Distilled Beer: White Christmas and Whipnose Whiskey

Since I'm such a big fan of Charbay, the hopped whiskey distilled from bottle ready beer, I thought I'd sample a few more distilled beers.

Anchor White Christmas, 45% abv ($30)

Anchor is, of course, a brewery and a distillery, so it would make sense for them to distill some beer.  This release for the 2013 holiday season was a distillation of their Christmas Ale.  It's not labeled as a whiskey, likely meaning that it was never stored in oak, just distilled and bottled.  It was initially released at $60, but K&L has it marked down to $30 (like any holiday gift that didn't sell).

The nose is very new makey with a touch of hops. The palate has mild new make notes with just a touch of hops.  The finish has peppermint and beer. This has some nice flavors but the pure new make qualities dominate the beer notes.  I'd pass on this one.



Whipnose Whiskey, Seven Stills Distillery, 47% abv. ($36 for a 375 ml bottle)

Whipnose Whiskey, from Seven Stills Distillery in San Francisco is a distillation of Pacific Brewing Laboratory's Whipnose IPA.  Seven Stills distilled the beer without adding anything to it.  The beer includes five malts (2-Row barley, Crystal 15, Rye Malt, Aromatic Malt (Amber 50) and Belgian Cara-Pils), four types of hops (Simcoe, Centenial, Cascade, Chinook) and maple sugar. Seven Stills then ages it for six months in 5 gallon new charred oak barrels.

The nose is full of beer; spicy and hoppy. It's very similar to Charbay's R5.  The palate is also beer heavy with a discernible hops; it even has a prickly mouthfeel as if it were slightly carbonated.  It definitely has a young taste to it, a bit raw and new makey, again not unlike Charbay's R5 and S whiskeys, but the strong hoppy taste mitigates some of that youth. The finish is exactly what you would expect after a good IPA, slightly bitter and a bit hoppy.

I'm not sure I've ever had a whiskey that tastes this much like beer.  If you're a fan of IPAs or of the Charbay whiskeys, I'd definitely recommend it.  It's got some rough edges, but it's bursting with flavor.

I really like the flavor of distilled beer.  I'm hoping we will see more an more of these on the market.

Dusty Thursday: Four Roses - The Bad Old Days

Given the love heaped on Four Roses these days, it's easy to forget that it's only been a big name in quality bourbon for about a decade, at least in the U.S.  Prior to 2002, it was owned by the now defunct Seagram's Company.  It had been popular in the post-prohibition years, but around the 1960s, Seagram's decided that it would concentrate on the export market.  The only thing Four Roses made for the US was crappy blends.  All of that changed in 2002, when Kirin, the Japanese beer company, purchased the distillery and let the roses bloom.

Today, I'm going back to the bad old days and tasting a circa 1978 Four Roses Light Whiskey.  Light whiskey is a whiskey distilled to more than 160 proof, a higher distillation proof than is permitted for most American whiskey, such as bourbon or rye, for which 160 proof is the maximum.  Light whiskey can only be stored in used or new uncharred oak.  This is a blended light whiskey, which means it is mixed with straight whiskey, but the straight whiskey must be less than 20% of the total composition.  Light whiskey lies somewhere between bourbon and vodka on the spirits spectrum, though unlike regular "blended whiskey," it does not contain any neutral spirits (which are spirits that must be distilled at above 190 proof).


Four Roses Light Whiskey, A Blend, 43% abv

The nose has an ever so slight vanilla note.  The palate is...awful.  It tastes mostly of alcohol.  It's like a lightly sweetened vodka, with honey and maybe a touch of wood.  There is not much whiskey character at all.  This stuff really has no redeeming value.

Whenever you hear someone (like, say, me) mourning the old days when bourbon had a special taste that you can't find anymore and things were cheap and plentiful, remind them (or me) that not everything was better back then.  Exhibit A is Four Roses, a whiskey that went from terrible to amazing in a few short years.


Thanks to Matt P. for the picture and sample.

The Bourbon Fountain of Youth: Dropped Age Statements

American distilleries must have found a fountain of youth somewhere because their bourbons keep getting younger.  After writing about the disappearing age statements of Old Charter and Very Old Barton last week, I thought I would make a list of all of the American whiskeys that have recently (in the last 10 years or so) lost their age statements, so I compiled a list with the help of some very knowledgeable friends.  Unless otherwise noted, all of these whiskeys went from the age listed to having no age statement (meaning, according to the regulations, that they are at least four years old).  I didn't include expressions that disappeared altogether, such as Weller Centennial.

1792 Ridgemont Reserve 8 yo
Basil Haden 8 yo
Benchmark 8 yo (now 3 years old)
Evan Williams Black 7 yo
Evan Williams 1783 10 yo
Jefferson's Reserve 15 yo
Johnny Drum Green 8 yo
Johnny Drum Black 12 yo
Johnny Drum Private Stock 15 yo
Kentucky Vintage 8 yo
Noah's Mill 15 yo
Old Bardstown 10 yo
Old Charter 8 yo
Old Fitzgerald 1849 8 yo
Old Overholt 4 yo (now 3 years old)
Old Weller Antique 7 yo
Pure Kentucky XO 10 yo
Rowan's Creek 12 yo
Sam Houston 10 yo
Very Old Barton 6 yo
Weller Special Reserve 7 yo

Did I miss any?  Have any other whiskeys been to the fountain of youth?

Hoppin' Good Whiskey: Charbay

A friend recently asked me if there was a fire or other natural disaster in my whiskey closet such that I could only rescue one whiskey, what would it be?  Given that I live in an area prone to earthquakes, this is something I do occasionally ponder, and the answer is a a no-brainer: I would save my Charbay hopped whiskey.  My interrogator was somewhat taken aback, but as I explained, it's a unique and wonderful whiskey.  It would be a tragedy to lose my peated and sherried malts, my bold ryes and complex bourbons, but the truth is, somewhere out there, there is a replacement for each of those categories.  They may not exactly be fungible, but I know where to find great peated malt or great bourbon (hopefully with the help of a hefty insurance check).  But there is no substitute for Charbay.  There's nothing else I've had that tastes like this stuff, and it tastes really, really good.


The Pilsner

Charbay is a small distillery in Napa County, the heart of the California wine country.  When I refer to Charbay Whiskey in this context, what I'm really referring to is their series of whiskeys distilled from pilsner.  Back in 1999, distiller Marko Karakasevic distilled a batch of pilsner from the now defunct Sonoma Mountain Brewery, owned by the wine making Benzinger family.  While all whiskey is made from beer, it's not generally beer you would want to drink.  What Charbay did was use a finished beer, hops and all, as the basis for the whiskey. Some additional hops is added as well so technically, this is a flavored whiskey, but it's no Red Stag. The whiskey was aged in 22 new, charred Missouri White Oak barrels at a #3 char.

Charbay's first pilsner release was a cask strength bottling at two years old; they released two barrels which totaled 840 bottles.  This was the one that created a cult following for Charbay with people hunting down the bottles anywhere they could find them, even with the $350 sticker price.  The hops gave it a bold, funky, marijuana like flavor (hops and cannabis are related). And despite its youth, it had none of the new make or raw wood notes that are so often the hallmarks of young craft whiskeys.

After six years, Karakasevic transferred all but two barrels to stainless steel tanks.  A second release of five barrels, Charbay II, came out of the tank in 2007.  It had good flavor, but at 55%, the lower abv made it less bold than the first edition.  Last fall, the distillery issued Charbay Release III, another ten barrels of the same six year old, which had now been in steel tanks for eight years.  This one was released at cask strength and is reviewed below.

There is still some of that 1999 pilsner distillate aging away both in and out of wood.  A 13 year old version, Charbay IV, is set for general release this year, and there is one more cask which will hit 15 this year. Karakasevic doesn't know if he'll release it or just drink it with friends.  Let's hope he decides to share. Having tasted a 12 year old private bottling for the LA Whiskey Society which stands as one of my favorite whiskeys ever, I'm very excited about the possibility of more aged Charbay pilsners on the market.

The Charbay hopped whiskeys are eye-raisingly expensive.  Releases I and II went for around $350.  The new Release III hovers around $400, if you can find it.  That this is hyper-expensive goes without saying, but I've yet to find something that can match it at any price.


The Bear Republic Whiskeys 

In the last few years, Charbay has released a new series of hopped whiskeys made from beer distilled by Bear Republic Distillery in Sonoma County.  These include Charbay R5, made from the popular Racer 5 IPA and Charbay S made from Big Bear Black Stout.

There have been three releases of the R5 from two runs, an unaged version, a 22 month old version distilled in 2010 (Lot 610) and a new, 30 month old expression distilled in 2011 (Lot 611). (Charbay Lot number indicate the month and year of distillation so 611 = June 2011).

All of the stout that has been released was distilled in 2011 (Lot 211) but there have been three releases. The first was a bottling for D&M in San Francisco at around 20 months (reviewed below), the second was a bottling for Astor Wines and Ward III in New York also at 20 months, and the third was a general release at 30 months.

Both the R5 and S whiskeys were aged in used French oak barrels that previously held Chardonnay. As with the pilsner releases, Karakasevic expects to release the Bear Republic whiskeys again at 6 and 12 years of age.  Unlike the pilsners, the Bear Republic whiskeys have so far gone for under $100.

Today, I review the new pilsner release along with two of the more affordable Bear Republic whiskeys.


Charbay Whiskey Release III (pilsner) 66.2% abv ($400)

The nose has all of that hops and spice that I'm used to from these Charbay releases along with a perfume like quality.  The palate is sweet and hoppy with a thick mouthfeel.  You get the funky, hoppy character but with less of the marijuana note than I've tasted in some of the other releases.  The finish is hoppy and spicy and lasts pretty much forever.  This release is sweeter than any of the other Charbay pilsners I've had.  It's great, funky stuff, and I like it better than the original Release II, possibly because it's at a higher strength, but I still think it's hard to beat the boldness of the very first release.

This is another really fantastic expression of the pilsner.  Unfortunately, it's very expensive and a very limited release.  I have yet to see it on the shelf.


Charbay R5, Lot 610A, 49.5% abv ($70)

The nose is huge and hoppy, though of a quite different character than the pilsner hops.  There's almost a dry champagne note to it.  The palate is sweet and spicy with more of those wine notes which remind me of a spicy white, like a Gewurztraminer.  The hops comes out in finish where it mixes with honey and cinnamon. 

R5 has a very different character from the pilsners.  It's hoppy, but the hops is less bold, contributing more to a general spiciness.  It's still got some of youthful, new make notes, but it's tasty just the same, and it does give a sense of the Charbay style.


Charbay S, Lot S211A (for D&M), 49.5% abv ($70)

This is the D&M bottling, so it's a bit younger than the general release of Charbay S. The nose is hoppy and very beer like, like nosing a stout with lots of rich malt character.  The palate is lighter than I would have expected, with hops and spice.  The spice on the stout is more akin to baking spices like clove and ginger, similar to some of the notes in a rye whiskey.  Toward the end of the palate it has sweet vanilla notes which trail off in to the finish.


The R5 and S are quite similar with the stout being a bit sweeter and a bit more balanced overall.  They both have some young whiskey notes and are clearly still developing; it will be interesting to see where they go with more aging.


Since Charbay's first release of hopped whiskey, a few other American distilleries have tried it as well.  Just last month, Anchor released a distilled batch of their Christmas Ale, though it was unaged and not labeled as whiskey.  I'd love to see more hopped whiskey on the market, but for now, I'll be clutching my Charbays when the big one hits.

Disclaimer:  The Charbay III reviewed above was a sample from a bottle that Charbay sent to the LA Whiskey Society.  The R5 and S were purchased at retail.

Bourbon Law: Bourbon + Rye = What?

News came out recently that Wild Turkey is planning to release a blend of bourbon and rye.  In the ensuing discussion on one of the forums, this question came up:  If you add rye to bourbon, but the final mashbill is still at least 51% corn, can you call it bourbon?

The answer is no.  Under the federal regulations, the definition of bourbon includes the mashbill of at least 51% corn, the new, charred oak barrels, etc.  It also states that the definition includes "mixtures of such whiskies of the same type."  27 CFR § 5.22(b)(1)(i).  Rye is not the "same type" of whiskey as bourbon, so once you add rye whiskey, it's no longer bourbon.

So what is it?

Well, if both whiskeys are straight, it's a "blend of straight whiskeys."  27 CFR § 5.22(b)(5)(i).  If both whiskeys are not straight, there is no real category that covers it, other than the generic "whiskey."

Of course, the company could also describe the whiskey composition in the title, such as "Joe's Whiskey, a blend of bourbon and rye."  This is what High West did with Campfire, another undefined category of whiskey.  The heading on the label simply says "High West Whiskey" but there is a subheading that explains that the whiskey contains straight rye, straight bourbon and Scotch.  This makes sense, since it informs the consumer of what is actually in the bottle, and that, after all, is the intent of all of these labeling regulations.

Dusty Thursday: The Real Michter's Original Sour Mash Whiskey

Yesterday, I sampled the new Michter's Original Sour Mash Whiskey.  That one is a Kentucky whiskey from an undisclosed distillery (or distilleries), but long ago, when Michter's was a real distillery, the sour mash whiskey was made in Pennsylvania from a mashbill of 50% bourbon, 38% rye and  12% malted barley and aged in a mixture of new and used barrels.  I was lucky enough to have a generous friend who shared a sample of a miniature bottle of the real stuff with me (pictured, right); I know he likes some char on his bourbon, let's see what it's like.

Michter's Original Sour Mash Whiskey, 43% abv.

The nose is a bit soapy with some of the sandalwood notes that I often get on old Pennsylvania ryes.  The palate too is soapy with a lot of sandalwood.  Spicy notes dominate the finish.  This is much more similar to the old Pennsylvania ryes than it is to any bourbon I've had.  I generally like the sandalwood notes in those old ryes, but the soapy notes in this clashed with them.

This is absolutely nothing like the contemporary version I reviewed yesterday.  Whereas that one tastes pretty much like any current bourbon, the original Michter's tastes nothing like a modern bourbon.  Of course, the original Michter's was not only made in Pennsylvania, it was made in a pot still, which imparts a very different flavor to a whiskey.  The new Michter's was almost certainly made on a continuous still, which probably accounts for some of the differences between the two.  (UPDATE: Sam K. points out in the comments that the pot still was the doubler and the whiskey went through a typical continuous still first).  In addition, soapiness is a characteristic that I have found in a number of dusties, and it can be a result of poor storage or handling over the years, and the small quantity involved in a miniature bottle makes it even more susceptible to the ravages of time.  All this is to say that the current state of this whiskey might not reflect what it tasted like in its prime, but that's always a risk with dusties.

Despite its flaws, I'm intrigued by this old Michter's, particularly the Pennsylvania rye notes.  I'll have to see if I can track down some more of this stuff.

Michter's Original Sour Mash Whiskey

Long ago, Michter's was a distillery near Schafferstown, in Southeastern Pennsylvania.  The distillery shut down in 1989, but as with many American distilleries, the name lived on.  After the original name was abandoned, it was registered by Chatham Imports which used it as a label on sourced whiskey that it had bottled at Kentucky Bourbon Distillers.

The original Michter's is most known today as the source of the A.H. Hirsch bourbon, a series of private bottlings of bourbon distilled in 1974 (For more detail, see Chuck Cowdery's book The Best Bourbon You'll Never Taste).

But A.H. Hirsch was a one-off; Michter's had its own brands, the most known of which was their Original Sour Mash Whiskey.  According to Whiskey Advocate's resident Michter's expert Sam Komlenic, the Original Sour Mash mashbill was 50% corn, 38% rye and 12% malted barley, and it was aged in a combination of new and used cooperage. It couldn't be called bourbon both because it had less than the required 51% corn and because some of it was aged in used barrels.

When Chatham took over the label, they put out bourbon, rye and an "American whiskey" but they didn't use the Original Sour Mash label, until now.  Last December, Chatham released an Original Sour Mash.  They don't give much of a description of it so there's no telling if anything about it is similar to the original version, except they say it is aged in new charred oak and it appears to be distilled in Kentucky, two things that were not true of the original Michter's brand.  Of course, the use of the term "sour mash" tells us nothing since sour mash is the process used by nearly all American whiskeys to keep a consistent environment for their yeast from batch to batch.  But let's see how it tastes.



Michter's Original Sour Mash, 43% abv, Batch 12 LID ($45)

The nose has candy corn and wood.  The palate starts with lots of sweet corn and some grassy notes.  Then wood and spice kick in.  The spice takes over and gets peppery into the finish, then turns to corn flakes.  It certainly tastes like bourbon. The prominence of corn reminds me of one of the Beam Small Batch bourbons, but the way the spice mixes in is more akin to Elijah Craig or another Heaven Hill product. 

The new Michter's isn't bad at all, but there's nothing in it that is at all compelling.  It's a decent whiskey which I would be able to recommend if it were about half the asking price.

How does this new label compare to the original Pennsylvania Michter's Original Sour Mash?  There's only one way to find out.  Tune in tomorrow for Dusty Thursday.

The State of Craft Whiskey

Given the recently reported division among craft spirits trade groups, I thought it would be a good time to review the state of craft whiskey based on the information I've culled in my Complete List of American Whiskey Distilleries.

As of 2013, I count a remarkable 190 craft distilleries that are making whiskey (though not all are on the market yet).  A year ago, the count was 117.

Washington leads the pack with 25 craft whiskey distillers, but four other states have more than 10: California (16), New York (14), Colorado (13) and Oregon (11).

Clearly, the craft movement continues to grow at an impressive rate. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

Uncovering Sourced Whiskey: Produced, Made, Bottled or Distilled?

One of my pet peeves is companies that bottle whiskey they bought from elsewhere and pretend they made it themselves.  There is a TTB regulation that requires whiskey to include the state of distillation on the bottle.  That used to be a good way to tell if something was sourced.  Even if an Idaho company was bottling the whiskey, it would have to say that it was distilled in Kentucky or Indiana.  Unfortunately, as I pointed out last fall, the TTB does not seem to be enforcing that rule.  So now, how can we tell if a whiskey is sourced?

One of the key things to look at is the wording on the label. Under the TTB regulations, only someone who distilled the whiskey can use the term "distilled by" to identify the source of the whiskey.  The terms "made by" or "produced by" mean that the whiskey was made by a rectifier (i.e., someone who did not distill it).  The problem is that instead of using any of these terms, the term "bottled by" can be used by distillers or rectifiers.

To summarize, if you see the term "distilled by" on the label, you know that the company actually distilled the whiskey, and if you see "produced by" or "made by", you know they did not.  If you only see "bottled by," it could go either way.  Even so, my new rule of thumb is that if the label doesn't say "distilled by", it's sourced.

So look for the D word on that new brand of whiskey.  If you don't see it, chances are they didn't make it.