Have you heard of Illinois bourbon? Well, many years ago, there was lots of whiskey being made in Illinois, particularly in Peoria. Canada's Hiram Walker company opened a distillery in Peoria in 1934 and made whiskey there until 1981, when they sold the distillery to Archer Daniels Midland which converted it into an ethanol distillery.
Walker made Ten High Bourbon at its Illinois plant. That brand is now made by the Sazerac owned Barton distillery. (Here's a review of Ten High from the pre-Sazerac Barton distillery). Ten High was, and continues to be a budget brand; they distillery also made Walker's Deluxe.
The liter bottle I'm sampling today was purchased for $15 at a lovely liquor store that looks like it popped right out of Mad Men, inventory and all (see picture above). The bottle has the number "82" on the bottom indicating the bottle was made in 1982, but curiously, the bottle has a tax stamp strip with no numbers which would indicate that it went to market after 1985, when tax stamps were phased out (probably from just after 1985 since they still used the strip). According to Chuck Cowdery, the company emptied the warehouses of stock after they stopped distilling, so I would guess that they either bottled a bunch of Ten High in 1982, right after the distillery closed, and released it gradually or bought bottles in 1982 and bottled it gradually until they ran out. Either way, this bourbon was likely distilled in the distillery's last years.
Hiram Walker's Ten High Bourbon, 4 years old, 40% abv.The nose is pretty middle of the road bourbon, some caramel sweetness, some spicy rye notes, not bad at all. The flavor is, well, missing. It's like water, bourbon flavored water. There is a slight caramel sweetness...and then nothing. The finish is like the smell of an old bourbon glass after you've finished and it's been sitting around for a while.
This isn't bad; there's nothing objectionable about it, but, to quote Gertrude Stein, "there is no there there." Forget Peoria, I'll take what plays in Frankfort or Bardstown.
7 comments:
Crazy timing on this post: just yesterday I stumbled upon 3 or 4 dusty fifths of Ten High at my local shop. I didn't pull the trigger because the bottles look absolutely disgusting, though I suppose the juice inside could still be non-lethal. I took a photo of the label and it says Bardstown, KY instead of Peoria, so I suppose these were bottled more recently than your sample. After reading your previous review of Ten High, I'll probably grab one.
Sounds kinda like the Ten High straight bourbon of today, if you ask me. Maybe they're just upholding the long and storied tradition of this brand!
I haven't had regular Ten High in a while, but when I tried it, I considered it not at all bad for a bottom shelfer. Sort of tastes like very watered down VOB.
We still get the TH straight bourbon here in PA, a control state that makes it difficult to switch brands in mid-stream, so to speak. I think most non-control states now have a non-bourbon version, Ten High whiskey.
Oh Lord, look at that store! Just look at it!
Late to the comments here but you nailed the description Sku. A store near me (that also will have a stray Japanese export for sale) put out a case of the '82 faux tax stamped bottles about a year ago. I tried one at $9.99 and it ended up in mingling experiments. The dusty Peoria distilled Walker's DeLuxe at 86 proof and 8 years, is a much better and interesting bourbon with some of that rummy flavor that shows up from that time.
Arggh, I just bought two bottles at $20 each... Dusties usually spark a wide range of opinions but this one seems to evoke unanimously bad ones. I guess I'll try one but I'm really regretting my spontaneous buying habits.
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