Bourbon Stories

We all love great whiskey, but I've always said that the whiskey you really remember is going to be the one you enjoyed with friends or on an especially important occasion - the birth of a child, the time you toured a distillery with your best friends or your future spouse. But good whiskey can also be memorable when it served as a comfort in hard times.

In response to one of my posting on Very Old Fitzgerald, Bill Cowern sent me the following story of his memories of drinking some Very Old Fitz:

In 1967-1968, I was a marine helicopter pilot in northern I corp. South Vietnam. I was fortunate enough to get a R&R to Hawaii in February of 68, to meet up with my wife. On the flight back to Vietnam, we stopped to refuel in Guam and I bought a bottle of Very Very Old Fitzgerald for $15 or $20 in the duty free shop there on base. I had always remembered it as being labeled 25 years old but it could be that 50 years has dulled that memory. Regardless when I returned to the base I was assigned to, in Dong Ha, I opened the bottle when we were under mortar attack one night and could not believe what a smooth soothing whiskey it was. Like nothing I had ever tried before, or since. We had slit trenches under our wooden hooches and trap doors in the floors to allow us to be below ground during attacks. It became a routine for four of us that we would have a half jigger of the bourbon whenever we were under attack. After a while we used to joke about how we wished they would attack. The bottle lasted about one month, but I, obviously, have never forgotten it. Thank you for resurrecting the memories.  

Thanks to Bill for sharing his story, certainly one of the best bourbon stories I've had the pleasure of hearing.

Happy New Year to all and here's to having great (but maybe less dangerous) bourbon stories in the future!

Behold His Majesty John E. Fitzgerald Very Special Reserve

"Stunning." "Amazing." "Mind blowingly awesome!" These are just a few of the comments in my notes reviewing the box that contains Heaven Hill's new John E. Fitzgerald Very Special Reserve Bourbon. It's a huge cube of polished wood with a giant keyhole on either side; the wood's beautiful reddish hue is reminiscent of the color of the bourbon. The box opens outward to reveal the tiny rectangular bottle sitting on a pedestal over an engraved plaque. As you open it, a trumpet fanfare plays in your head. It's as if you had just opened the Lost Ark or the final horcrux. The bottle itself is thick glass with a heavy, metal stopper that feels like it could kill a rhino. It almost makes you forget how much they charged for this half bottle.

So what is the whiskey inside this lovely tomb?  Does it matter? Will anyone drink it? Well, it's none other than 20 year old Stitzel-Weller. According to Heaven Hill, this wheated bourbon was distilled in 1992, Stitzel-Weller's last year of production, and moved to steel tanks in 2013. It's bottled at 90 proof in a 375 ml bottle for a suggested retail price of $300.

The nose is fantastic, super oaky and dry like some of the best old Stitzel-Wellers.  Unfortunately, the palate doesn't follow suit. It's fruity and sweet with some cocoa, but it's lacking the strong oak notes and complexity of the nose. The flavors are diluted with a watery mouthfeel.  The finish is very light and a bit fruity. It's too bad that it didn't live up to the promise of the nose.

So this a good, not great bourbon. But kudos to Heaven Hill for finally producing a bourbon that people can be honest about when they declare, on illegal bourbon selling sites, that "the value of the item is in the collectible container, not its contents."

Thanks to the great Chris Stevenson for being one of the few people on the planet willing to say, "Hey I just got a Fitz 20, let's drink it."

Very Very Good: A Very Very Old Fitzgerald Tasting for the Record Books

I've been a member of the LA Whiskey Society for around four years, and I have constantly been amazed at the selection at their meetings, which seems to get better and better.  My theory is that those guys have a time machine they use exclusively to go back in time and buy whiskey (hey, that's what I'd do with it). 

Of course I was excited when I heard a few months ago that LAWS was planning a tasting of Stitzel-Weller bourbons, wheated bourbons from the now shuttered distillery that was founded and operated by Pappy Van Winkle. Even though I knew they were planning such a tasting and I always expect great things from LAWS meetings, when I clicked open the email invitation, I did a double take.  Lying before me was pretty much the dream bourbon tasting of every bourbon enthusiast in the world, ever.  It was beyond ridiculous.  Seven different Very Old (and Very Very Old and Very Extra Old) Fitzgeralds, ranging from 8 to 18 years old, most distilled in the 1950s, including three 12 year olds from three different eras in the distillery's history.  Most bourbon fans would consider themselves lucky to taste just one of these Stitzel-Weller gems, and here was a whole set of them staring me in the face.

Going to this type of tasting fills me with a mix of joy and apprehension.  There's always the chance that these bourbons won't meet the ultra-high expectations.  There have been many times when I have gotten my hands on a treasured whiskey and found it to be just good but not as exceptional as I'd hoped.  You just never know.

In this case, I'm happy to report that not only was the quality of these bourbons amazing, but the full tasting allowed us to see the evolution of the whiskey and also made us wonder why they were so different from today's bourbons.

The first tasted and the youngest of the night was the 8 year old distilled in 1958.  What was fascinating was that it had a flavor profile that you simply don't find in today's bourbons.  It came on dry and spicy, with some brandy notes and a mouthfeel that was at once chewy and creamy.  Overall, it was subtle, not blaring spice, sugar or oak but an understated melange of notes that came together well.  What happened to lovely, understated bourbons like this and why don't we have them anymore?

The ten year old, distilled in 1967, maintained the balance of the 8, but with everything pumped up a bit more.  There was stronger sweetness, in a maple syrup vein, tannic red wine and more oak.  As with the 8 year old, there were lots of notes reminiscent of brandy and Armagnac in particular.


Then came the flight of 12 year olds.  One from each era of the distillery.  The oldest was distilled in 1952 and bottled in 1964, entirely within the era when Pappy Van Winkle was running the distillery.  The second was distilled by Pappy in 1956 but bottled after his death in 1968 and the third was from the 1980s, possibly distilled while the Van Winkle family was still running things, but bottled after the distillery had been sold and the name had been changed to the Old Fitzgerald Distillery. 

These were three very different bourbons.  The 1980s release was my least favorite. It was sweet and light and comparable to many good but not great bourbons around today.  The subtle complexity of the earlier bourbons had somehow been transformed into a very light, sweet bourbon that was good but without any of those interesting notes found in its forebearers.

The 1956/1968 12 year old was nearly flawless.  The complexity was back along with the brandy notes and some coffee notes (a note which I detected in a number of the older Fitzgeralds) and a spicy finish.  This bourbon had a richness that wasn't as developed in the younger versions. 

And then there was the 1952/1964.  My notes read like a free association of bourbon flavors:  "pine, oak, citrus, spice, candy, maple syrup, brandy, wood pulp" and on and on.  I don't know that words can do justice to this bourbon.  While the 1956 12 year old was a textbook great bourbon and many would probably favor it, the 1952 was great for reasons beyond the individual notes.  There was a gestalt to it, in which all of the various notes came together into perfect balance, making it taste totally original and mind-blowing.  It might just be the best bourbon I've ever tasted.

We moved on to the two rarest bourbons in the line up, the 15 year old and the 18 year old.  These are hard to find any information about, even a Google images picture is tough to track down (though we will certainly fix that).  The 15 year old (1957/1972) was another fantastic bourbon but much more familiar.  At this age, the wood started to play a greater role, creating the balance of candy and wood (I call it the "enchanted candy forest") that I identify with the more recently bottled Stitzel-Weller bourbons.  In fact, this tasted just like Pappy 15.  To confirm this thought, I pulled an older bottle of Pappy 15 off the LAWS bar (such is the state of the LAWS bar that a half full bottle of Pappy 15 has languished on it for the past five years) to compare.  They were nearly indistinguishable.  It was amazing to me that the 15 year old Stitzel-Weller had maintained its profile so well (and that the Van Winkle family had succeeded in replicating it so well in the Pappy bottling).

The last bottle was the 18 year old, distilled in 1951 and bottled in 1969.  This is probably the only bottle for me (other than the 1980s VOF) that was a let down.  After 18 years in the barrel, there was a bitterness and an overoaked quality that dominated the palate and finish.  It wasn't bad by any means, and in any other group of bourbons, it probably would have done well, but it suffered compared to those that came before.  I couldn't help but feel that they had left this one in the barrel for too long.

And so it was, almost undoubtedly the greatest bourbon tasting I'll ever have the pleasure to attend.   While I've always been skeptical of Stitzel-Weller hype, this confirmed for me that there really was something special going on at that distillery all those years ago.  Sadly, it's something that is almost entirely lost to history, but I'm glad to have had the experience of a night with the real Pappy Van Winkle.

Thanks to the FussyChicken for the photos.

UPDATE: Check out the official LAWS write up (and from there you can follow links to member notes for each bottle) from the Very Very Old Fitzgerald tasting.

 

Adventures in Dusties: Old Fitzgerald

I do a lot of hunting for dusty bottles and have become pretty good at dating old bottles from the past thirty or forty years based on clues like tax stamps and other label issues.  My pal Adam from the LA Whiskey Society, though, is in a totally different dusty hunting league.  He specializes in identifying and dating bottles from seventy to more than one hundred years ago and has a deep knowledge of early twentieth century bottle manufacturing, including the companies that made bottles, their trademarks and the processes used to make the bottles.

Adam has posted an engaging story on the LA Whiskey Society site in which he finds a bottle labeled Old Fitzgerald 1859.  He tells the story of how he evaluated the bottle and what he determined that it most likely contained.  It's a great post, sort of a bourbon mystery, that he titles Adventures in Whiskey:  The Case of the Strange Fitzgerald.  (It's listed as episode one, so I can only hope there will be future installments about other interesting bottles).

Dusty Thursday: Very Old Fitzgerald

For the next few weeks, I'll be spending my Dusty Thursdays on a series of mid-century bourbons I tasted as part of a phenomenal tasting at the LA Whiskey Society. The Society manages to hunt down some amazing bottles, and I'm lucky to be able to partake.

We will start with one that is one of the holy grails of dusty bourbon: Very Old Fitzgerald distilled at Stitzel-Weller. One good thing about bottled in bond whiskies is that they take much of the guess work out of dusty hunting. They are required to list the distillery that produced the bourbon and the older bonded whiskeys listed the date of distillation and bottling right on the tax stamp. This particular example of the renowned wheated bourbon is an eight year old that was distilled in 1948 and bottled in 1956. According to the label, this bottle was made expressly for Howard Cook. Whoever he is, I raise a glass to him.


Very Old Fitzgerald, 8 years old, distilled 1948/bottled 1956, 100 proof.

This has a beautiful nose with big candy notes including candied orange peel. The palate opens with a sweet dessert wine note, moves on to orange flavored baby aspirin (you'll remember those if you're over 40) and some floral notes. The finish is fleeting but slightly spicy with more of those orange notes.

This is a very unique bourbon and very different from other Stitizel-Wellers I've had. Those dessert wine and the floral notes separate it from other, more recent Stitzel-Wellers, though the orange and candy notes are more familiar. Of course, this is the oldest Stitzel-Weller I've had by a few years. While this was very good, I think I prefer the flavor profile from the late '60s and '70s.


See the LA Whiskey Society review of Very Old Fitzgerald 1948/1956.

Dusty Thursday: The Bourbon Heritage Collection

Back in the early '90s, when the bourbon renaissance was just in its embryonic stages, United Distillers & Vintners (the company that would later become Diageo) released the Bourbon Heritage Collection. The Heritage Collection was a series of five whiskeys from the company's US distilleries. These include whiskeys distilled at Stitzel-Weller and labels that no longer exist, so I was pretty happy to find an old set of miniatures (you know I love the minis) representing the entire collection.

I found these in a small Greenwich Village liquor store. They come in a gray, rectangular box with no outside marking and there were two of them tucked away on a back shelf. My guess is no one had opened the little boxes for years. This is a good case of knowing what you are looking for. If I hadn't been familiar with the gray box (or curious enough to ask to see it), I would easily have passed these over. Instead, I grabbed them up for $18 per set. And because they had been tucked away in their gray boxes, the minis were in great condition, just like new.


Here's a run down of the whiskeys followed by some tasting notes.

Old Fitzgerald 12 and Weller Centennial. These are the prizes of the collection, distilled at the old Stitzel-Weller distillery which closed in 1991. After the closure, UDV continued to sell them for a while until it eventually sold the labels off; Buffalo Trace got Weller and Heaven Hill got Fitzgerald, but the minis in this pack were from the old days. While this set may have been bottled after the closure of the distillery, the bourbon itself was most likely distilled at Stitzel-Weller (which we know from the Louisville address on both labels). Buffalo Trace continued to make Weller Centennial for about another decade and discontinued it a few years ago. Heaven Hill still makes the Old Fitzgerald label. As with all Stitzel-Wellers, they are wheated bourbons.


Old Fitzgerald 12 years old, 45% abv

The nose on this has sweet corn and oak. The palate is a bit flat with soapy notes, and it's hot for its abv. Some caramel and candy notes in the background. Finish is sweet and a bit buttery.

Weller Centennial, 10 years old, 50% abv

The nose on this is really sweet and caramelly. The palate is sweet and woody with a fair amount of acid. The finish is sweet bourbon. I have had a number of bottles of Weller Centennial, both Stitzel-Weller and Buffalo Trace, which were excellent, but this one doesn't quite live up to those.

The Old Fitz is fine and the Weller is good but neither of these match up to the better Stitzel-Wellers I've had. They both had a certain flatness to them.


Old Charter Proprietor's Reserve and I.W. Harper Gold Medal. Since I don't know when exactly these bottles date from, I'm not sure if these two were made at the Bernheim distillery or the old Belmont distillery. Both labels were made by Belmont until UDV bought the distillery and tore it down. In its place, they opened the Bernheim distillery in 1992 and then sold it to Heaven Hill in 1999. The Harper brand is still owned by Diageo but bottled only for export, and the Charter brand is now owned by Buffalo Trace. Trace discontinued the Proprieter's Reserve label around the same time they got rid of Weller Centennial.


IW Harper Gold Medal, 15 years old, 40% abv

IW Harper is probably the least well regarded of the collection. The nose is light but has nice blush wine notes. The palate is a bit on the harsh side with lots of bourbon-corn and alcohol notes. The finish is salty/savory. It's not bad, but it lacks much depth.

Old Charter Proprietor's Reserve, 13 years old, 45% abv

This has a nice rich nose with some floral notes. The palate starts rich with candy notes then turns to chewy, woody notes which last into the finish, accompanied by caramel. It's definitely one of the nicer whiskeys in the set.


George Dickel. Dickel is the only American distillery that remains in the Diageo portfolio. I'm a big fan of Dickel, so I was excited to try this no longer available version.

George Dickel Special Barrel Reserve, 10 years old, 43% abv

The nose has that nice Dickel woodiness. The palate opens well with wood planks (tastes like Home Depot) but then it develops a diluted quality and water seems to drown out the flavor. The finish brings back some of the wood and some maple syrup, but the whole thing doesn't come together very well.


I was excited to find this mini collection (and they say there aren't any dusties in Manhattan!) but overall, while all of these whiskeys were decent, none was that exciting. The Weller and Charter were the best, followed by the Fitzgerald, the Dickel and then IW Harper bringing up the rear.

The thing about dusties is that sometimes a weird old mystery bottle turns out to be great but sometimes a fabulous find turns out to be just okay.