By Richard Thomas

Rating: A-

Credit: Richard Thomas

Admirers of old fashioned, pre-Prohibition style bourbon love to hear two words in connection with a new bottle of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, namely “cask strength” and “small batch.” Granted, “single barrel” and “cask strength” is even better, but a reasonably priced, no waiting list bottle of cask strength, small batch bourbon is a thing to be prized, and that is what the Kentucky Bourbon Distillers have produced in Noah’s Mill.

Kentucky Bourbon Distillers are a rarity in this modern world of corporate consolidation in the beverage industry, as they are an independent, family-owned and -operated distillery and bottler. They started out as Willett Distilling Company, and have been plying the bourbon trade in Bardstown, Kentucky since 1935. Kentucky Bourbon Distillers often puts out products under fictitious names, however, so don’t be fooled by the “Noah’s Mill Distilling Company” that appears on the label of Noah’s Mill. The bourbon is definitely a product of Kentucky Bourbon Distillers of Bardstown.

The Bourbon
Noah’s Mill Small Batch is aged for 15 years, making it one of the oldest small batch bourbons around, and that serves to mellow what would otherwise be a hefty wallop. It’s mashed with a high proportion of corn, and bottled by hand at 114.3 proof (57.15%). The bottle is a simple, conventional one with an old-timey label that would not go amiss in Oh Brother Where Art Thou? and a black wax-sealed plastic and cork stopper. Wisely, the label was kept modest to show off the dark, heavy amber coloring of the whiskey within.

The long aging period becomes evident in the nose, which is heavy with vanilla, red fruit sweetness and woody old oak. Noah’s Mill doesn’t disguise its alcohol content either, which is quite evident in the scent. It isn’t harsh or unpleasant, but the whiskey’s nose is full-bodied and not subtle. On the palate, that maturity and heft carry through with strong flavors of brown sugar and caramel, bourbon smokiness and dry, leathery wood. The finish is very warm, just barely crossing the line into fiery burning.

Addendum by Jake Emen

Rating: A

Bringing home a bottle of Noah’s Mill is an exercise of joy and anticipation for a bourbon fan, particularly one who doesn’t allow himself ample opportunity to try many of the finer, more expensive offerings found on liquor store shelves. Bottled by hand at 57.15% alcohol, 114.3 proof, it’s billed as “genuine bourbon whiskey, handmade in the hills of Kentucky”. So let’s dive in and see.

Opening the bottle, which showcases a screw-top cork stopper and looks more like vintage wine than fine whiskey, two things are immediately noticeable, a lingering sweet aroma, and the stiff alcohol it masks. Despite the lofty 57% alcohol content, Noah’s Mill is exceedingly smooth. It gives you a wonderful warm without an unnecessary burn, gracefully walking that fine line.

Once poured into a glass, the sweetness dissipates a bit, bowing to the alcohol. A first sip reveals a rich, full flavor profile. While not too smoky, it provides classic bourbon taste, one that stays with you long past the time when you put your glass down. It’s sharp but easy to drink, and the sweet aromas carry back through after your first taste. The smoothness combined with the high alcohol level makes it easy to finish a glass quickly and feel the effects. This one is for savoring though, not haphazardly devouring, so cork it back up and put it away for another evening.

Noah’s Mill is a new favorite and something I’ll be coming back to in the future, and I’ll break it out only when in the mood to sip it slow and proper.

Price Tag
Noah’s Mill Small Batch bourbon whiskey can sometimes be found for as little as $45, but a price tag in the mid-$50 range is more common. That is expensive for a premium small batch (clearly well above a standard like Knob Creek, but in the same rage as Booker’s), but few such bourbons are aged for 15 years and bottled at a level approaching cask strength.

By Richard Thomas

Rating: A-

(Credit: Compass Box)

In some circles, it is whispered that The Spice Tree is the whisk(e)y is the scotch the larger scotch industry doesn’t want you to have. Micro-distillery Compass Box first launched The Spice Tree in 2005, but were forced to discontinue production by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) under threat of legal action. The SWA objected to the use of French oak inner staves in the casks. These staves come from exactly the same source used in many of France’s finest wines: roughly 200 year old trees from the Vosges, which are then air seasoned for two years. Simply put, this quality of oak is rarely (arguably never) used for whiskey casks.

What Compass Box did was take inserts of this high quality oak and put them in for secondary maturation, using a method that is not uncommon in wine-making. The result was enormously popular, with the first batch selling out rapidly and the second batch bought out in the pre-sale stage. It was at that point that the stuffy folks at the SWA stepped in and put a stop to what Compass Box was up to, interpreting EU law in a narrow, conservative fashion.

Compass Box had to start over from scratch, and spent three years on a work-around for the stumbling block the SWA erected in their path. They came up with something that they say is just as good. I can neither confirm or deny that, since the original first and second batches of The Spice Tree are collectables.

The Scotch
The Spice Tree is made entirely from malt whiskey, mostly from northern Highland distilleries, with the largest share coming from Brora. The primary aging takes place in first-fill and refill American oak. Instead of using the inserts of the original Spice Tree whiskey, Compass Box is now racking into casks with heavily toasted new French oak heads, drawn from the same rarefied Vosges source as the original Spice Tree whiskey. This secondary maturation can last for up to two years. The Spice Tree is bottled at 46% alcohol, and in an old fashioned touch, it is not chill filtered.

The bottle is a simple, clear glass design with the Compass Box imprint, and a label bearing a sprawling, golden Celtic-style tree design. It’s not ostentatious, but it’s still the sort of thing that will draw eyes towards your liquor shelf.

In the glass, the Spice Tree has a golden look to it, like a lighter honey. No surprises on the nose for a scotch named “The Spice Tree,” because it smells like an open spice box. The whiskey has a strong scent, packed with cookie spices like oaky vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon and peppery ginger.

On the palate, the Spice Tree delivers a rich, sweet flavor. The cookie spices remain standing out in front, supported by a woody tinge. The peppery spiciness of the whiskey came to me as only just a hint at first, but grew into a more noticeable presence right up to the finish. The finish is big, warm, and has a bit of a spicy kick to it.

This is a complex, full-bodied scotch. Some scotch-lovers might be turned off by the lack of even a trace of peaty smokiness, but the sweet character, wood notes and peppery flavors in The Spice Tree blend together into a marvelously balanced whiskey.

The Price
In the UK, I see The Spice Tree retailing for between £35 and £40. In Europe, €45 is the norm. In the United States, $55 to $60 is fairly typical.

By Richard Thomas

The Jock or Sandy Collins (Credit: Richard Thomas)

I spent the bulk of my life living in places with hot, steamy summers, and the steamy aspect ensures that the heat of the day dissipates very little at night. The result was that my good whiskey stayed put on the shelf and gathered dust until autumn came, because whiskey’s warmth is at best unpleasant when you are sitting in a steam room. The same dilemma is shared by many a Briton expat living in some tropical clime in the Commonwealth, as well as many fans of rye and bourbon whiskey living in the mid-Atlantic, mid-West and Deep South.

Putting ice in good whiskey is a terrible sin, but not so for mixer-grade whiskey. And so long as you are putting ice in it, why not make a virtue of necessity with an icy whiskey cocktail?

Alternately known as the Sandy or Jock Collins, this particular cocktail is a spin on the Tom Collins. In a nutshell, it replaces the gin with scotch.

Ingredients
2 oz. scotch whiskey
1 oz. lemon juice
1 tsp. table sugar
3 oz. club soda (carbonated water)

A cherry is a common garnish, but I used an orange slice here.

This makes one cocktail. Mix the ingredients in a shaker, and pour into a tall glass (bars have special glasses for the Tom Collins) half-filled with ice. It’s that simple.

The choice of what scotch to use is less so. Use a scotch that minimizes woody and/or peaty notes, since smoke and thick oak don’t meld well with the lemon and sugar. Go with a more floral scotch. William Lawson’s is a good choice for this cocktail, to cite just one example.

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B

(Credit: Richard Thomas)

At the time of publication, “12 Years Old” is very likely the oldest age statement you will see with any frequency on a bottle of The Famous Grouse. The label produced a handful of limited edition malt scotches from 2004 to 2010, the oldest of which was a 30 Year Old. At this time, however, the blended Gold Reserve 12 Year Old is the oldest whiskey The Famous Grouse has in regular production.

One word of warning about the semantics surrounding this scotch: do not confuse it with the 12 Year Old Malt, also from The Famous Grouse. The two whiskeys are easily separated visually, although their titles are a bit confusing. The malt was part of the aforementioned limited line of whiskey, but is still widely available. It comes in a standard Grouse bottle with a green label.

The Gold Reserve 12 Year Old, on the other hand, is a very different creature. It is the premium, aged blend from The Famous Grouse mainstream, and comes in the stockier bottle you see depicted on the left. This is the modern design. There is an older version of this whiskey going under the same name, and that ancestor has a label with a darker, stormier style.

The Scotch
The 12 Year Old comes in a hefty, eye-catching bottle, with a classy, heavy foil wrapper around the neck. I expected a wood and cork stopper to lie underneath a foil wrapper like that, but instead I found a plastic screw cap and an aerator. The aerator annoys me, but the screw cap at least is of better quality than some of the cheap caps I’ve commented on elsewhere.

This blend is made with a higher proportion of malts from Highland Park and the Macallan, contributing to its role as the label’s premium issue. Aged in oak, the scotch is bottled at 40% alcohol. On the palate, the scotch has a silky character. The flavor begins with rich sweetness, before giving way to some full-bodied woodiness. The wood extends over into a dry, mild finish.

In the glass, the Gold Reserve has a charming mid-amber color. The scotch is quite aromatic, with sea spray and the crisp scent of apples and pears.

The Price
The Famous Grouse 12 Year Old is supposed to retail for around £23 in the UK, and I usually see it priced for less than €30 in Europe. In the United States, a price just slightly higher than $30, like $32 or $33, seems to be the norm.

Awards
The Famous Grouse 12 Year Old won a silver at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

By Richard Thomas

Rating: C-

Cutty Sark blended scotch whiskey

On April 25, 2012, the Cutty Sark was reopened to the public. This refers not to the whiskey or its distillery, but to the clipper ship museum located in Greenwich for which the whiskey is named. Built in 1869, Cutty Sark is a historic example of the height of clipper ship design, and worked in first the tea and then the wool trade for decades before becoming a training ship. Ending her days in the 1950s, Cutty Sark became a museum, but was badly damaged by a fire in 2007. The ship was already undergoing renovation at the time, and the British government eventually spent over £30 million fixing her up.

Cutty Sark the whiskey came into being when the vessel was finally retired. As the story goes, a pair of wine and spirits merchants were discussing their plans to market an international whiskey after prohibition was repealed in the United States with their friend, a Scottish artist named James McBey. It was McBey that suggested naming it after the clipper ship that was in the headlines. Cutty Sark was supposed the first light colored blended scotch, and its launch didn’t wait for the repeal of prohibition. Instead of waiting for prohibition to end, however, Cutty Sark got going in 1923, and was bootlegged into the country via the Caribbean and Florida.

The Whiskey
Bottled at 40% alcohol, Cutty Sark comes with a faux-metal plastic cap that straddles the horns rather than the fence. Plastic screw caps are cheap, but if a distiller wants to save some bucks and go that route, eh, what the hey. Some nice whiskeys have plastic caps. However, don’t try to disguise the cheapness with something styled like metal. That just lacks confidence, to say nothing of class.

Cutty Sark carries no aging statement, and is aged in American oak barrels. The core of this blend is Speyside single malt, married to grain whiskey.

That said, Cutty Sark achieved its object of light color, having a pale gold look in the glass. The scent of the whiskey is a pleasant sea spray with undertones of woodiness. The flavor is a muted vanilla sweetness with strong undertones of oak. The finish is dry, clear, of middling length and somewhat warm.

Overall, I found Cutty Sark pleasant enough for what it is. If you find its qualities attractive and have a few more bucks, however, I recommend The Famous Grouse instead.

The Price
In the States, a fifth of Cutty Sark will typically run you less than $20. In Europe, I often see the whiskey priced for 10 or 11 euros. It’s cheap stuff, and not bad for the price.