Showing posts with label Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Bourbon Heritage Month
Sorry...it's been busy, and I'll tell you about it soon. Did some tasting, went to Prague and Plzn, you know, the usual stuff. Meanwhile, it's Bourbon Heritage Month, and I'm about to leave for Tennessee and Kentucky for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, so this bourbon infographic (from Wild Turkey, in case you didn't guess) seemed appropriate:
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Blogging from the Kentucky Bourbon Festival
I've been going to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival for years, and yet I almost never blog about it. This has been a disappointment to some of you (sorry, Sam); probably a blessing to you beer-lovers, but that's all by the board. I'm blogging this year.
I'm at the Bourbon Festival waving the Malt Advocate flag. I'm the managing editor, I write the 'American Spirit' column, and I do love this industry -- er, and I have a small fondness for the product, too -- so I go, happily. That's by way of a sort of negative disclosure: I'm not here as the guest of any distillery (I have been once or twice in the past). Okay, onward.
Before I talk about the trip and what I've been doing, let's talk about the Festival. There's a common question, one I was just asked this morning, that needs to be addressed: "Where is the actual festival?" Yeah, well, you see...you're standing in it. "The Kentucky Bourbon Festival" is kind of like "Philly Beer Week"; more to the point, it's not like Malt Advocate's WhiskyFest. There's not a single event where you go from one distiller's table to another, sampling whiskeys...
No, wait, there is. That's the Gala, a black-tie dinner on Saturday night, that begins with a tasting hour when you do go from one distiller's "booth" to another, sampling whiskeys (and cocktails, and cigars, and there's nibble foods, and free glasses, and lots of pretty women and handsomely dressed men). But the Gala's a pricey ticket, and as black-tie, it's not your usual "drinks festival" kind of thing.
So what is the "actual festival?" It starts on Wednesday and goes through Sunday, and there's a whole calendar of different events. The distilleries have tours, both open to the general public and some longer, 'hard-hat' type tours for industry people and the real aficionados who put groups together and reserve them months in advance. (Speaking of months in advance: that's when you'd better make your reservations. Bardstown fills up fast.) And there's the Lawn in front of Spalding Hall, home of the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History. The Lawn has arts and crafts on sale (plenty of Kentucky-made stuff; I usually get Cathy some trinkets here), distiller tents (no samples...but you can get them in the Spirits Garden), coopering demos, and other shtuff. That's where I send people when they ask about where the "actual festival" is.
My trip started at 7 AM Thursday morning. I drove the Saab down to the Philadelphia airport, a fine drive with the windows down and the new stereo booming. No big problems with traffic or security, and I was on my Delta plane on-time, relaxing for a flight to Detroit and a connector to Louisville scheduled to arrive at 1:44; plenty of time for my usual visit to New Albanian Brewing Company before heading down to Bardstown.
KLUNK! Eh? What the hell was that, just as we were backing around from the jetway? That was the end of my good day. The captain told us that a shear pin had broken on the towbar of the little truck pushing the plane back from the terminal. FAA regs required that the plane be inspected, and that paperwork had to be logged... Hell. I actually fell asleep. We finally took off about 75 minutes later, and arrived in Detroit about 20 minutes after my Louisville flight left. Damn.
Worse than damn; there had been a succession of storms rolling through the area, disrupting schedules, and even thought there was a flight to Louisville every two hours, the next two were full. I was stuck for seven hours. Lord. It got worse: no free WiFi, and something was screwing with the reception on my iPhone. It took me three hours till I could find a spot where I could even get a text message through to Cathy. Crap. All I had to read was a new book by Charlie MacLean, Whiskypedia, which was good, but not really the kind of book you sit down and cover-to-cover. I got a newspaper, had lunch, and sat down to charge my electronics at a handy outlet. That was good for about three hours. Now what?
I went to "Thee Irish Pub" in Terminal C. Had a coffee, had a conversation with an older guy, Bud drinker ("I hate Guinness," he told me. His world was going to hell, he hated people who drank too much, he drank too much, football is fixed, people are jerks, and I was really sorry I struck up that conversation.), got a Guinness (after he left...), talked to the guy on the other side about the screwed-up WiFi, had another Guinness and a double of Tullamore Dew (like the Yelp reviews say, the place was way overpriced; I mean, I know it's an airport bar, but $31 for two beers and a double of Tullamore?), and asked the bartender where the men's room was. He told me, and as he did, he cleared my whiskey glass...which still had 1/4 oz. of whiskey in it. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I went to the men's room. Another beautiful day at Detroit Metro airport. Jackass.
I finally flew to Louisville, a magical flight, visually: the sun was setting way out across a solid field of low clouds that looked like miles and miles of low, rolling, snow-covered hills. I almost expected to see wolves chasing a sleigh, with some villain poised to toss out a helpless damsel to lighten the load...look, I was really bored by this point.
It wasn't over. When I got to Louisville, about 7 hours late, Thrifty had given away my rental car. Really. Because there was a gospel quartet convention in town. After a wait, he did manage to scare up a Hyundai Sonata for me, and I made it down to Bardstown at about 10:15. I checked into the Old Jailer's Inn, and joined some other bourbon lovers out on the front porch, drinking Four Roses Single Barrel and Buffalo Trace White Dog. And I felt alllllll better.
The next day, Friday, I got up and had breakfast. Dixie, the woman who keeps the place, had made a bunch of pastries (I had a small muffin), fresh fruit (I had a clementine and some blueberries), and strawberry french toast. Very good indeed. I walked up to the cleaners and dropped off my tux to be pressed for the Gala, then did some work while having coffee at the Java Joint, a cool place I've been going to for years (I'm there now). Like every other place, there were people there talking about the Bourbon Festival, including some of the gospel quartet people. I didn't ask them if they stole my rental car.
After that, I went out to Liquor World and got a bottle of Weller Antique to share on the porch that night. The folks there let me sample some Willett cask strength they had: very cinnamon-spicy, brightly sweet, quite tasty and fresh. Then I went to the Bourbon Hall of Fame induction at Spalding Hall. Buffalo Trace's ace warehouse manager, Ronnie Eddins was getting in (a richly-deserved honor for this man who was the originator of both the ongoing Experimental Collection and the upcoming oak experiments), as was Eddie Russell, Jimmy Russell's son and a master distiller in his own right. I reconnected with some old friends, and then went back to my room for a quick nap before going out to the Bourbon, Cigars and Jazz event.
More later; I'm going to head over to the Bourbon Auction.
I finally figured out how to add the Amazon links...do you like them? Hate them? Do you care?
I'm at the Bourbon Festival waving the Malt Advocate flag. I'm the managing editor, I write the 'American Spirit' column, and I do love this industry -- er, and I have a small fondness for the product, too -- so I go, happily. That's by way of a sort of negative disclosure: I'm not here as the guest of any distillery (I have been once or twice in the past). Okay, onward.
Before I talk about the trip and what I've been doing, let's talk about the Festival. There's a common question, one I was just asked this morning, that needs to be addressed: "Where is the actual festival?" Yeah, well, you see...you're standing in it. "The Kentucky Bourbon Festival" is kind of like "Philly Beer Week"; more to the point, it's not like Malt Advocate's WhiskyFest. There's not a single event where you go from one distiller's table to another, sampling whiskeys...
No, wait, there is. That's the Gala, a black-tie dinner on Saturday night, that begins with a tasting hour when you do go from one distiller's "booth" to another, sampling whiskeys (and cocktails, and cigars, and there's nibble foods, and free glasses, and lots of pretty women and handsomely dressed men). But the Gala's a pricey ticket, and as black-tie, it's not your usual "drinks festival" kind of thing.
So what is the "actual festival?" It starts on Wednesday and goes through Sunday, and there's a whole calendar of different events. The distilleries have tours, both open to the general public and some longer, 'hard-hat' type tours for industry people and the real aficionados who put groups together and reserve them months in advance. (Speaking of months in advance: that's when you'd better make your reservations. Bardstown fills up fast.) And there's the Lawn in front of Spalding Hall, home of the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History. The Lawn has arts and crafts on sale (plenty of Kentucky-made stuff; I usually get Cathy some trinkets here), distiller tents (no samples...but you can get them in the Spirits Garden), coopering demos, and other shtuff. That's where I send people when they ask about where the "actual festival" is.
My trip started at 7 AM Thursday morning. I drove the Saab down to the Philadelphia airport, a fine drive with the windows down and the new stereo booming. No big problems with traffic or security, and I was on my Delta plane on-time, relaxing for a flight to Detroit and a connector to Louisville scheduled to arrive at 1:44; plenty of time for my usual visit to New Albanian Brewing Company before heading down to Bardstown.
KLUNK! Eh? What the hell was that, just as we were backing around from the jetway? That was the end of my good day. The captain told us that a shear pin had broken on the towbar of the little truck pushing the plane back from the terminal. FAA regs required that the plane be inspected, and that paperwork had to be logged... Hell. I actually fell asleep. We finally took off about 75 minutes later, and arrived in Detroit about 20 minutes after my Louisville flight left. Damn.
Worse than damn; there had been a succession of storms rolling through the area, disrupting schedules, and even thought there was a flight to Louisville every two hours, the next two were full. I was stuck for seven hours. Lord. It got worse: no free WiFi, and something was screwing with the reception on my iPhone. It took me three hours till I could find a spot where I could even get a text message through to Cathy. Crap. All I had to read was a new book by Charlie MacLean, Whiskypedia, which was good, but not really the kind of book you sit down and cover-to-cover. I got a newspaper, had lunch, and sat down to charge my electronics at a handy outlet. That was good for about three hours. Now what?
I went to "Thee Irish Pub" in Terminal C. Had a coffee, had a conversation with an older guy, Bud drinker ("I hate Guinness," he told me. His world was going to hell, he hated people who drank too much, he drank too much, football is fixed, people are jerks, and I was really sorry I struck up that conversation.), got a Guinness (after he left...), talked to the guy on the other side about the screwed-up WiFi, had another Guinness and a double of Tullamore Dew (like the Yelp reviews say, the place was way overpriced; I mean, I know it's an airport bar, but $31 for two beers and a double of Tullamore?), and asked the bartender where the men's room was. He told me, and as he did, he cleared my whiskey glass...which still had 1/4 oz. of whiskey in it. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I went to the men's room. Another beautiful day at Detroit Metro airport. Jackass.
I finally flew to Louisville, a magical flight, visually: the sun was setting way out across a solid field of low clouds that looked like miles and miles of low, rolling, snow-covered hills. I almost expected to see wolves chasing a sleigh, with some villain poised to toss out a helpless damsel to lighten the load...look, I was really bored by this point.
It wasn't over. When I got to Louisville, about 7 hours late, Thrifty had given away my rental car. Really. Because there was a gospel quartet convention in town. After a wait, he did manage to scare up a Hyundai Sonata for me, and I made it down to Bardstown at about 10:15. I checked into the Old Jailer's Inn, and joined some other bourbon lovers out on the front porch, drinking Four Roses Single Barrel and Buffalo Trace White Dog. And I felt alllllll better.
The next day, Friday, I got up and had breakfast. Dixie, the woman who keeps the place, had made a bunch of pastries (I had a small muffin), fresh fruit (I had a clementine and some blueberries), and strawberry french toast. Very good indeed. I walked up to the cleaners and dropped off my tux to be pressed for the Gala, then did some work while having coffee at the Java Joint, a cool place I've been going to for years (I'm there now). Like every other place, there were people there talking about the Bourbon Festival, including some of the gospel quartet people. I didn't ask them if they stole my rental car.
After that, I went out to Liquor World and got a bottle of Weller Antique to share on the porch that night. The folks there let me sample some Willett cask strength they had: very cinnamon-spicy, brightly sweet, quite tasty and fresh. Then I went to the Bourbon Hall of Fame induction at Spalding Hall. Buffalo Trace's ace warehouse manager, Ronnie Eddins was getting in (a richly-deserved honor for this man who was the originator of both the ongoing Experimental Collection and the upcoming oak experiments), as was Eddie Russell, Jimmy Russell's son and a master distiller in his own right. I reconnected with some old friends, and then went back to my room for a quick nap before going out to the Bourbon, Cigars and Jazz event.
More later; I'm going to head over to the Bourbon Auction.
I finally figured out how to add the Amazon links...do you like them? Hate them? Do you care?
Saturday, September 19, 2009
KBF: Day Two, mini-notes
It was a long day. I did work and errands in the morning, then went to the Boubon Hall of Fame to see my friend Chuck Cowdery get inducted into the Bourbon Hall of Fame. Then I was going to take a nap, but my editor reminded me I had a story due, so I wrote 2,000 pretty damned good words in two hours.
Then I went to Heaven Hill's Bourbon, Cigars and Jazz event, which was very cool, and I talked to a very open Craig Beam. How many days of rye are you mashing now? Craig's answer: about 12. Remember, as little as three years ago, Heaven Hill was mashing a day or two of rye a year. Now it's twelve. How cool is that?
Anyway, then I came back to the motel and hung out with the Buffalo Trace production folks, drinking, telling stories, and laughing really hard.
Then I went to Heaven Hill's Bourbon, Cigars and Jazz event, which was very cool, and I talked to a very open Craig Beam. How many days of rye are you mashing now? Craig's answer: about 12. Remember, as little as three years ago, Heaven Hill was mashing a day or two of rye a year. Now it's twelve. How cool is that?
Anyway, then I came back to the motel and hung out with the Buffalo Trace production folks, drinking, telling stories, and laughing really hard.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Kentucky Bourbon Festival Day 1
I left Philly yesterday under gray, cloudy skies, headed for Kentucky. As usual, air travel's magic soon dispelled the grayness of the day, and I got to work, proofing and tweaking the stories for the next issue of Malt Advocate. It was a very easy flight, and I wrote a note to myself:How perfect a moment of modern travel: high above Ohio, bright noonday sun pouring through the window, and the triumphant opening chords of "Pinball Wizard" soaring through my ears. If I had just a small glass of whiskey yet. It's hard to edit Malt Advocate stories with nothing to drink!
It only got better when I landed. I picked up my rental (a Chevy HHR, which turns out to be not bad at all) and made my usual first stop: New Albanian Brewing, across the Ohio River in New Albany, Indiana. Roger Baylor and I go way back, and though I didn't get to see him this time, I did get to enjoy New Albanian's fresh hopped ale, Wet Knobs. It was very good, bustingly fresh and packed with piney, grassy hop flavor. They brewed it with pellets, the fresh hops -- limited supply of locally-grown Cascades and Chinook -- were used as finishing hops. They hope to have enough hops next year to do all the hopping with fresh hops. I also grabbed a small Roundhouse pizza that was delish, reminding me that this place started as a pizza joint with good beer. It's evolved nicely, and if you've never made it over here, you should.
I headed back across the river and dropped in at Bourbons Bistro. I'll reluctantly admit that this was my first visit, and it won't be my last. An excellent selection of over 130 bourbons (plus additional ryes, corn whiskeys, and Tennessee whiskeys), an intriguing Kentucky-influenced menu, and locally-owned? Yes, please. Best of all, they offer flights of whiskeys in a variety of classes. I got three bottled-in-bond whiskeys: Old Fitz, J.W.Dant, and Ancient Age (I was told at Liquor World later that Ancient Age BiB is being discontinued: a shame, because it was really good). $10, and the bartender had to work at it, literally climbing up on the backbar to get them. Nice spot to sit for a bit and sip.Then I had to check out the beer bar I'd been hearing about, Nachbar. The bar's in Louisville's Germantown section, and the name means "neighbor," or "next-door." Given that it's smack-dab in the middle of a residential section -- as I wish more bars were -- the name's perfect. Very impressive selection of beers, both in draft and bottle: locals, craft -- I had a Bell's Two Hearted -- and imports all well-represented. Laid-back to the point of being horizontal. Friendly, but not eager. And a nice patio area outside. Good place to hang out.
And then I drove down to Bardstown. I cruised around town, re-acquainting myself with the place. I stopped at Liquor World and got some here-only bottlings to take home (got an article on that coming in Malt Advocate soon), and a small bottle of Old Fitz for the room, and checked in at the Hampton Inn. Did some work, slept, and I'm doing a bit of work again this morning till the rain stops...I hope it stops. I've got places to go and people to see!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Fall of the Corn Curtain: Go Tour the Tom Moore Distillery
A somewhat momentous date tomorrow: as of October 1, the Tom Moore Distillery, formerly known as the Barton distillery, is open for tours.For the longest time, Barton was the Tibet of distilleries, tucked away down a quiet, thickly tree-lined street in Bardstown. They didn't give any tours, even guys like me didn't get in very often. You had to have a reason. Barton sold Ten High, Very Old Barton (that's six years very old), and some other similar "value" brands -- don't knock it, VOB is some damned good bourbon for the price -- mostly in Kentucky. They had their business, they did it, and outside of kicking up their heels a bit at the barrel relay races at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, they kept a real low profile.
1792 put a crack in the armor. That's their premium bourbon that has done right nicely for them. When it did well, and "Barton" started getting some respect, the folks at Constellation Inc. (the world's largest wine company, the importer of Corona for the U.S.) started to realize that they could be getting in on some of the wild adoration popping up for bourbon distillers. So after a bit of sprucing up -- not too much; you can still see deer in the edges of the woods around the warehouses -- they decided to let you in to see what they do.
"There’s no flash here," master distiller Greg Davis told me (that's him in the picture). "You’ll see a true operation. If you’re a gearhead, you’re gonna go off on this. That’s one of the great things: it is designed to produce bourbon. It's not about touring, not about making things pretty. This is how it’s done, period." That's okay, Greg, there's a place for nuts and bolts, too.
If you're looking to take a tour, they're by reservation only, at 9:30 AM and 1:30 PM. Call Pam Gover (502-348-3774) at least a day in advance to make your reservation. And be sure to ask them what's aging in the bottom three floors of the warehouse; kind of a surprise, there.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Kentucky Bourbon Festival: This is The End...
Not much more to be said. I got my tuxedo on (no, sorry, no pictures, and actually, there's no pictures from the whole night -- I left the memory card in the damned laptop!), basted myself in the air conditioner, and went outside to catch the shuttle -- no way I'm driving to the Gala. It was a gorgeous night, warm but not hot, some huge soaring cumulus clouds piling up in the east, catching the sun, Maxfield Parrish-style. The line, as always, was incredibly long, but moved well, and soon I was strolling the floor of the tasting "tent."
The first person I ran into that I knew was Heaven Hill president Max Shapira, who grabbed my arm and said, grinning, "Let me buy you a drink!" He did get me lined up right quick with a Henry McKenna BiB on the rocks (always grab that when I can), and we chatted a bit, just stuff, and then he passed me on to his marketing maven, Larry Kass. We got caught up, I thanked him for the great lead-in he gave me on my latest Mass Bev Biz story*, and he told me about the effect the Ryder Cup had on KBF this year: events sold out, but at a much slower rate. Why didn't they change the date? Hard to say.
On I wandered, shaking hands with friends in production -- Dave Scheurich at Woodford, Truman Cox at Buffalo Trace -- and press relations -- Susan Wahl at Heaven Hill, Angela Traver at Buffalo Trace -- and yes, a nice glass of Four Roses Single Barrel, damned nice whiskey. It was not long after that when I ran into Whisky Magazine's Gordon Dundas and my evening went down the tubes.
Well, kind of, and it certainly wasn't Gordon's fault. Gordon actually was good enough to let me know that our respective magazines, which were supposed to have been unboxed and displayed at the bag-check tables** on the way into the dinner tent by this time, were still sitting on a pallet in the back corner of the tasting 'tent.' Well, holy crap. He'd talked to Festival people about it, and they said once people had cleared out of the 'tent' into the tent (no, really; just think of them as two large spaces connected by a hall with restrooms), they would get the mags onto the tables. Well, okay, it would be impossible to do it while they were in the 'tent,' and people always take the mags on the way out anyway. We'll take a look mid-meal, Gordon proposed, and see how they've done on that. It sounded good, and we celebrated our collaboration with a Russell's Rye.
Then it was dinner time. The beef was quite good, the beans good, the rest of it...okay. Oh, the cake was quite good. After a bit, I went looking for Gordon, and couldn't find him. Hmmm...I gotta take action. I went out, and no mags were out. I went next door, and there was the co-chair of the gala, looking just wiped out, and I dumped my magazine problem in her lap. Oh, they'd completely forgotten, and they were sorry, and they'd get them out there. Can I help? Sure! So I started lugging boxes of magazines out the bag-check tables, as did the co-chair, the security guard, and a couple other folks. Gordon showed up shortly -- he'd been in line forever for dinner ("The Bourbon Festival seems to be all about queues," he said, with some asperity) -- and pitched in. We both wound up handling each other's mags, very co-operative. We had a lot of mags out in fairly short order, sweat like pigs, and decided it was time for more whiskey.
I hung out some more with the Buffalo Trace folks and some of the press guys I'd met at Beam yesterday, talked to Freddie Noe and Parker Beam a little, set up an interview appointment with Barton's Greg Davis (jeez, he whipped out his iPhone and starts saying, "Well, when's good, Lew?" Hell, I didn't have my damned calendar with me; guess if I'm gonna ask people for interviews, I should carry it!), and then decided I'd had enough. The free shuttle took me back here -- great idea, not sure who sponsored that -- and...that was it. I'm going to finish this, pack, and that'll be it for another year.
*Ask if it was a good year for straight whiskeys, and all you’ll hear about is the small batch bourbons, ultra-aged ryes, single barrel Tennessee whiskeys, and special Canadian bottlings, and that’s where the romance is, and that’s where the growth is, and that’s what’s driving the market! You don’t hear about the cases of flagship brands that continue to move things along every day.
Reality check, in the form of Heaven Hill’s marketing guy, the grinning, gravel-voiced Larry Kass. “Numbers can’t lie,” Kass said, dropping the facts on the table (he was checking the 2OO8 Adams Liquor Handbook). “The market is not driven by the super-premium whiskeys. It can’t be driven by super-premiums. They’re what, 75O,OOO cases out of 14 million? If you want to be generous? If you take just the top five brands [in the category], you’re talking about 72% of sales. There’s not a super-premium to be found among them, and there isn’t until you get down to Gentleman Jack, which is 12th, at 178,OOO cases.
“Look, there’s no doubt about it: the top-end brands are continuing to perform very well,” he said. “The supers continue to get a lot of the attention and that’s great, they have great stories to tell, they’re banner products. But the cases are in the meat and potatoes brands: Evan [Williams], Jack [Daniel’s], and Jim [Beam]. Those brands are continuing to grow very nicely. The distinguishing characteristic of the straight whiskey category is that the mid-tier brands are doing well, and that’s a feather in our caps.”
Pure Larry Kass: he has high-end whiskey, and he loves to talk it, but Evan Williams pays his mortgage. Well, actually, Burnett's Gin and Christian Brothers brandy pays his mortgage, but Evan Williams pays a good chunk too!
**When you get to the Gala, which you've paid $140 for the privilege of attending, you get a black cloth bag. Each distillery pours samples in their own glass, some of which are quite nice. And people (okay, women) collect them and put them in the cloth bags (sacks, they call them), 8 or a dozen. All too often, they'll just dump the whiskey out. And when they go into the dinner tent, they check them. They had to start offering this service because so many people were taking a dozen glasses into the dinner tent...and breaking them. Me, I put two glasses in the bag and handed it to the first determined woman I saw. Everyone's happy.
The first person I ran into that I knew was Heaven Hill president Max Shapira, who grabbed my arm and said, grinning, "Let me buy you a drink!" He did get me lined up right quick with a Henry McKenna BiB on the rocks (always grab that when I can), and we chatted a bit, just stuff, and then he passed me on to his marketing maven, Larry Kass. We got caught up, I thanked him for the great lead-in he gave me on my latest Mass Bev Biz story*, and he told me about the effect the Ryder Cup had on KBF this year: events sold out, but at a much slower rate. Why didn't they change the date? Hard to say.
On I wandered, shaking hands with friends in production -- Dave Scheurich at Woodford, Truman Cox at Buffalo Trace -- and press relations -- Susan Wahl at Heaven Hill, Angela Traver at Buffalo Trace -- and yes, a nice glass of Four Roses Single Barrel, damned nice whiskey. It was not long after that when I ran into Whisky Magazine's Gordon Dundas and my evening went down the tubes.
Well, kind of, and it certainly wasn't Gordon's fault. Gordon actually was good enough to let me know that our respective magazines, which were supposed to have been unboxed and displayed at the bag-check tables** on the way into the dinner tent by this time, were still sitting on a pallet in the back corner of the tasting 'tent.' Well, holy crap. He'd talked to Festival people about it, and they said once people had cleared out of the 'tent' into the tent (no, really; just think of them as two large spaces connected by a hall with restrooms), they would get the mags onto the tables. Well, okay, it would be impossible to do it while they were in the 'tent,' and people always take the mags on the way out anyway. We'll take a look mid-meal, Gordon proposed, and see how they've done on that. It sounded good, and we celebrated our collaboration with a Russell's Rye.
Then it was dinner time. The beef was quite good, the beans good, the rest of it...okay. Oh, the cake was quite good. After a bit, I went looking for Gordon, and couldn't find him. Hmmm...I gotta take action. I went out, and no mags were out. I went next door, and there was the co-chair of the gala, looking just wiped out, and I dumped my magazine problem in her lap. Oh, they'd completely forgotten, and they were sorry, and they'd get them out there. Can I help? Sure! So I started lugging boxes of magazines out the bag-check tables, as did the co-chair, the security guard, and a couple other folks. Gordon showed up shortly -- he'd been in line forever for dinner ("The Bourbon Festival seems to be all about queues," he said, with some asperity) -- and pitched in. We both wound up handling each other's mags, very co-operative. We had a lot of mags out in fairly short order, sweat like pigs, and decided it was time for more whiskey.
I hung out some more with the Buffalo Trace folks and some of the press guys I'd met at Beam yesterday, talked to Freddie Noe and Parker Beam a little, set up an interview appointment with Barton's Greg Davis (jeez, he whipped out his iPhone and starts saying, "Well, when's good, Lew?" Hell, I didn't have my damned calendar with me; guess if I'm gonna ask people for interviews, I should carry it!), and then decided I'd had enough. The free shuttle took me back here -- great idea, not sure who sponsored that -- and...that was it. I'm going to finish this, pack, and that'll be it for another year.
*Ask if it was a good year for straight whiskeys, and all you’ll hear about is the small batch bourbons, ultra-aged ryes, single barrel Tennessee whiskeys, and special Canadian bottlings, and that’s where the romance is, and that’s where the growth is, and that’s what’s driving the market! You don’t hear about the cases of flagship brands that continue to move things along every day.
Reality check, in the form of Heaven Hill’s marketing guy, the grinning, gravel-voiced Larry Kass. “Numbers can’t lie,” Kass said, dropping the facts on the table (he was checking the 2OO8 Adams Liquor Handbook). “The market is not driven by the super-premium whiskeys. It can’t be driven by super-premiums. They’re what, 75O,OOO cases out of 14 million? If you want to be generous? If you take just the top five brands [in the category], you’re talking about 72% of sales. There’s not a super-premium to be found among them, and there isn’t until you get down to Gentleman Jack, which is 12th, at 178,OOO cases.
“Look, there’s no doubt about it: the top-end brands are continuing to perform very well,” he said. “The supers continue to get a lot of the attention and that’s great, they have great stories to tell, they’re banner products. But the cases are in the meat and potatoes brands: Evan [Williams], Jack [Daniel’s], and Jim [Beam]. Those brands are continuing to grow very nicely. The distinguishing characteristic of the straight whiskey category is that the mid-tier brands are doing well, and that’s a feather in our caps.”
Pure Larry Kass: he has high-end whiskey, and he loves to talk it, but Evan Williams pays his mortgage. Well, actually, Burnett's Gin and Christian Brothers brandy pays his mortgage, but Evan Williams pays a good chunk too!
**When you get to the Gala, which you've paid $140 for the privilege of attending, you get a black cloth bag. Each distillery pours samples in their own glass, some of which are quite nice. And people (okay, women) collect them and put them in the cloth bags (sacks, they call them), 8 or a dozen. All too often, they'll just dump the whiskey out. And when they go into the dinner tent, they check them. They had to start offering this service because so many people were taking a dozen glasses into the dinner tent...and breaking them. Me, I put two glasses in the bag and handed it to the first determined woman I saw. Everyone's happy.
Kentucky Bourbon Festival: The Bourbonians
I left you in the last post at about 4:00. Nothing much happened in the next three hours: picked up a few souvenirs, got some cold drinks, and then I sequestered myself in my room and wrote the sidebar I'd done that interview for earlier in the afternoon. By the time I was done with that, it was about time to head to the Bourbonian Taster of the Year event.This is an outgrowth of the StraightBourbon.com forums. The folks there are dead-serious about their bourbon...but they don't let that get in the way of having a good time. The BTOTY event (I was told) grew out of some folks talking too big for their britches about how they could pick out different bourbons blind. Bettye Jo Boone, a very enthusiastic SB'er who works at Heaven Hill and is a Beam, connected to that whole family (and a sweet person to boot; I'd been hearing about her for years and it was a pleasure to finally meet her) called them out. Not only could they not pick out different bourbons blind, she challenged them that they could not pick out their favorite bourbons blind (and she was, of course, pretty much right; I love blind tasting). Thus was born the BTOTY.
This was the fourth annual competition. The first three had been held at Bettye Jo's house, but it was finally outgrowing that. The SB's have taken over the General Nelson Best Western here in Bardstown during Bourbon Fest for a few years now, and the management's apparently been pretty good about it, allowing them the use of the gazebo out back for tasting meets Friday and Saturday nights, when you might find anything in the way of American whiskey on the table: pre-Pro, 1950s bottlings, microdistilled stuff, even non-whiskey spirits (and always a few beers). They asked, and the General Nelson graciously allowed them to use their banquet room for the BTOTY challenge.
About two weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Gary Gillman, a Torontonian I met in Philly at Book and The Cook a few years ago, and then again at Bourbon Fest two years ago. Gary wanted to know if I'd be interested in attending or competing in the BTOTY. I quickly accepted an invite to watch -- maybe next year on the competing! -- and we were set. I showed, everyone was real nice to me (even though I'm not as dedicated to bourbon as they are, drinking so much beer as I do...), and I settled in to watch.
Here's the set-up. Prospective competitors get a list of twelve bourbons: "the pool." From that pool of twelve, six would be selected in secret, decanted into identical, unlabeled bottles (looked like Evan Williams bottles, probably courtesy of Bettye Jo), and then poured for each of the contestants. They would then rely on their memories, their knowledge, and their palates to identify the six whiskeys. If they thought they knew the whiskey, they could just put down the name for a full ten points if correct; if they were unsure, they could guess the distillery (which was tough on some!), the age, and/or the proof, and if they were right (age and proof had a narrow range of "right" and didn't have to be precisely correct), they got partial points.
There were a passle of door prizes while the contestants sniffed and tasted. Hats, t-shirts, um...more hats and t-shirts, while there was also a "Kentucky draw" for a ton of Kentucky stuff: home-made jam, Gethsemane cheeses and fruitcake, UK gear, a whole country ham: tickets were $5. The spectators paid $6, contestants paid more, all to support the event.
When the twenty minutes was up, everyone handed in their forms, and the scores were tallied. The bourbons were revealed: out of the pool, the judges had selected Old Grand-Dad 114, Old Charter, Very Old Barton Bottled in Bond, Ten High, Elijah Craig 18, and Weller Special Reserve. I believe almost everyone got Ten High right; hell, I guessed it from where I was sitting just looking at the color. When everything was said and done, Randy Blank had pegged four out of the six (and caught the proof on one of the others, I believe) for a total of 42 points, the highest score in all four years. (That's Randy holding the Kentucky-shaped plaque, with second place winner Doug Philips and third place Randy Goode.) Chuck Cowdery, who'd won the first two years, came in fifth, I think. Quite gracious in defeat, too; phlegmatic, even. (And thanks to Chuck for sending the names of the winners!)We all toasted the winners with sips of that William Heavenhill whiskey: Heaven Hill quite generously donated a bottle to the event. It was clearly an older bourbon, with evident wood to it (it's 18 years and 9 months, as I said earlier), and honestly, oddly, I preferred the much older Parker's Heritage that just came out. I'm looking forward to trying it again at home with a smidge of water.
After it all was over, Chuck and I went and grabbed dinner at a Mexican place on 3rd St., then hit Toddy's for cheap bourbon bargains. I got a Heaven Hill 6 YO BiB, a VOB BiB, and a J.T.S. Brown BiB, which were each under $15; "That's the best bottle of bourbon you'll get for $12," Chuck said about the Brown. Saving them for a piece I've got coming up, so no reports (I picked up another Heaven Hill today, another BiB with no age statement; ditto). Then we went back to the gazebo, where things were in full swing. A great crowd, good people, and very dedicated to bourbon whiskey. Bourbonians, all of them.
Nothing much happened today, I had to write, I napped, I went over to Heaven Hill and picked up some bourbon orange marmalade for my mom, and then walked around Bardstown a little. And now, I gotta get ready for the Gala. Talk to you later.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Kentucky Bourbon Festival: Things Go Flat
Friday morning: After a quick shower and breakfast, I headed out Rt. 62 to the Jim Beam distillery in Clermont, where I joined their press group for the distillery tour. I've been through Beam a few times, but I always figure there's something new to learn.Sure enough, I learned something new right away: just because a distillery said you can't take pictures last time doesn't mean they'll say you can't take pictures this time. And didn't I leave my camera back in the room! Oh, well, it didn't matter anyway, turned out: when I took my camera along out to Heaven Hill later that afternoon...the batteries were dead. Que sera sera. (By the way, this shot of the top floor of Warehouse Y at Heaven Hill has nothing to do with today; I took it back in June. Just some scenery for you.)
So, the distillery tour at Jim Beam. You'll have to fill in the generalities -- how distilling is done, how long things age, and what's in bourbon -- on your own, and there are some excellent ways to do that; I've just got a few tit-bits for you.
For instance, this distillery is big. They go through 8 truck-loads -- semi-trucks, not little straight-bed haulers -- of grain every day, five days a week, 10 months a year. The corn's from Kentucky and Indiana, the rye comes mainly from Minnesota, and the barley malt from northern Indiana (which surprises me). The distillery (and the one at Boston) makes only bourbon; they bottle other spirits (they were running Lord Calvert when we were there), but they only make bourbon. There are 70 warehouses (70? 71? Damn, I didn't take my notebook, either!) in four spots within 30 miles; the warehouses include a few single-story 'flathouses', but mostly they're standard 'ironclad' rickhouses, including some new 9-story 50,000 barrel dreadnaughts (see, that's a nautical extension from "ironclad'...).
We tasted a little 68.5% white dog -- corn eau de vie -- and then, in the dump room, some 62.5% Knob Creek, right out of the barrel. It was awesome, sweet and authoritative. We drank that with Booker Noe's toast: "May there be no hell...and if there is, I'll see you there!"
Then it was off to Booker's house in Bardstown for the annual Bourboncue, a lunch that features a short bourbon tasting, lots of stories from Booker's son Fred Noe -- who has become a pretty good story teller, if not the charismatic figure his dad was -- and a bunch of pig meat and fixin's. I like this event, because it's not just bottom-feeding media members like me and a bunch of wholesalers: there's neighbors, some of Fred's buddies from the military high school he attended, and just folks.And the barbecue's pretty damned good -- Bootleg Bar-B-Q, "so good it ought to be illegal," which is beside the liquor store on Bardstown Road where Chuck Cowdery and I stopped Thursday night. It's pulled pork with the sauce already all over it, which purists despise...I et it right up, and had one rib, which was NOT all sauced-up, and was pretty damned good. The beans in pot liquor were PDG too. (Oh, and again, this woman wasn't being eaten by a coyote at the Bourboncue, but it's kind of a funny picture, no?)
I had to run after bolting lunch; had a 2:00 phone interview back at my room. And...I took a corner too sharply -- not too fast, but too sharp -- caught the curb, and ripped the sidewall of the rear tire on my rental crapmobile. I could hear the air hissing out. Damn. I pulled over, locked it, and hustled to the room, cranked up the AC, and did the interview (you'll see that in Massachusetts Beverage Business in November, a pair of single malt sidebars). Then I changed into shorts and a t-shirt, and went and changed the tire. Damn again.
After I got that done, and told the rental company about it (and can't I just wait to find out how much reaming that's going be...), I went out to Heaven Hill's Bourbon Heritage Center, where the lovely (and truly talented) Lynne Grant greeted me. Lynne was lured to Bardstown to create and run the Bourbon Heritage Center after running visitor centers for The Macallan, Famous Grouse, and Highland Park. Lynne gave birth to her first child, Hamish, a week after Bourbon Festival last year; she and her family are traveling to her home in Scotland to show him off tomorrow.
Lynne had a sample of the new limited edition William Heavenhill 225th anniversary bourbon for me. It's 127.6 proof, 18 years and 9 months old, and there are only 225 bottles, selling only at the Center...and they're $500 each. Jaw-dropping. (It was a sample, BTW, not a full bottle. But it was enough that I'll be bringing it with me to some events in the future to share the bounty, so...if you see me, what the hell, ask! Update...already shared 7/8 of the bottle. Sorry.) I got a chance to taste a little later Friday evening, but...I've got work to get done right now, so I'm going to call this a post, and get that done.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Kentucky Bourbon Fest: 105 Minutes of Golf
(My blogging job from the Kentucky Bourbon Festival just got a lot easier: The Parkview Motel now has Wi-Fi!)
I flew out of Philly this morning to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. It's a little odd this year. Usually I fly out, and maybe a quarter to a third are people headed to the Bourbon Festival, and we all land at Louisville and we're happy. This morning? A plane full of freakin' golf fanatics. The woman behind me talked about golf for the entire flight; the guy sitting with her managed to get in a sentence about every three minutes. Good God, I may never say anything about beer geeks again (then again...I probably will).
Landed, got my bag and my rental car (a Mercury Grand Marquis, fergodssake, and after the ride to Philly in Cathy's nimble little Rabbit, it drives like the crapboat it is), and headed for Bardstown. I had a story to finish for...well, it doesn't really matter, does it? I had work to do, and I did it. I should have grabbed a nap, but I didn't.
After I sent in the story, I got ready to head for Louisville for the dinner with Bill Samuels (and a bunch of salesvolk and wholesalers). It was good, although...can't anyone make a cocktail any more? The bartender, a well-meaning and pleasant fellow otherwise, grabbed a cocktail (martini) glass and put it over the metal mixing tumbler to shake the drink. As you might expect, whiskey and bitters (the wrong kind of bitters...) went everywhere. I'm not doing well with cocktails in Louisville.
Dinner was pleasant; no big scoops, most of the talk was about the Ryder Cup (and I discovered that not all Kentuckians are crazy about it: "It's like secret confession time," one woman said. "I don't care either!") and the wicked stiff windstorm on Sunday that still had large parts of Louisville without power (we were supposed to have had the dinner at Bill's home, but he was still out of juice). After dinner was over, Chuck Cowdery drove me back to Bardstown through some of those sections, while we talked about women, whiskey, and advertising -- three separate discussions, if you're interested.
And I had him stop at a liquor store with a parking lot full of bikers (really, about 80 of them) so I could go in and get a pint of Old Fitz and a half of Mellow Corn. After which he dropped me off at the Parkview, and I started typing. And thus, the first day.
I flew out of Philly this morning to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. It's a little odd this year. Usually I fly out, and maybe a quarter to a third are people headed to the Bourbon Festival, and we all land at Louisville and we're happy. This morning? A plane full of freakin' golf fanatics. The woman behind me talked about golf for the entire flight; the guy sitting with her managed to get in a sentence about every three minutes. Good God, I may never say anything about beer geeks again (then again...I probably will).
Landed, got my bag and my rental car (a Mercury Grand Marquis, fergodssake, and after the ride to Philly in Cathy's nimble little Rabbit, it drives like the crapboat it is), and headed for Bardstown. I had a story to finish for...well, it doesn't really matter, does it? I had work to do, and I did it. I should have grabbed a nap, but I didn't.
After I sent in the story, I got ready to head for Louisville for the dinner with Bill Samuels (and a bunch of salesvolk and wholesalers). It was good, although...can't anyone make a cocktail any more? The bartender, a well-meaning and pleasant fellow otherwise, grabbed a cocktail (martini) glass and put it over the metal mixing tumbler to shake the drink. As you might expect, whiskey and bitters (the wrong kind of bitters...) went everywhere. I'm not doing well with cocktails in Louisville.
Dinner was pleasant; no big scoops, most of the talk was about the Ryder Cup (and I discovered that not all Kentuckians are crazy about it: "It's like secret confession time," one woman said. "I don't care either!") and the wicked stiff windstorm on Sunday that still had large parts of Louisville without power (we were supposed to have had the dinner at Bill's home, but he was still out of juice). After dinner was over, Chuck Cowdery drove me back to Bardstown through some of those sections, while we talked about women, whiskey, and advertising -- three separate discussions, if you're interested.
And I had him stop at a liquor store with a parking lot full of bikers (really, about 80 of them) so I could go in and get a pint of Old Fitz and a half of Mellow Corn. After which he dropped me off at the Parkview, and I started typing. And thus, the first day.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Busy, busy, busy
I've got a lot to do today and tomorrow before leaving for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival on Thursday, so I'm going to shove a lot into this post and get back to work.
Let's see...last Friday I got a call from Dean Browne, the big Canadian fella (who, concidentally, I spent some quality time with sipping whiskey at last year's Kentucky Bourbon Festival) who does brewing and all-round stuff at Philadelphia Brewing Co. (while working as a...software wallah of some kind, I'm not clear on that). His third job is brewing for Porterhouse Pub out in Lahaska, which is why he called. Dean has four lagers on at the Pub now, and he asked me if I wanted to come out and taste them. So I did.
Dean lined up four lagers for me: Phightin' Philsner, Left Field, North, and Peacekeeper. All four were clean, well-brewed, and drinkable; a little detail is in order, because I think they maybe need some small tweaks. The Philsner was good -- hoppy, drinkable -- but needed to be crisper; it had a bit too much body for a pils. Left Field was a Vienna style, and I pretty much liked it the way it was, and it was the beer I went for a pint of; could maybe use a bit deeper color, but that's quibbling. North was a dry-hopped deep amber; good, but if you're going to dry-hop, I'd go a bit bigger on that. Peacekeeper is a Baltic porter (named in honor of the Canadian Armed Forces and their usual mission) that was pretty damned good for a 6% Baltic (before any of you go off, there are Baltics in that range); I'd maybe like to see some more attenuation here...but you want some beef to a Baltic, so maybe I'm just being picky. Wouldn't hurt to go a bit bigger and pick up beef that way. Anyway, four good lagers (plus PBC beers like Walt Wit and Kenzinger) makes a good reason to visit Porterhouse (as if the excellent food and sweet ambiance weren't enough). Nice job, Dean; and I only pick cuz you asked.
Yesterday Cathy and I were invited to Iron Hill North Wales to sample their new Oktoberfest two-course Oktoberfest dinner...and hang out with brewer Larry Horwitz on his birthday, since his new wife, Whitney, had to work late. I had a glass of Dunkel, which was delicious: clean, malty, just a hint of chocolate. Two courses: a sausage 'salad' of grilled bratwurst and knockwurst arranged on a nicely done warm lentil salad, with mustard and some kind of watercress-like greens; and roasted pork loin (Iron Hill chefs are pig-meat geniuses) with gingersnap gravy, chunky mashed potatoes, and baby carrots. A very nice meal, quite German (except for those greens!), and perfect with another glass of Dunkel. I had coffee with a piece of apple-raspberry pie we split three ways; also very good, with a sweet streusel topping. Whew. Gonna have to hit the bike trail mid-day.
Later this week, as I said, I'm headed for Kentucky. Dinner with Maker's Mark Man Bill Samuels, the Bourbon Hall of Fame induction ceremony, the Bourbonian Taster of the Year competition, and, of course, The Gala: a full schedule, and I will definitely attempt to blog more of it this year. (Honestly, Sam, the real issue is finding wi-fi in Bardstown!) I'll also be hitting the liquor stores to find only-in-Kentucky bottlings...because I don't have enough bourbon...
And then the following weekend, September 27, Mark and I will be signing New Jersey Breweries at the Borders in Marlton, from 1 to 3 in the afternoon (and you might find me picking up a pizza for dinner at Pietro's, after). Come on out and see us!
Of course...if you do, that means that you, like us, will be missing the Philly Oktoberfest '08, a big gala of German and German-type beers put on at the 23rd Street Armory: food, music, and BEER. Tickets are $45, there's also a $75 VIP ticket, and it runs from 1 to 5 PM (VIP session starts at noon). Get all the info here. Believe me, if I weren't at the booksigning, I'd be there.
Let's see...last Friday I got a call from Dean Browne, the big Canadian fella (who, concidentally, I spent some quality time with sipping whiskey at last year's Kentucky Bourbon Festival) who does brewing and all-round stuff at Philadelphia Brewing Co. (while working as a...software wallah of some kind, I'm not clear on that). His third job is brewing for Porterhouse Pub out in Lahaska, which is why he called. Dean has four lagers on at the Pub now, and he asked me if I wanted to come out and taste them. So I did.
Dean lined up four lagers for me: Phightin' Philsner, Left Field, North, and Peacekeeper. All four were clean, well-brewed, and drinkable; a little detail is in order, because I think they maybe need some small tweaks. The Philsner was good -- hoppy, drinkable -- but needed to be crisper; it had a bit too much body for a pils. Left Field was a Vienna style, and I pretty much liked it the way it was, and it was the beer I went for a pint of; could maybe use a bit deeper color, but that's quibbling. North was a dry-hopped deep amber; good, but if you're going to dry-hop, I'd go a bit bigger on that. Peacekeeper is a Baltic porter (named in honor of the Canadian Armed Forces and their usual mission) that was pretty damned good for a 6% Baltic (before any of you go off, there are Baltics in that range); I'd maybe like to see some more attenuation here...but you want some beef to a Baltic, so maybe I'm just being picky. Wouldn't hurt to go a bit bigger and pick up beef that way. Anyway, four good lagers (plus PBC beers like Walt Wit and Kenzinger) makes a good reason to visit Porterhouse (as if the excellent food and sweet ambiance weren't enough). Nice job, Dean; and I only pick cuz you asked.
Yesterday Cathy and I were invited to Iron Hill North Wales to sample their new Oktoberfest two-course Oktoberfest dinner...and hang out with brewer Larry Horwitz on his birthday, since his new wife, Whitney, had to work late. I had a glass of Dunkel, which was delicious: clean, malty, just a hint of chocolate. Two courses: a sausage 'salad' of grilled bratwurst and knockwurst arranged on a nicely done warm lentil salad, with mustard and some kind of watercress-like greens; and roasted pork loin (Iron Hill chefs are pig-meat geniuses) with gingersnap gravy, chunky mashed potatoes, and baby carrots. A very nice meal, quite German (except for those greens!), and perfect with another glass of Dunkel. I had coffee with a piece of apple-raspberry pie we split three ways; also very good, with a sweet streusel topping. Whew. Gonna have to hit the bike trail mid-day.
Later this week, as I said, I'm headed for Kentucky. Dinner with Maker's Mark Man Bill Samuels, the Bourbon Hall of Fame induction ceremony, the Bourbonian Taster of the Year competition, and, of course, The Gala: a full schedule, and I will definitely attempt to blog more of it this year. (Honestly, Sam, the real issue is finding wi-fi in Bardstown!) I'll also be hitting the liquor stores to find only-in-Kentucky bottlings...because I don't have enough bourbon...
And then the following weekend, September 27, Mark and I will be signing New Jersey Breweries at the Borders in Marlton, from 1 to 3 in the afternoon (and you might find me picking up a pizza for dinner at Pietro's, after). Come on out and see us!
Of course...if you do, that means that you, like us, will be missing the Philly Oktoberfest '08, a big gala of German and German-type beers put on at the 23rd Street Armory: food, music, and BEER. Tickets are $45, there's also a $75 VIP ticket, and it runs from 1 to 5 PM (VIP session starts at noon). Get all the info here. Believe me, if I weren't at the booksigning, I'd be there.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
More Bourbon Festival Coming Soon; sorry for the delay
I have to apologize; I did intend to blog every day when I was in Bardstown for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. But when I went to the Java Joint to upload the two entries you've seen here so far, I couldn't get the WiFi to work. I went at it for a couple cups worth, but no luck. So I stuck the text files on a fly-drive, and took it with me. The warehouse guys at Heaven Hill were nice enough to let me use their office PC to upload them and post some comments. But after that I didn't have much motivation to keep at it; I figured I would be spending my time better by enjoying the perfect weather, the festival, and the bourbon.
So. More to come once I get home. Great time, can't wait to tell you about it.
So. More to come once I get home. Great time, can't wait to tell you about it.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Kentucky Bourbon Fest: a tasting and a distillery tour
Well...
I had a great time with Chris Morris at Brown-Forman. I got in about half an hour late, but got right in the rental car (who knew Corrollas were such cheap pieces of crap, after all the gushing Consumer Reports has done about them?) and headed over to B-F corporate on Dixie Highway. Chris met me at the door, and took me into the bar (yeah, really: is that bourbon country, er what? A beautiful bar right behind the receptionist's desk), and sat me down to taste six glasses of whiskey. I'd missed the massed tasting might of Chuck "Bourbon County Reader" Cowdery (folks say we were separated at birth; I say not separated nearly enough), Mike "Mr. Bourbon History" Veach, and the notables of the local press (Chris actually said a couple of them...weren't bourbon drinkers. Gawd); they'd been in before lunch. Me, I had no lunch, but I tied right into the bourbon.
We had the standard 86 proof Old Forester: nice, not sappy, straight up stuff. Then the 100 proof Old Forester Signature: notably more mature and sophisticated. Then a solid hit of this year's newly released Old Forester Birthday Bourbon. Very nice stuff, with a big minty/spearminty nose with some light fruit notes, followed by mint that stays up in the mouth, then glides into spice and oak, with cinnamon forward, and then sweetening in the finish -- Chris said blackberry, but I think he was 'dog-whistling' me. It was awful good.
The next three were the candidates for next year's Birthday Bourbon. Chris told me that the others had already voted and decided on one, and he agreed, but he didn't tell me which one it was. All three were heavily overproof, 10 and 12 years old and the angels had been sucking the water out of them; Chris had carefully watered them to 100 proof. The first wasn't much on the nose, something Chris said the others had noted, but there was a big, really interesting undertow of anise in the mouth; never tasted that much in a bourbon. Still...cool but one-trick pony time, and if I want anise, I'll drink anisette. The second was good, with oak and spice notes, classically dry in the Old Forester tradition...but you know, so's Old Forester Signature, and I don't see any reason to pay three times as much for it just cuz it's in a neat bottle. The third one, though, a neat nose with carob and dark nibby chocolate notes, and then an extremely lively feel in the mouth, ringing all the bells, a real wowser. This one, I said to Chris, and sure enough, that was the one folks picked by about 3 to 1. I'm looking forward to next year...not that this year's wasn't excellent.
Then he took me on a tour of the big Old Forester/Early Times distillery down in Shively. We did the whole tour, from grain delivery (there was a truckload of corn being dumped and tested when we started the tour) to milling to mashing to fermentation, into the room with the two big column stills, thumpers down below, into the yeast mashing and propagation rooms, and into the cistern room, where everything goes after dumping to get set down to proper proof and tanked to the bottling house up the road. We ran into Brett Pontoni, the whiskey man at Binny's of Chicago and good friend (who's going to be getting in here to the Parkview shortly, and then we'll be drinking...just relaxing with a Poon IPA right now -- thanks, Whole Foods of Louisville!), who had a group of employees and customers going through on a tour.
Then we went over to one of the big brick "cycling" warehouses. Brown-Forman doesn't age their bourbon like most everyone else, at least, not Old Forester, Early Times (and yeah, there is Early Times Bourbon, it turns out, for the export market), and Woodford Reserve. Instead of just letting the bourbon sit in the cold over the winter, resting, they cycle the warehouse temperatures. Chris explained. There are temperature probes in some of the barrels, scattered through the warehouse. Say the temp outside goes down to 20. When the temp in the barrels hits, maybe, 60 (Chris was careful to couch all of this in general hypothetical terms), the heat goes on, and it stays on, until the whiskey gets up to, say, 80, maybe a week, and then the heat goes off until the whiskey gets down to 60 again. Once winter's over, they stop cycling and let nature do its thing. Which, Chris explained, is why with Old Forester and Woodford, they don't talk about the whiskey's age, but about its maturity.
Good stuff! I thanked him, and said good-bye, and headed across the Ohio to the New Albanian Brewing Company, the desmesnes of Rodger Baylor, another old friend. Unfortunately, he wasn't in, at a long meeting elsewhere, and I just et one of his real good pizzas and had a Community Dark (a dark mild, and kind of overdone on the dark malts, IMO), and a Happy Helmut (a nice lightly smoked rye beer that went well with the pizza). Some great beers on tap: three Schlenkerlas, Mahr's Hell (what is it, Franconia Month?), and others I can't remember in my increasing glow.
But then I had a real bad experience. Kind of reminded me of all the bad things that I was trying to forget while being in Kentucky. I went to Proof on Main, a beautiful place where I'd stayed back in June when Brown-Forman flew me out to taste the new Master's Collection Woodfore Reserve. I'd had a Sazerac cocktail that was absolutely one of the best drinks I've ever had, I'd been daydreaming about it ever since, and I wanted another. So I got off I-65 in the middle of Louisville and made my way over, parked and went in, and said, "A Sazerac, please." And the sweet, very pretty bartender told me she didn't think they had any Sazerac right now. Oh, dear. Sure enough, when I told her it was a cocktail, she got out the cocktail book and looked it up. I asked to see it: all wrong, beginning with calling for bourbon, not rye.
Oh, no, this isn't right, I said, and tried to explain. Well, wait, she said, the other bartender will be back in a few minutes, he can make you one. Great, I said, thinking and hoping it would be Chris Lamb, the fellow who'd made the one in June. Well, no. It was some guy with a 1/8" buzzcut and a fakey cowboy shirt, who breezed in and said, no problem, I'll make one. I watched him, and moaned. He took Michter's Rye -- a good start -- and dumped it in a shaker of ice, poured in sour mix (probably house-made, to be fair) and what looked like simple syrup, and shook it. He put a lemon peel garnish on a frosted martini glass, and strained the drink into it: essentially, a rye sour. No Pernod anywhere. Even the recipe in the book was better, if you put rye in instead of the bourbon they ignorantly called for. I'll quote the next bit, because it just...no, it didn't enrage me, it left me limp and disappointed and despairing: "I learned to make them at Harry's Bar in Paris. That's where they were invented." Oh, son of a bitch. A frosted martini glass. No Pernod. And then, just to add insult to injury, it was a dollar more than I'd been charged in June.
Did I say anything? No. Because I just didn't feel like making a scene. Because I was beat down. Because now I knew that if I wanted a Sazerac, almost anywhere, I'd always either be in a game of cocktail roulette, or going to the same tiny number of places where they know shit from Shinola.
Thank God for the absolutely beautiful, wonderful, and restorative drive down Bardstown Road, or I'd still be pissed off.
I had a great time with Chris Morris at Brown-Forman. I got in about half an hour late, but got right in the rental car (who knew Corrollas were such cheap pieces of crap, after all the gushing Consumer Reports has done about them?) and headed over to B-F corporate on Dixie Highway. Chris met me at the door, and took me into the bar (yeah, really: is that bourbon country, er what? A beautiful bar right behind the receptionist's desk), and sat me down to taste six glasses of whiskey. I'd missed the massed tasting might of Chuck "Bourbon County Reader" Cowdery (folks say we were separated at birth; I say not separated nearly enough), Mike "Mr. Bourbon History" Veach, and the notables of the local press (Chris actually said a couple of them...weren't bourbon drinkers. Gawd); they'd been in before lunch. Me, I had no lunch, but I tied right into the bourbon.
We had the standard 86 proof Old Forester: nice, not sappy, straight up stuff. Then the 100 proof Old Forester Signature: notably more mature and sophisticated. Then a solid hit of this year's newly released Old Forester Birthday Bourbon. Very nice stuff, with a big minty/spearminty nose with some light fruit notes, followed by mint that stays up in the mouth, then glides into spice and oak, with cinnamon forward, and then sweetening in the finish -- Chris said blackberry, but I think he was 'dog-whistling' me. It was awful good.
The next three were the candidates for next year's Birthday Bourbon. Chris told me that the others had already voted and decided on one, and he agreed, but he didn't tell me which one it was. All three were heavily overproof, 10 and 12 years old and the angels had been sucking the water out of them; Chris had carefully watered them to 100 proof. The first wasn't much on the nose, something Chris said the others had noted, but there was a big, really interesting undertow of anise in the mouth; never tasted that much in a bourbon. Still...cool but one-trick pony time, and if I want anise, I'll drink anisette. The second was good, with oak and spice notes, classically dry in the Old Forester tradition...but you know, so's Old Forester Signature, and I don't see any reason to pay three times as much for it just cuz it's in a neat bottle. The third one, though, a neat nose with carob and dark nibby chocolate notes, and then an extremely lively feel in the mouth, ringing all the bells, a real wowser. This one, I said to Chris, and sure enough, that was the one folks picked by about 3 to 1. I'm looking forward to next year...not that this year's wasn't excellent.
Then he took me on a tour of the big Old Forester/Early Times distillery down in Shively. We did the whole tour, from grain delivery (there was a truckload of corn being dumped and tested when we started the tour) to milling to mashing to fermentation, into the room with the two big column stills, thumpers down below, into the yeast mashing and propagation rooms, and into the cistern room, where everything goes after dumping to get set down to proper proof and tanked to the bottling house up the road. We ran into Brett Pontoni, the whiskey man at Binny's of Chicago and good friend (who's going to be getting in here to the Parkview shortly, and then we'll be drinking...just relaxing with a Poon IPA right now -- thanks, Whole Foods of Louisville!), who had a group of employees and customers going through on a tour.
Then we went over to one of the big brick "cycling" warehouses. Brown-Forman doesn't age their bourbon like most everyone else, at least, not Old Forester, Early Times (and yeah, there is Early Times Bourbon, it turns out, for the export market), and Woodford Reserve. Instead of just letting the bourbon sit in the cold over the winter, resting, they cycle the warehouse temperatures. Chris explained. There are temperature probes in some of the barrels, scattered through the warehouse. Say the temp outside goes down to 20. When the temp in the barrels hits, maybe, 60 (Chris was careful to couch all of this in general hypothetical terms), the heat goes on, and it stays on, until the whiskey gets up to, say, 80, maybe a week, and then the heat goes off until the whiskey gets down to 60 again. Once winter's over, they stop cycling and let nature do its thing. Which, Chris explained, is why with Old Forester and Woodford, they don't talk about the whiskey's age, but about its maturity.
Good stuff! I thanked him, and said good-bye, and headed across the Ohio to the New Albanian Brewing Company, the desmesnes of Rodger Baylor, another old friend. Unfortunately, he wasn't in, at a long meeting elsewhere, and I just et one of his real good pizzas and had a Community Dark (a dark mild, and kind of overdone on the dark malts, IMO), and a Happy Helmut (a nice lightly smoked rye beer that went well with the pizza). Some great beers on tap: three Schlenkerlas, Mahr's Hell (what is it, Franconia Month?), and others I can't remember in my increasing glow.
But then I had a real bad experience. Kind of reminded me of all the bad things that I was trying to forget while being in Kentucky. I went to Proof on Main, a beautiful place where I'd stayed back in June when Brown-Forman flew me out to taste the new Master's Collection Woodfore Reserve. I'd had a Sazerac cocktail that was absolutely one of the best drinks I've ever had, I'd been daydreaming about it ever since, and I wanted another. So I got off I-65 in the middle of Louisville and made my way over, parked and went in, and said, "A Sazerac, please." And the sweet, very pretty bartender told me she didn't think they had any Sazerac right now. Oh, dear. Sure enough, when I told her it was a cocktail, she got out the cocktail book and looked it up. I asked to see it: all wrong, beginning with calling for bourbon, not rye.
Oh, no, this isn't right, I said, and tried to explain. Well, wait, she said, the other bartender will be back in a few minutes, he can make you one. Great, I said, thinking and hoping it would be Chris Lamb, the fellow who'd made the one in June. Well, no. It was some guy with a 1/8" buzzcut and a fakey cowboy shirt, who breezed in and said, no problem, I'll make one. I watched him, and moaned. He took Michter's Rye -- a good start -- and dumped it in a shaker of ice, poured in sour mix (probably house-made, to be fair) and what looked like simple syrup, and shook it. He put a lemon peel garnish on a frosted martini glass, and strained the drink into it: essentially, a rye sour. No Pernod anywhere. Even the recipe in the book was better, if you put rye in instead of the bourbon they ignorantly called for. I'll quote the next bit, because it just...no, it didn't enrage me, it left me limp and disappointed and despairing: "I learned to make them at Harry's Bar in Paris. That's where they were invented." Oh, son of a bitch. A frosted martini glass. No Pernod. And then, just to add insult to injury, it was a dollar more than I'd been charged in June.
Did I say anything? No. Because I just didn't feel like making a scene. Because I was beat down. Because now I knew that if I wanted a Sazerac, almost anywhere, I'd always either be in a game of cocktail roulette, or going to the same tiny number of places where they know shit from Shinola.
Thank God for the absolutely beautiful, wonderful, and restorative drive down Bardstown Road, or I'd still be pissed off.
Kentucky Bourbon Fest: I'm on my way
Anticipation.
I'm at Philadelphia International, waiting for my flight to Louisville, now 45 minutes late and counting. I'm headed for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival for, I think, my fifth time. I'm on my own, representing Malt Advocate, and since my schedule was my own, I made the most of it.
I'm touring Brown-Foreman's Louisville distillery this afternoon (assuming my flight gets in on time!), making an enjoyably obligatory stop at Rich O's and the New Albanian Brewing Company, and stocking up on beer (beer's essential when you're drinking bourbon...) at the Louisville Liquor Barn before heading south to Bardstown. Tomorrow I'll be at Four Roses, the Heaven Hill Bourbon Heritage Center, this year's Bourbon Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Maker's Mark, and then dinner at Heaven Hill's Bourbon, Cigars and Jazz event. Saturday I'll be at the bourbon breakfast, the barrel races, blogging my brains out all afternoon, and then going to the Gala, where I got a seat at the Buffalo Trace table this year -- out of the press ghetto at last!
And of course, I'll be hanging out every night with fellow bourbon lovers, drinking and talking and laughing well into the night. By now, I go into this knowing that when I leave Sunday morning, I'll be wrung out, exhausted, maybe a bit achey even...and I'll be grinning. Because one of the things I look forward to most when I go to Kentucky is shedding the subtle, clenching tension I feel, almost unconciously, every drinking moment of my life, because I am a bourbon drinker.
Even now, in an era when bourbon is reclaiming American hearts and minds, just saying the word "bourbon" can still make people giggle. It's not taken serious, it's something yahoos knock back in untemperate amounts, something Grampa spills down his beard and shirt as he rocks on the porch, something you have to mix with Coke to make palatable. It's something that way too many bartenders still do not understand, probably because way too many bars still do not stock proper selections -- I can't tell you how much it galls me when I see a backbar selection of 20 vodkas and 4 bourbons. Bartenders don't know how to make any proper bourbon cocktails -- and for God's sake, don't even think about rye. (Yeah, I know, there are exceptions, and it's getting better, much better, but just like better beer, you still have to know where to go.)
Except when I land in Kentucky. The unfelt weight slips away, and I realize I've been carrying it, and feel free. I breathe easy. I walk with a relaxed but jaunty step. I'm home, I'm with my people, and bourbon is no longer a funny word, it's a no-shit staple of life. I still remember my last pre-9/11 flight out of Louisville, when I opened up my carry-on for inspection and the old fellow doing the job widened his eyes at the five bottles I had stuffed in there and asked me, "Can't you get this back home?" We laughed, and I explained that I couldn't, but luckily I was able to do something about that!
So I'm looking forward to relaxing...and having some bourbon. Sorry I haven't been able to write as much about bourbon as I'd planned to this month, this National Bourbon Heritage Month; I had some big pieces to work on, and I was kind of thrown of track by the kids going back to school and the shock of Michael Jackson's sudden death. Hang on: you'll get plenty in the next five days.
I'm at Philadelphia International, waiting for my flight to Louisville, now 45 minutes late and counting. I'm headed for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival for, I think, my fifth time. I'm on my own, representing Malt Advocate, and since my schedule was my own, I made the most of it.
I'm touring Brown-Foreman's Louisville distillery this afternoon (assuming my flight gets in on time!), making an enjoyably obligatory stop at Rich O's and the New Albanian Brewing Company, and stocking up on beer (beer's essential when you're drinking bourbon...) at the Louisville Liquor Barn before heading south to Bardstown. Tomorrow I'll be at Four Roses, the Heaven Hill Bourbon Heritage Center, this year's Bourbon Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Maker's Mark, and then dinner at Heaven Hill's Bourbon, Cigars and Jazz event. Saturday I'll be at the bourbon breakfast, the barrel races, blogging my brains out all afternoon, and then going to the Gala, where I got a seat at the Buffalo Trace table this year -- out of the press ghetto at last!
And of course, I'll be hanging out every night with fellow bourbon lovers, drinking and talking and laughing well into the night. By now, I go into this knowing that when I leave Sunday morning, I'll be wrung out, exhausted, maybe a bit achey even...and I'll be grinning. Because one of the things I look forward to most when I go to Kentucky is shedding the subtle, clenching tension I feel, almost unconciously, every drinking moment of my life, because I am a bourbon drinker.
Even now, in an era when bourbon is reclaiming American hearts and minds, just saying the word "bourbon" can still make people giggle. It's not taken serious, it's something yahoos knock back in untemperate amounts, something Grampa spills down his beard and shirt as he rocks on the porch, something you have to mix with Coke to make palatable. It's something that way too many bartenders still do not understand, probably because way too many bars still do not stock proper selections -- I can't tell you how much it galls me when I see a backbar selection of 20 vodkas and 4 bourbons. Bartenders don't know how to make any proper bourbon cocktails -- and for God's sake, don't even think about rye. (Yeah, I know, there are exceptions, and it's getting better, much better, but just like better beer, you still have to know where to go.)
Except when I land in Kentucky. The unfelt weight slips away, and I realize I've been carrying it, and feel free. I breathe easy. I walk with a relaxed but jaunty step. I'm home, I'm with my people, and bourbon is no longer a funny word, it's a no-shit staple of life. I still remember my last pre-9/11 flight out of Louisville, when I opened up my carry-on for inspection and the old fellow doing the job widened his eyes at the five bottles I had stuffed in there and asked me, "Can't you get this back home?" We laughed, and I explained that I couldn't, but luckily I was able to do something about that!
So I'm looking forward to relaxing...and having some bourbon. Sorry I haven't been able to write as much about bourbon as I'd planned to this month, this National Bourbon Heritage Month; I had some big pieces to work on, and I was kind of thrown of track by the kids going back to school and the shock of Michael Jackson's sudden death. Hang on: you'll get plenty in the next five days.
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