u/FroznBones

Jack Daniel’s 14 Year, Batch 02 117.6°

We got this bottle in Thursday afternoon and I was surprised to see any left when I got here on Wednesday after my weekend. I poured a couple ounces for folks who stopped in and there was just enough left to taste, but not to sell. Poor, poor, pitiful me.

Color: dark, burnished copper fading to orange tootsie pop at the shallows. (Is rim variation an indicator of age like it is in wine?)

Nose: Black Forest gateau, dark chocolate covered dried cherries, toasted coconut, hint of char, light sweet tobacco. Everything is coated in dark sweet aromas. It reminds me that the words for decadent and decay are kissing cousins and have their root in something that has been buried away. This smells old, like opening an abandoned library.

Palate: the nose didn’t lie. Loads of cherry, chocolate, and buttercream drape over other flavors like charred, polished oak in the mid-palate, 3 Musketeers nougat, and cigar wrapper.

Finish: surprise… it’s cherry! This time like a syrup or reduction, a stab of rye spice, a touch of caramel, but then an assertive, but not overly tannic, leather wrapped oakiness that sharpens the focus as it fades away.

This whiskey never, ever felt like it was almost 118°. Incredibly balanced, poised, integrated, and purposeful. This is one of those whiskeys that evokes the poignant nature of our hobby. Sometimes you get to taste something truly extraordinary, but you know it’s a one and done sort of deal. So you absolutely wring every bit of experiential perception you can out of the moment. Ephemeral, but memorable.

Jack Daniel’s 14 Year, Batch 02 117.6°

We got this bottle in Thursday afternoon and I was surprised to see any left when I got here on Wednesday after my weekend. I poured a couple ounces for folks who stopped in and there was just enough left to taste, but not to sell. Poor, poor, pitiful me.

Color: dark, burnished copper fading to orange tootsie pop at the shallows. (Is rim variation an indicator of age like it is in wine?)

Nose: Black Forest gateau, dark chocolate covered dried cherries, toasted coconut, hint of char, light sweet tobacco. Everything is coated in dark sweet aromas. It reminds me that the words for decadent and decay are kissing cousins and have their root in something that has been buried away. This smells old, like opening an abandoned library.

Palate: the nose didn’t lie. Loads of cherry, chocolate, and buttercream drape over other flavors like charred, polished oak in the mid-palate, 3 Musketeers nougat, and cigar wrapper.

Finish: surprise… it’s cherry! This time like a syrup or reduction, a stab of rye spice, a touch of caramel, but then an assertive, but not overly tannic, leather wrapped oakiness that sharpens the focus as it fades away.

This whiskey never, ever felt like it was almost 118°. Incredibly balanced, poised, integrated, and purposeful. This is one of those whiskeys that evokes the poignant nature of our hobby. Sometimes you get to taste something truly extraordinary, but you know it’s a one and done sort of deal. So you absolutely wring every bit of experiential perception you can out of the moment. Ephemeral, but memorable.

Happy 1st Wednesday of May! I’m taking a page out of MWL’s playbook and steeply discounting some great whiskeys to make room for stuff heading our way over the next few weeks. Who knows, I might even have a couple of other gems hidden away.

I’ll be around until at least 7 tonight to pour and shoot the breeze.

Oh yeah, we still have about 1/2 of each bottle of JD 10,12, and 14 hanging on.

$40 for an ounce of all 3 plus check out this week’s 3 for $30 flight on our instagram

frontrow.or

On a recent visit to Heaven Hill, I treated myself to a couple of fine pours while having lunch at the Five Brothers restaurant after touring the Springs Distillery. They had a great list of pours, but how was I supposed to pass up an opportunity to check a bunch of things off my list? In addition to being a Kentucky only releases and nearly impossible to lay hands on, the 11^(th) Edition is a 13 year BiB from the soon to be decommissioned Deatsville Rickhouse. The 12th Edition spools it up to 19 years and Barrel Strength at 138.2°. Besides that, at $60 for an ounce and a half for each it was half the price of the lovely Heaven Hill 90^(th) Anniversary (it was surprising that they were asking what $120 a pour, essentially the MSRP of the bottle itself). I will list the details in parallel noting the whiskeys as WHH11 and WHH12.

WHH11:  13 Year, Bottled In Bond, 100°. 34 barrels, Deatsville Rickhouse, 4^(th) floor

WHH12: 19 Year, Barrel Proof, 138.2°, 30 barrels, Glencoe & Bardstown rickhouses

Appearance: WHH11: Light butterscotch, sparkling in the glen. WHH12: Deep mahogany, seemed to trap light like a singularity.

Nose: WHH11: Mexican hot chocolate, , caramel, rickhouse funk, toasted nuts, praline. WHH12: Spiced cider, flamed orange oil, bruleed brown sugar, honey roasted peanuts, pastries, polished oak.

Palate: WHH11: cocoa nib and roasted nuts, chocolate covered espresso beans, nut brittle, warming spices, syrupy on the tongue. WHH12: cream soda syrup, apple pie spices, Mars bar, restrained yet powerful oak. Surprisingly the BiB seemed to drink with more apparent proof than the Barrel Proof expression.

Finish: WHH11: sweet, mouth coating finish thick with leather and oak tannins. Seemed to last forever. The oak is edges towards astringency much more than its older compatriot. WHH12: barrel char, savory, bit of pie crust with burnt cherry syrup. With the length of the finish on this I could milk a pour of this all afternoon.

This was my first trip to Kentucky, and it did not disappoint. I was there to pick a Weller Full Proof barrel, but as a whiskey fan I was on a entirely different mission: tasting old dusty bourbon and Kentucky only pours. My visit to Heaven Hill scratched all my itches. These two bottles were literally phenomenal. The WHH11 was a lot punchier that the 100ׄ° would lead you to believe, but it carries so much intensity of flavor across the palate that it seemed to warp my taste-time continuum. The WHH12 was incredibly restrained for something nearing hazmat proof. I have been awash in great HH expressions over the past few months, but this was an entirely different level of exceptional bourbon making. I was also poured a dram of Heaven Hill Master Distiller’s Unity a blend of the last, 34 year old, barrel of bourbon distilled by Parker Beam at the old pre-fire Heaven Hills Distillery, and 14, 8 and 6 year bourbons from Parker, Denny Potter, and current Master Distiller Conor O’Driscoll. So, I also got to check off, sort of, Pre-Fire HH. That’s a tale for a different day tho.