Whiskey Wednesday #5: Part 2

Completely different whiskey for the second one of the day:

Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Rye, 47% 
I just got this yesterday, with a note tagging it as Jack Daniel's "first fully mature rye whiskey." It is a single barrel bottling (bottled 12/10/15 from barrel 15-7487) at 47%, and made from a mashbill of 70% rye, 18% corn, and 12% malted barley.

How old is it? They aren't saying. Now...the unaged JD Rye first went out for sampling in October of 2012, so hmmm...no, no way this is less than 4 years old. Let's have a sniff and sip.

Sweet vanilla, a bit of blackstrap molasses, fruitcake, and dry mint, all wrapped up in a basket of hot oak, Damn, it's like JD Single Barrel without the corn! Which makes it a head-turner on the tongue: you get the vanilla, and the sweet, and the little bit of woody/maple flavor, and you expect that corn, but instead you get grassy/minty rye, with a mouth-coating sweet creaminess that goes into the finish and catches with a light oak fire over the back of the throat.

Sweet rye. Weird idea, and I don't want to like it because rye's supposed to be spicy and savory, but it's growing on me. Tennessee rye is a real thing, I guess. Price is about the same as the regular Single Barrel Jack at around $50. You're going to want to try this and make up your own mind, but I really want to try this with some good ginger ale. That's gonna rock.

Verdict: Good

Hey! I'm alive, and I'm having a drink. You should, too.

It's been nuts around here. In the middle of trying to get caught up after the earlier events of the month -- about six stories (13,000 words), editing the proofs of PA Breweries 4, and wrapping up the next issue of Malt Advocate -- I went to Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans (and I'll get something up on that) last week and we took Thomas up to Boston University for orientation over the past three days (yesterday was a marathon: a big "Albanian omelette" at Victor's Diner in Watertown, four hours of orientation wrap-up at BU, then about 500 miles of driving to get around traffic, pick up Nora and the dogs in Lancaster, and home again about 11 PM). This morning Cathy and I went over to the Delaware River, turned off our cell phones, and rode fifteen miles of trail, then went to the Newtown Farmer's Market and got some good eats, and then I came home and took the dogs for a half hour walk (Maud's exercise program, and she's doing well).

So I think I've earned a drink. I built a big one of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel and ginger ale, with a lot of ice for the heat. It's tasting pretty damned good; not as sticky as Jack and Coke, but while the ginger ale is spicy, it doesn't overwhelm the whiskey. I just did a whiskey story for Massachusetts Beverage Business (it's coming out in September; my "What's Hot in Beer" piece will probably up tomorrow, including a sidebar on session beer and nanobreweries), and the JD folks told me that Jack and Ginger is the drink they're pushing: more appeal to women (not sure why), and more upscaling options: ginger ale, or Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, or muddled fresh ginger. I'll have to try the fresh ginger option...

Happy Birthday, Mister Jack

September, the folks at Jack Daniel's tell me, is the month of Jack Daniel's -- Mister Jack Daniel's birthday, celebrating 159 years since their founder was born. And since he founded the distillery and made the whiskey that would become the very bestselling American whiskey, they're celebrating with a cake...a cake cocktail.

It's made with Jack Daniel's, Tuaca, marshmallow syrup, and Sprite. They sent me a kit with small amounts of all those things (really, a half-assed can of Sprite) and a glass, with a marshmallow and a candle for a birthday garnish. That's what theirs looks like, down below; mine, er, doesn't look that good, because I'm a kocktail klutz. But it does kinda smell like a cake...a marshmallow and orange yellow cake. It's sweet, but damn, Sam, if they're garnishing it with a marshmallow, whatta ya expect? Wow, it's sweet. Oh, well. Happy Birthday, Mister Jack!

Jimmy Bedford Dies at 69

I just saw on Chuck Cowdery's blog that Jimmy Bedford has died at the age of 69, of an apparent heart attack. Go read Chuck's obituary of Jimmy, and think about the man who was one of only seven master distillers in the history of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey.