Tag: Bourbon whiskey

Whisky and Words Number 94: Freeland Spirits Bourbon Whiskey

Freeland is made with care in Portland, OR

This was from Josh (again), a housewarming gift. Josh knows what warms a home. Like last episode’s Whistle Pig, this whisky is also finished in ex-wine barrels—this time in Pinot Noir barrels. Pinot Noir is the signature wine of Oregon, apropos for an Oregon spirit.

Freeland Spirits is a fairly new distillery in Portland, OR which also produces several varieties of gin (which does not take as much aging). Like my favorite distillery, Talisker, Freeland is run by women. Freeland is also woman-owned, and is named after the tee-totaling ‘Meemaw’ (Grandma) Freeland. Their master distiller, Molly Troupe, has excellent credentials: a Masters Degree in Distillation from Heriot Watt, a major business university in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Odd fact, I have been there and did some work with them long ago.)  The Freeland web site explains the bourbon operation only started in 2018, and that their bourbon was produced in partnership with another distiller. Freeland then finished the spirit.

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Whisky and Words Number 76: Woodford Reserve vs. Knob Creek

Woodford Reserve is the premium bourbon from Brown Forman

Woodford Reserve is the premium whisky from the folks at Brown-Forman, famous for Jack Daniels (as well as some Scotch labels such as BenRiach). Oddly enough Jack Daniels was the favorite tipple of Keith Richards (until he went dry in 2018). He could afford better, and the distillery does make a better whisky. With Woodford, Brown-Forman are going for a higher price and more refined flavor. And to one-up our valiant competitor Knob Creek, Brown-Forman even include a pot still in the Woodford Reserve production, whereas Knob Creek is all column-distilled. But there’s more to whisky than the still.

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Whisky and Words Number 74: Hudson Whiskey Baby Bourbon

Hudson Baby, a craft Bourbon style from New York.

And now I come to the end of my short stint on American Whiskies. I have a backlog of Scotch I’ll get to work on next. But meanwhile, in their American survey, the Whisky Wafflers tried a Hudson single malt (which did not impress but intrigued anyway). This time we’ve got a more typical American-styled spirit from Hudson. I received this ‘Baby Bourbon’ as a gift and thought we’d put it through its paces. Along the way I’ll compare to the other whiskies tried in this series. I don’t have a lot of craft whiskeys to compare yet so we’ll use the Rogue Dead Guy, recently reviewed, as a benchmark as well as the Knob Creek, which has a more traditional mashbill.

The Hudson Baby Bourbon is a product of Tuthilltown Spirits Distillery, which, as they explain on their website, was founded in 2003 by Ralph Erenzo. Ralph is a pioneering distiller (he predated Rogue’s distillation efforts by about a decade) who helped push through legislation to establish craft distilleries as a legal concerns in New York. So you could say he’s an OG craft distiller. The Hudson brand was sold to William Grant and Sons in 2010. Tuthilltown makes the whiskey, Grant distributes it. This is the Grant of Glenfiddich and Balvenie, among other brands, and have proven to be good stewards of their product.

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Whisky and Words Number 73: Knob Creek Bourbon vs. Wild Turkey

Revel in the deep amber of the mighty Knob.

25 Dec! Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it.

Welcome to our second (of three) American series reviews. When they reviewed American whiskies the Whisky Waffle lads panned the big, common bourbons (Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark), but had good words for more innovative products. I did a similar comparison last week, Jim Beam vs. Rogue’s Dead Guy, and indeed the craft product out-shined the mass-market product by a fair margin. This week, we line up a bourbon titan the Waffle guys missed, Wild Turkey 101, up against Knob Creek—itself a Jim Beam ‘premium’ product. Both are Kentucky Straight Bourbons, 100-ish proof, and well, we’ll see what’s what.

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Whisky and Words Number 44: Stein Distillery Straight Bourbon, 5 yrs

One tasty bourbon. Click for full-res.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a frequent bourbon drinker, and I have to look up the code words that go along with bourbons—in this case, “straight.” According to Angel’s Envy, to be sold as “whiskey” in America, a spirit must adhere to the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906). To wit: the spirit has to be “straight,” that being defined by certain proofs at casking and bottling, being cut with only water and, most importantly, aged for 2 years. In this review, we’re looking at a 5-year-old bourbon. That doesn’t sound like much aging to a Scotch drinker (minimum 3 years in Scotland but 10-to-12 is more common) but there is the climate to consider.

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