van Winkle and W.L. Weller can cost hundreds of dollars, if you can even find them, but Buffalo Trace isn’t the one to blame. The distillery distributes all of its whiskey with longstanding suggested retail prices (SRP). Take Pappy, a brand with bottle prices that climb well into the four-digit realm. In an honest world, you’d be able to find one for as low as $60.

Prestige

The whiskey landscape is run almost entirely by a handful of conglomerates and mega-corporations, and Buffalo Trace Distillery stands out. Names like Van Winkle, Weller, E.H. Taylor and Blanton’s are some of the most sought-after bottles of brown on the planet, and that’s before mentioning the coveted Antique Collection and O.F.C. Vintage releases.

While all those names carry weight with collectors and award show judges, its humbler mainline bottles are no less noble. Dating back to 2000, Buffalo Trace and Eagle Rare — the brand’s two most available brands — have earned more awards than are worth counting.

How to Score Bottles

All Buffalo Trace Distillery whiskeys are distributed “on allocation.” This means there’s a specific number of bottles allocated to each state throughout the year across its whole catalog. This is done to ensure retailers, restaurants and consumers in every state get a shot at some.

Your best shot at nabbing prized bottles comes down to being a good customer, which starts with communication. Frequent the shops in your area and talk to the person behind the counter. Ask when they usually get the bottle you’re hunting for and reward information with your patronage. Remember that if you’re looking for something (especially a Buffalo Trace Distillery whiskey), others are too — they don’t have to give you information, but they may be more inclined to do so if you’re a regular.

Beyond that, know your release periods. Bottles of Pappy are allocated October 1 and typically hit shelves mid-October to early December. The Antique Collection is also distributed in the fall. Most other regularly distributed bottled arrive on shelves in the first week of the month.

Notable People

None of the names you see gracing bottles in the Buffalo Trace catalog were made up. They refer to real people from the distillery’s past. Here’s the short list:

William Larue Weller: The inventor of wheated bourbon whiskey. Much of Weller’s work — whiskey education, distilling and tinkering — was done in the early to mid-1800s. Bottles of Weller became so popular he’d dip his thumb in green ink and print it on each bottle to ensure authenticity.

E.H. Taylor, Jr.: Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor was a mid-19th-century banker turned bourbon hero. Taylor laid funding down for a number of distillers and later opened the O.F.C. Distillery. He was also instrumental in the legitimizing of the bourbon industry, playing a key role in getting the Bottled-in-Bond of 1897 through Congress.

George T. Stagg: Stagg worked hand-in-hand with Taylor in the creation of O.F.C. and later bought it off him. He re-named the distillery after himself and it remained the way for almost 100 years before being renamed again. This time the newly minted distillery was called “Buffalo Trace.” Now Stagg’s name appears on just one bottle in the Antique Collection that’s one of the most collectible whiskeys in the world.

Albert B. Blanton: Blanton took over George T. Stagg’s distillery in 1921 and steered it through both the Great Depression and Prohibition (he convinced the government to let them continue making “medicinal whiskey”). He’s perhaps most famous for his stature as the founding father of the single barrel bourbon.

Julian Sr. “Pappy” Van Winkle: The cigar-toting man plastered on every bottle of Pappy is Pappy himself. Co-founder of the forward-thinking Stitzel-Weller Distillery, Pappy, along with the Wellers, showed the world the power of old, wheated bourbon.

Elmer T. Lee: Blanton’s protégé. Lee joined the distillery in 1949 and became its first Master Distiller. He’s credited as one of the people responsible for bourbon’s return to form in the ’70s and ’80s, along with other bourbon legends Booker Noe, Jimmy Russell and Parker Beam.

Harlen Wheatley: A four-time James Beard award nominee, Buffalo Trace’s Master Distiller since 2005 probably wouldn’t include himself in this list, but everyone else would. Since his ascension, Wheatley has led the distillery to unprecedented consistency in competition results year after year. He’s also spearheaded Buffalo Trace’s innovative initiatives like the new Old Charter Oak and Warehouse X.

Buffalo Trace Distillery Whiskey Brands

Buffalo Trace

SRP: $25
Recipe: Mashbill #1
Age: Aged at least 8 years
Notable: Named Gear Patrol’s Best All-Around Bourbon

Buffalo Trace’s namesake whiskey is the distillery’s second most-affordable bottle, behind Benchmark, which makes the value all the more remarkable. The bottle is cut to an easy-drinking 90 proof and, because its made alongside your Staggs, Wellers and Van Winkles, every bottle is a lottery ticket. You could wind up with a normal bottle of Trace or something a little more special. Caramel and vanilla do the heavy lifting on the palate while an oaky brown sugar finish rolls in nice and slow. It’s a rare affordable bourbon that checks boxes for ability to drink neat or in cocktails.

McAffee’s Benchmark Old No. 8 Brand

SRP: $12 SRP (Most affordable Buffalo Trace Distillery whiskey)
Recipe: Mashbill #1
Age: Aged at least 36 months
Notable: 2018 Gold Medal Winner at Los Angeles and New York Spirit Competitions

Just call it Benchmark. With a suggested retail price of $12, Buffalo Trace Distillery’s cheapest juice has earned a place in the hearts of whiskey writers, cash-strapped bourbon drinkers and anyone trying to avoid party guests drinking the good stuff. Its ultra-low price makes it a strong choice for a punch mixer, and the slightly watery 80 proof mean neat drinking is relatively easy (don’t bother watering it down further). Served straight, it hits you with honey and a bit of orange peel on the nose and a medium-strength slow burn on the tongue. Expect a lightly oaky, fairly cherry-forward follow through.

Eagle Rare

SRP: $30
Recipe: Mashbill #1
Age: Aged at least 10 years
Notable: Jim Murray’s 2019 Best Bourbon, Under 10 Years

Amid a shrinking market of well-aged, realistically priced bourbons, Eagle Rare keeps its feathers above water. The 90-proof bottle separates itself by retaining its exceptionally rare 10-year age statement and a retail price below $50. On top of its small mountain of awards, it was named the best bourbon whiskey (up to 10 years) you can buy by whiskey’s single most important reviewer, Jim Murray. In a whiskey world where transparency is disappearing and exclusivity is burgeoning, Eagle Rare is positioned as a affordable luxury for the everyman.

Eagle Rare bourbon can generally be described as a richer, deeper, better Benchmark. Made from the same mashbill, it follows much of the same beat – a honey-orange peel nose and manageable burn, especially. Once its coated the palate, things change: expect less fruit, more wood, undercurrents of toffee and a bit of spice.

E.H. Taylor

SRP: $40 to $70 (varies with individual expressions)
Recipe: Mashbill #1
Age: Aged at least 4 years (Bottled-in-Bond requirement)
Notable: All bottles (except Barrel Proof) are Bottled-in-Bond

Carrying the name of one Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr., Buffalo Trace Distillery’s E.H. Taylor collection has a bottle for every whiskey drinker. By virtue of hosting such a wide range of expressions — small batch, single barrel, barrel proof, straight rye and a host of valuable one-offs — the brand rides the line between everyday drinkers and bottles worth getting into a fistfight over. Generally speaking, the order of value for regularly allocated E.H. Taylor goes like this: Small Batch, Straight Rye, Single Barrel and Barrel Proof.

Head and shoulders among the group of one-offs is a legendary bottle known as Warehouse C Tornado Surviving bourbon. With “1st and Only” scrawled under the masthead, this bottle is the product of a warehouse ripped apart by a tornado, the barrels inside open to the elements of a sticky Kentucky spring. The result is a bottle rife with weirdness and nearly impossible to find — that is, unless you’re willing to drop close to $3,000 for it.

It’s difficult to nail down tasting notes for E.H. Taylor because it comes in such variety, but there are some throughlines: unless it’s rye, it carries a corn-driven sweetness, vanilla notes throughout and a buttery mouthfeel and finish.

Pappy Van Winkle

SRP: $60 to $270 (varies with individual expressions)
Recipe: Wheated mashbill
Age: Aged 10 to 23 years
Notable: A bottle of 23-Year-Old Pappy Family Reserve was gifted to the Pope by a Kentuckky priest

The flagbearer for those that roll their eyes at those willing to spend a months (or multiple months) rent on a little bottle of alcohol. Other than its stuffed trophy cabinet and sickening price tags, it’s known for its use of wheat — the famed wheat mashbill that all its whiskeys (except the rye, obviously) start as — and very high age statements. Though the Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve line is the most coveted (and the only one with “Pappy” included in the name), you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bottle for less than $1,000.

But how does it taste? Though ages differ rather dramatically from bottle to bottle, Van Winkle bourbon’s defining trait is its wheated mashbill, which makes for a soft sipping, low burn, enormously rich glass. There is citrus, sherry, wood, leather, pepper and cherries, too. That blend of impossible smoothness and mind-bending depth are what Pappy is known for.

Blanton’s Single Barrel

SRP: $60
Recipe: Mashbill #2
Age: Aged between 6 and 8 years
Notable: Claims to be the first single barrel bourbon ever

Blanton’s was founded in 1984 by bourbon legend Elmer T. Lee. Two rules define its character and charm: it’s single barrel, which means every bottle is filled with whiskey from one barrel, and it’s aged in Warehouse H — one of few rickhouses in the world built entirely out of metal. The metal construction means the rickhouse lacks significant insulation, so all the barrels inside are exposed to far more aggressive temperature and humidity shifts than traditional wood or brick rickhouses. The result of this practice is a citrusy nose, vanilla driven palate and dry, mellowing, slightly bitter finish.

Sadly, of the four expressions — Original, Gold, Straight from the Barrel and Special Reserve –only the Original is available in the US, while other bottles are sold in select international markets.

Antique Collection

SRP: $99 (Re-sale prices will be significantly higher)
Recipe: Mashbills vary
Age: Age varies
Notable: the bourbon drinker’s holy grail find — re-sale prices can reach well over $3,000 a bottle

There are many limited runs of good whiskey that gets way too much hype. Buffalo Trace’s Antique Collection is not in this category.

Released every fall, Antique Collection is the release of all releases for bourbon hunters. Made up of five American whiskeys — William Larue Weller, George T. Stagg, Eagle Rare 17-Year, Thomas Handy Sazerac Rye and Sazerac Rye 18-Year — it regularly hauls in loads of the biggest awards in the industry. Jim Murray named the Handy rye the best rye of the year in 2019, while the Weller took home the prize for best whiskey of the year (across all whiskey categories, worldwide). If you find any bottle for its suggested retail price of $99, buy a fistful of lottery tickets. Otherwise, expect to pay two to three times as much.

W.L. Weller

SRP: $25 to $99
Recipe: Wheated Mashbill
Age: Aged 7 to 12 years (depending on expression)
Notable: Claims to be the first wheated bourbon ever

Weller is the less sexy version of Pappy. As such, it’s earned a reputation as the bourbon drinker’s bourbon. It’s nowhere near as difficult to find as Pappy, though it’s becoming more and more difficult to track down itself. In order of rarity, here are four mainline bottles of the stuff: Special Reserve, 12-Year, Antique and William Larue Weller (part of the Antique Collection).

Special Reserve is the original and most accessible — a NAS (no age statement) bottle that serves as the ideal entryway into wheated bourbon (you can find bottles anywhere from $25 to $50, generally). The 12-year and Antique 107 are split by age and proof, with the Antique 107 being the highest proof of the Weller bottles and the 12-year being the second longest-aged. And as is customary, the most coveted of the group comes from the Antique Collection, and the William Larue Weller is routinely the most sought-after bottle in that group, too.

When discussing wheaters, the general assumption is extra-long stints in barrels is a good thing. This runs against how most seasoned drinkers describe rye-based bourbons. The trade-off is the younger bottles are, to many, lesser. The four- to seven-year-old Special Reserve hits you with a lot more ethanol flavor on the nose and palate than the 12-year, for example. With Weller, the higher the age, the more the whiskey blooms into the creamy, nutty, grassy, toasty booze everybody wants.

Old Charter Oak

SRP: $70
Recipe: Mashbill #1
Age: Aged 10 years
Notable: Every new bottle is aged in a different type of oak

Confusingly, Old Charter Oak is both a very old and very new line of bourbon. An older bottle bearing the name has been scantly distributed in a few southeastern markets since the 1930s. The newer line was announced at the end of 2018. Think of it as a science experiment framed around a single chain in the whiskey making process: wood. Every subsequent release will be bourbon aged in barrels made from oaks of different types, ages and regions. The first bottle was aged 10 years in oak from Mongolia and tastes like baking spices, nuts and a lot of wood. Buffalo Trace Distillery says to expect very limited releases four times a year.

Sazerac Rye

SRP: $27 to $99
Recipe: Rye Mashbill
Age: Aged 4 to 6 years
Notable: Made with the lowest possible percentage of rye for rye whiskey designation

Sazerac’s ryes taste a lot closer to bourbon than rye — or at least what we’ve come to expect from rye whiskey. Thanks to a rye industry that erupted alongside bourbon, loads of distillers were quickly bled dry of their rye stocks — MGP, an Indiana-based mass distilling operation, seized the opportunity to sell its rye whiskey to everybody who wanted it. And because their brand of rye is so rye-forward — reportedly 95 percent mashbill is rye — the whiskey drinking public quickly grew accustomed to super spicy rye.

It’s speculated both of Sazerac’s ryes — the 6-year-old (sometimes called “Baby Saz”) and world-beating 18-year-old — are made with a 51-percent rye mashbill, which is the absolute bare minimum rye content. This means the stuff isn’t going to body slam your taste buds like your Bulleits, Redemptions and George Dickels.

Sold everywhere with street prices that don’t wander far from the SRP, Baby Saz shouldn’t be hugely problematic to find or buy. The 18-year — part of the aforementioned Antique Collection — is another matter entirely.

O.F.C Vintages

SRP: Price varies
Recipe: Mashbill not given
Age: Age varies
Notable: Buffalo Trace’s oldest and most expensive line of whiskey

Upon its founding in 1870, O.F.C. was the most scientific distillery out there. Column stills, copper fermentation vats and a first-of-its-era steam heating system. The bottles made with its hallowed label are the rarest under the Buffalo Trace banner. Unless you take part in charity auctions (good on you), you’re unlikely to lay eyes on a bottle with the copper-embossed “O.F.C.” label. These are bottles of brown that pre-date Buffalo Trace itself, bottled from old bourbon stock bought up from other companies. The latest release, a 25-year-old bourbon, has a set retail price of $2,500.

What’s the Best Bourbon Whiskey in Texas? Ask a Roomful of Texans, Led by a World-Famous Expert

On a warm winter day last month in Longview, Texas, a handful of Texan distillers lounged in a Holiday Inn Express hospitality suite, sipping high-proof bourbon and awaiting judgment from a hirsute Englishman named Jim Murray. “I saw him getting off the elevator,” said one. “I was too intimidated to ask him any questions.”

Eleven distilleries were competing for the title of the Best Bourbon in Texas at the first-ever Texas Bourbon Shootout, hosted by the East Texas Bourbon Society, a local group of bourbon sippers. Proceeds for the event were going to charity. But the stakes were high for the distillers.

Murray, the author of Jim Murray’s Whiskey Bible and one of the premier whiskey reviewers in the world, had announced that he would allow the crowd to vote for its favorites in a round of blind head-to-head tastings between the 11 whiskeys. Texas democracy would name a winner. But catching the Englishman’s eye, in particular, could land them a favorable review in the Whiskey Bible — and help put Texas bourbon on the map.

Though they’ve been distilling whiskey for less than ten years, a growing crop of Texas distilleries have become standouts in American spirits making. They’ve benefitted from knowledge imported several states from the north, like Kentucky, where bourbon making is hundreds of years old. Uniquely, they’ve taken up the practice of using pot stills, rather than standard continuous ones. Then there’s the matter of maturation.

Bourbon gains its classic flavors from aging in charred, new American oak barrels in a rickhouse; temperature and humidity changes force the liquid into, and then back out of, the wood, imparting flavor. A February day in Kentucky might fluctuate from 35 to 45 degrees. In Texas, it’s 35 at night and 75 during the day. That means the flavors, like everything in Texas, are bigger.

The best Kentucky bourbon has notes of butter and cornbread; Texas whiskey is fiery with enough explosive power on the palate to garner national attention. So far, the state’s single malts have attracted the most spotlight. They’ve won awards at competitions like Whiskies of the World, International Wine & Spirits Competition and the American Craft Spirits Awards. Their price point, around $70, competes with other Scotch and Japanese single malts. Meanwhile, Texan bourbons have lagged behind, in part because they cost $60 to $70 — more than their better-established Kentucky cousins. Bourbon needs sweetness and nuance, two things the young Texas distillers are still honing.

Whiskey making is not a pure science, the Texan distillers in the hospitality suite reminded, no matter how many high-tech molecular machines are employed. Tinkering flavors takes time. “So often, we’re working backwards, from something tasting good and trying to figure out why that is, rather than the other way around,” said Rob Arnold, head distiller of Firestone & Robertson distilling company.

“Sometimes the worst thing is a unicorn batch,” said Dan Garrison, cofounder of Garrison Brothers. “It works so well the first time, but then it doesn’t work again, and you can’t figure out why.”

Murray, for his part, listed a Balcones single malt and a Garrison Brothers bourbon as the best U.S. microbrands of 2019. “I was totally blindsided by the flavors,” he said. Among those flavors: French toast, and Manuka honey smeared on overcooked fruitcake. How they’d done it, he wasn’t sure. “That’s why I wanted to do this tasting, actually,” he said.

Ahead of the tasting, the competing distillers filed in just as Murray took a small stage in a ballroom filled with rows of tables and more than a thousand tasting glasses. He then led the audience of 100 or so in the strict tenets of what he calls “The Murray Method” of tasting. It has eighteen listed rules, including no talking (listen to the whiskeys, not each other); assessing the nose, mouthfeel, balance, and taste of each whiskey; and to never, ever, under any circumstances, add any water or ice to the whiskey.

The Texans, told to hold their drams against their bodies for minutes on end to warm them—and then to spit, not swallow, seemed on the verge of secession.

“Bourbon,” Murray pronounced, “is the most honest of—”

A Texan raised a bourbon to his lips. “No no no!” Murray shouted. “No tasting yet! Thank you.”

“The most honest of whiskeys…”

Murray asked the Texans to wiff their whiskey three times, then take a sip, then spit it out, to cleanse their palates, then nose three more times — don’t stick your noses in it, remember — and then take a sip, chew with open mouth, like a halibut taking water into its gills, to aerate; then, spit the bourbon.

“Listen to that whiskey,” Murray commanded.

The Texans listened.

Was the whiskey sweet or dry?

“Drah,” a man yelled.

Oily?

“A little bit.”

What are we tasting?

“Orange peel.”

“Chocolate.”

Very good. Were we still tasting the whiskey moments later? Yes? That means a long finish.

Two whiskeys were tasted head to head, a hand vote was taken, and one was voted out. Murray announced the name of the loser and moved onto the next pair.

Seven whiskies later, Murray announced that he still had not found two that were even close to each other in identity. Some were nutty and buttery; some were spicy and enormous on the tongue; only a few, with cuts too wide or unbalanced between spices and sweetness, were dropped from competition without a full count of hands.

Murray praised several defeated whiskeys: one, in particular, would do well in The Whiskey Bible, he noted, and he couldn’t wait to review it there. Four bourbons remained, all of them stellar. “This has big tannins, big sugars,” Murray said, face aglow. “This could be mistaken for a Kentucky whiskey.”

The winners, Garrison Brothers, the oldest Texas distillery, hailing from Hye, Texas.

The final head to head came several hours in. The crowd moved at the tempo of Murray’s rules, nosing and sipping, and was finally allowed to swallow: the rapturous burning of the stomach lining spread throughout the room. Murray held both bourbons aloft and moved to pick one. “Which one is sexier on the nose?”

“Hold on,” someone yelled from the crowd. “Don’t be rushin’.”

“It’s time to choose the best bourbon in Texas!” Murray declared.

“It’s a tah!” someone yelled.

It was not. The winner was Balmorhea, a 115-proof bourbon made by Garrison Brothers, the oldest Texas distillery, hailing from Hye, Texas. The runner up was the Blue Corn Bourbon from Balcones, the second-oldest distillery in Texas. What had made them the best of the best? Both had massive amounts of both spice and sugars, yet remained balanced; both had the traditional flavors sought in a bourbon, like vanilla, oak, and caramel, but added flavors like red-hots, cherry and espresso. Both whiskeys, Murray noted, came from Texas distilleries who’d been at it long enough to experiment and perfect their distillates.

The crowd filed out for barbeque, live music and more drams of the winners. “These are among the best whiskeys, not just in Texas,” Murray said as he stepped down from his stage, “but among the world.”

Some of America’s Best Bourbon Whiskey Is Coming Out of Texas

Looking for the most exciting whiskey state outside of Kentucky? Try Texas. For years, their single malts have been marked as world-class, and at the recent Texas Bourbon Shootout in Longview, Texas, world whiskey reviewer and author of the Whiskey Bible Jim Murray called several Texas bourbons “among the best whiskeys not just in Texas, but in the world.”

More than their Kentucky cousins, Texas bourbons feature bold, dark flavors like cinnamon, black cherry and licorice, tied together by big, oaky tannins. Bourbon gets the majority of its flavor by aging in barrels, and in Texas, where weather fluctuates more than in Kentucky, those charred-oak casks tend to pump more flavor in a shorter amount of time into their liquid bounties. Here are some of the standouts from the inaugural Texas Bourbon Shootout.

Garrison Brothers Balmorhea

The winner of the Texas Bourbon Shootout became Texas’s first (legal) distillery in 2006. Balmorhea is named after a state park, and it’s aged for four years, first in smaller 15-gallon barrels then in 27-gallon ones. Bottled at 115 proof.

Tasting Notes: A deep mahogany color, its nose is ripe with black cherry and butter. On the tongue, a wave of brown sugar and ginger snaps gives way to toffee, coffee, molasses, and chocolate. The finish lingers with chocolate and a slightly bitter espresso note.

Balcones Texas Blue Corn Bourbon

The second place winner of the competition is also the second-oldest distillery in the state. Since its first distillate in 2009, Balcones has become perhaps the biggest name in Texas whiskey, winning golds and silvers at national and international spirits competitions. The grain-to-glass ethos has radiated to other Texas distilleries, as has their deep, pungent, spicy flavor profiles. This one’s made with blue corn and bottled at more than 120 proof.

Tasting Notes: Even darker than the Garrison Brothers’ bourbon, it has a nose of classic bourbon vanilla and caramel. On the tongue, it explodes with red licorice and red hots, then transitions to dates dark fruits, and maple syrup, with heavy tannin notes and even a gentle smokiness.

Herman Marshall HM Texas Bourbon

This bourbon’s high-corn mash bill is apparent immediately, thanks to its light color and nose full of cornbread. The duo behind it (Herman and Marshall, who met at a Starbucks 14 years ago) are based out of Garland, Texas, and have focused ever since on making a smooth, drinkable bourbon — which even caught Jim Murray’s attention. It made his top four at the Texas Bourbon Shootout.

Tasting Notes: Straw-colored, with a nose full of cornbread. It’s sweet and creamy, with vanilla, butterscotch and a touch of coffee. One of the few bourbons Murray called “delicate.”

Ranger Creek .36 SB

Ranger Creek, out of San Antonio, opened in 2010. The .36 Texas Straight Bourbon is its flagship, made with Texas corn and bottled at 96 proof. It had a tough draw at the competition — it was knocked out by Balcones during the blind tasting.

Tasting Notes: Heavy tannins on the nose, with caramel and butterscotch on the tongue, and a long, spicy finish.

Yellow Rose Outlaw

Yellow Rose opened in 2010 and launched its first whiskey in 2012. It’s made quick progress since: Straight Rye won a double gold at the San Francisco Artisan Spirits competition several years ago. Yellow Rose started bottling its Outlaw bourbon in 2013, and the experience shows.

Tasting Notes: Lighter color, with sweetness and nuttiness on the nose. It had one of the more buttery notes of the entire competition, with bright fruits at the finish.

Firestone & Robertson TX Bourbon

TX is wheated, made using a house strain yeast. The distillery uses two custom pot-column hybrid stills. Firestone & Robertson has been experimenting with a range of scientific and traditional techniques since it started making TX in 2012. “So often, we’re working backwards, from something tasting good and trying to figure out why that is, rather than the other way around,” said Rob Arnold, the head distiller there.

Tasting Notes: It’s dark in color, with a nose of cinnamon and allspice. On the tongue, it’s heavy on caramel and oak, with a touch of chocolate late.

Ironroot Republic Harbinger

During the competition, Murray called Harbinger a “class act” after it was knocked out by one vote. The Likarish brothers make their flagship bourbon with heirloom corns and bottle it at 118.5 proof; it’s won a number of golds and double golds since 2016, including at the 2017 San Francisco World Spirits competition. In the blind tasting, it was beaten by the eventual winner, the Garrison Balmorhea.

Tasting Notes: Black cherry on the nose, with loads of fruit and oak on the tongue. Later, it transitions to licorice and spice on the back of the tongue, and finishes with a slight coffee note.

Treaty Oak Ghost Hill

In 2016, Treaty Oak moved from Austin to nearby Dripping Springs, Texas, on a beautiful 28-acre property. Its Ghost Hill is a two-year-old wheated bourbon, made using Texas heirloom grains.

Tasting Notes: Its nose of caramel also has hints of cinnamon—foreshadowing. On the tongue it has tannins up front, with spiciness and a citrus finish. “It’s one spicy son of a gun,” according to Murray.