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Sagamore Spirit Rye
Continuing July 4th weekend rye tastings with Baltimore’s own, Sagamore Spirit Rye Whiskey. Sagamore is a relatively newer distillery that focuses its efforts on Rye, a hearty grain that the early Maryland settlers were able to grow in the subpar soil conditions as forests were cleared for farming during colonial times.
Russell’s Reserve Straight Rye Whiskey 6 Year Old
Kicking off July 4th weekend with some new rye reviews. Today we will be sipping a Russell’s Reserve Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey aged for 6 years. As the namesake brand of father/son master distiller duo, Jimmy and Eddie Russell from Wild Turkey, I am expecting great things from this release. Will it live up to the expectations?
Trader Joe’s Kentucky Bourbon
Private labeled Buffalo Trace or 1792 Bourbon? Or just another internet tinfoil hat theory? Today we sip the very affordable Trader Joe’s Kentucky Bourbon to see if what people are saying is too good to be true or not.
Penelope Architect Build No. 2
French Oak finished and/or aged whiskey seems to be my preferred picks, does Penelope Architect Build No. 2 meet the standard?
Weller Special Reserve
After quite a bit of a hiatus, Nice Sipper is back with a review of the much hyped (and price inflated) Weller Special Reserve. Is it worth all the fuss? If so, at what cost?
Old Forester 100 Proof Bourbon
Not only will we be talking about the Old Forester 100 proof today, but we also have a special Halloween video titled “The Sipper: The Death of Value Bourbon” that was a lot of fun to make, so we hope you enjoy it!
Buffalo Trace Bourbon
Buffalo Trace Bourbon is a staple bourbon for many people. It used to be readily available at nearly every liquor store that sold any other bourbon besides Jim and Jack, but then demand spiked ahead of the supply build up and this little gem got put allocation. Let’s see if this old faithful holds up.
Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel
Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel is a limited release which puts the base Elijah Craig Small Batch bourbon into a second barrel for additional aging, except this one is a toasted barrel instead of the Level 3 char used for the Small Batch. A lot of distilleries have a Toasted Oak release these days, but are they worth the extra money?
Thomas S. Moore Bourbon Finished in Cabernet Sauvignon Casks
We will be tasting another release from Thomas S. Moore, this time the Cabernet Sauvignon finish. These bourbons were first aged for 5-6 years in the traditional American Oak casks and then underwent an “extended cask finish” for up to 4 additional years, making the unofficial age statement in the 9-10 range (plus or minus). I liked the Chardonnay Cask Finish, but thought it was a little overpriced, let’s see how the big bold Napa Cab interacted with the core 1792 bourbon.
The Balvenie 16 Year French Oak Finished in Pineau Casks
For this next Exclusive Content Review, we will visit The Balvenie’s most recent release, the French Oak 16 Finished in Pineau Casks. In addition to sampling the new single malt scotch, we will also sip on some of the fortified wine that The Balvenie chose to finish its whisky in as well as sipping on The Balvenie’s 15 Year Sherry Cask Single Barrel and the DoubleWood 17 in an attempt to figure out how this new cask finishing influenced the core product. Buckle up….
Maker’s Mark Private Selection
Next up is Maker’s Mark Private Selection by @TheWhiskyGuys of Gordon’s Wine. The private selection program at Maker’s allows you to pick a combination of 10 staves from 5 different stave groups. This creates 1,001 possible combinations of staves….click to read more about this alchemy….
Sam Houston 15 Year Bourbon (Release 7: Batch MA-2)
Our second Exclusive Content review will finish up our two-part series comparing aged bourbons. For this review, we’ll be sipping Sam Houston 15 Year old from Release 7 Batch MA-2. After seeing iterations of this bottle on the shelves for a while, I decided to break down and take the plunge. Let’s see how it tastes….
Knob Creek 9 Year
Knob Creek 9 is, what I would refer to, the higher end entry level bottle for the Jim Beam Small Batch Collection. At 100 proof, it’s a also affordable. But does it taste good? Let’s find out….
Remus Repeal Reserve V
Our first Exclusive Content review will the the first part of a two-part series comparing aged bourbons. The second part to come later this week will review Sam Houston 15 Year.
Woodford Reserve Bourbon
Our next review stars an up-and-coming young talent, Joey the Horse. Joey and I hung out the other week and decided to crack open a bottle of Woodford Reserve Bourbon. He had read that this was the preferred bourbon of the Kentucky Derby and while he never had what it takes to make it to The Run for the Roses, a horse can have its dreams….
Bulleit Bourbon “Frontier Whiskey”
Today’s post is a trip down memory lane for me. Bulleit Bourbon is, largely, my bourbon origin-story, to put it in comic book parlance. Prior to this, I hadn’t purchased a bottle of Bulleit in a long time, but it was about time that I did a review on this staple release.
Larceny Barrel Proof Batch A122
Today’s post is for a bourbon made with wheat as its flavor grain, colloquially referred to as a “wheater”, Heaven Hill’s Larceny Barrel Proof Batch A122. While bourbons with rye are by far the historical “norm”, the wheaters came into fashion when everyone began losing their minds about Pappy…and every major distillery who has a wheated bourbon in their lineup seems to go out of their way to tie the root of their release to Pappy itself. Who knew there were so many Junior Pappy’s out in the market? Sigh….but let’s see how Larceny does with this release…..
Henry McKenna Bottled in Bond Bourbon Aged 10 Years
We are going to the back of the whiskey shelf again to review a bottle that I have had and sadly neglected for far too long…Henry McKenna Bottled in Bond 10 Year Old Bourbon….
1792 Aged 12 Years
We have taken a sip of the 1792 Small Batch and Single Barrel releases so far, but we got our hands on a bottle of the 12 Year old, let’s see how this “premium” release matches up with the more affordable staples….
Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon
Bourbon shot to punish your friends while you were in your early 20’s? Or a great value bourbon sipper to enjoy in adulthood?