Thursday, January 15, 2009

Learning to taste

As I embark on my bourbon journey, of course the goal is to try as many bourbons and other whiskies as possible. For now I am mostly concentrating on bourbon. I have tried about a dozen so far, and I am getting a little frustrated. Part if this is the nature of bourbon. In order for a spirit to be called bourbon, it must follow a fairly strict recipe/process. Since all bourbons follow these guidelines, it is difficult for them to produce something distinctive and clearly different from each other. The variances are subtle, especially to a new taster. I expressed this frustration in a post on the straightbourbon.com message board. The members there gave me some good advice. First was patience. Many of the experienced tasters there said that it took them six months to develop the ability to pick out nuances in different bourbons.

The second piece of advise I received was to develop the ability to isolate the 'rye' content of a bourbon. Some bourbons have a higher rye content than others. By conducting side by side tasting of these different bourbons, I was able to start to differentiate between bourbons for the first time. The first side by side tasting I did was Makers Mark (actually a wheated bourbon) and Wild Turkey 101 (high rye). The difference was clear. I am making progress! I even bought a bottle of straight rye whiskey (Rittenhouse) to compare the heavy rye flavor to my other bourbons.

Wheat is the other ingredient that is easy to isolate with a little practice. Examples of wheated bourbons are: Makers Mark, W. L. Weller and Pappy Van Winkle.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Blitz, meet your Pappy

On Christmas, my 22 year old son generously gave me a special present. It was a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 20 year bourbon. This is one of the most expensive bottles of bourbon available, and is considered one of the 'Holy Grails' of bourbon drinkers. I was expecting to get a nice bottle of bourbon from him, but I didn't expect this. It actually felt a little too soon in my bourbon journey to experience something at this level. It's as if I just started a baseball card collection and somebody gave me a Babe Ruth rookie card. It looks a out of place in my little whiskey collection of a half dozen low-to-mid-shelf whiskies. Also, I was concerned that I was too inexperienced a bourbon taster to appreciate such a vintage.

It took me about a week to find the right time to taste the Pappy. The result? Keep in mind that I am not at the point of providing specific tasting notes, I can just provide a general impression. One can definitely tell it is well aged, because there is a very strong oak character. Some have labeled it too 'woody'. It's a wheated bourbon, so it is smoother than most I have tasted. It was so different from anything else that I have tasted, that my first impression was not positive. However, after I was accustomed to the taste I began to appreciate this fine bourbon. It's wonderful as a special occasion pour.

Is it worth the money? That's usually the first thing people ask. I think that's the wrong question. Does it taste five times better than a good mid-shelf bourbon? I don't even know how you can measure that. It's more about the experience. Based in ticket prices, is a Super Bowl game ten times more enjoyable to watch in person than a regular game? For me, Pappy is worth the price to try, and now share, one of the great bourbons available.