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Friday, August 22, 2014
New Whiskey Labels: Compass Box, Jim Beam Bonded and More
This week's most interesting new labels from the federal TTB database:
Benromach cleared a label for a five year old whisky.
Springbank cleared a US label for a single cask bottling of the new 21 year old which was released in the UK earlier this year. It was distilled in 1993 and aged in a rum cask.
Cutty Sark cleared a label for a 33 year old listed as a limited edition of 3,456 bottles.
Compass Box issues a label for The Lost Blend, a blended malt intended to resemble their old Eleuthera blend. It's comprised of malts from Clynelish, Caol Ila and Allt-a-Bhainne.
Jim Beam cleared a label for Jim Beam Bonded, a bottled in bond bourbon that has been available in Australia but not in the US.
In the annoying age statements department, I've long been perturbed at the proliferation of "less than __ year old" age statements on American whiskeys, but here's a new one. South Carolina bottler Terressentia cleared a label for O.Z. Tyler Small Batch Reserve (Wow! Small batch and reserve) Bourbon and Rye in which the front label says "aged less than two years" while the back label says, in much smaller print, "aged at least 6 mo."
Note: The fact that a label appears on the TTB database does not necessarily mean it will be produced. In addition, some details on the label, such as proof, can change in the final product.
Hmm, Beam already makes Old Bourbon Hollow and Old Tub, or at least they did a couple of years ago. I wonder if there's some difference in flavor profile, or if they're just re-branding these.
ReplyDeleteedit: yes, Beam makes a lot of bourbons. The reason I brought up those two is that they're both BiB.
ReplyDeleteOne you didn't note that I found to be a curiosity is the new Corsair Buck Yeah buckwheat "whiskey". it is curious because buckwheat is not a grain and so presumably this can not be a whiskey. Buckwheat is sometimes called a pseudograin or pseudocereal but in fact what is typically used is the seed. Another in the long line of TTB failures?
ReplyDeleteThe proposed label also notes that to their knowledge this is the first whiskey made with buckwheat. Pretty sure they are off the mark again and that Distillerie Des Menhirs, maker of Eddu whisky from France, would take exception to such a claim!
On second look that didn't quite make sense as the grain of grasses are in fact seeds as well. But buckwheat produces its seed in a small fruit making it distinct from typical grain.
ReplyDeletePerhaps that is why you didn't include it since it is not a whiskey!
tanstaafl2, yes I saw that one as well as an oat whiskey. You are correct that buckwheat is not a grain, and there have been other buckwheat whiskeys; Pinchgut Hollow in West Virginia has an aged buckwheat spirit but they don't call it whiskey. It's probably an oversight, but given that the whiskey also includes malt, maybe they argued that the buckwheat was a harmless additive, which is permitted in non-straight whiskeys. My guess would be the former though.
ReplyDeleteI don't include every new whiskey label in the Friday post (sometimes there are more than 40 per week), just the ones that I find interesting. Corsair comes out with new stuff all the time so I don't find it that noteworthy.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you're interested, I previously wrote about the issue of what is a grain.
Nice job, Benromach: An age statement on a five-year-old.
ReplyDelete-Ol' Jas
"Small batch and reserve" isn't that much of an innovation any more: I have bottles from Knob Creek single barrel reserve [KSBW] small batch and Russell's Reserve small batch single barrel [KSBW].
ReplyDeleteAnd Catskill Distilling makes Otay Buckwheat Spirit. I haven't had it, but I love the name. It's one of those too rare examples of distillers having fun their marketing. Seems you see it all the time with beer -- Flying Dog's Raging Bitch IPA, Avery's Maharaja Double IPA -- but so rarely in the spirits world. (Corsair's Rasputin, a distilled Russian Imperial Stout, is another one.)
ReplyDeletetanstaafl2, this is Darek Bell, one of the founders of Corsair. I had never heard of Distillerie Des Menhirs before now. I will change the back of our label as clearly they are older than us. Thanks for the catch.
ReplyDelete