the last two inches of whiskey in both the BTAC Stagg and Handy bottles are some of my favorite bourbon and rye treats, when all of the bits have settled at the bottom, and its super chewy in mouth feel and just packed with flavor.

Couple of things on my mind.

We should police ourselves in regards to the number of threads on bourbon. There were /are three in the two front pages of the lair and lounge. I know the boss could lock them but we could make this one the official bourbon thread.

In regards to storing bourbon, my wife found my bourbon bunker and the conversation went something like this;

Wife: I think you have a drinking problem
Me: why would you say that
Wife: you have bottles of liquor in the cabinet in the basement
Me: that's not liquor it's bourbon
Wife:
Me: those are bottles I like to drink and will not find. When I see one I like I know it will not be in the store next week so I buy it. The cabinet up here in the kitchen is full.
Wife: you are a bourbon queer

Yeah, my wife has commented on the number of bottles I have, but I have more than she thinks just like my SIG's. One of her cousins, also a bourbon drinker, came for a visit and they raided my collection while I was out of town. They sampled a lot of them, so she can't really object too much now.

Nice score on the Sazerac. I love that stuff and it's never available anywhere near me.

So I picked up a bottle of the Stagg jr tonight. Wow. It's fantastic. Thank you Sig Forum for continuing to separate me from my cash!

quote:

Originally posted by GA Gator:

Wife: you are a bourbon queer

lol. I think you should change your CUT to bourbon queer.

Just received an interesting email from BT about news recent developments at the distillery. This part was pretty amazing:

"Please be warned that finding a bottle of this year’s batch of George T. Stagg will be harder than ever. This batch contained 128 barrels, a similar size batch as in previous years. Unfortunately these barrels yielded very little whiskey. Some of the barrels were nearly empty, containing only 1 or 2 gallons. Storage location of these barrels varied across a number of warehouses and several floors, but 84% of the original whiskey was lost to evaporation."

That translates to only 848 gallons of Stagg, by my math, or only about 4280 bottles available this year. The angels were thirsty this year.

(sad face)

I had ocean age 2 tonight. Good. Not 73 dollars good. Will retry this weekend

It will be interesting to see how it tastes to you next time. For me, some days bourbon tastes better than others, and while that may well be true of a lot of food and drink, for some reason it's much more obvious to me with bourbon. Last night I had some Old Forrester 100 I am purging from my bar, and was surprised that it tasted pretty good. I even had a second just to make sure. But, I've sampled this same bottle before when the flavor did nothing for me. I used to think the bourbon changed as it was exposed to oxygen, but now I think it's just me.

Just found a 1.75 of willet!!!! Been looking a few years. Hope its good! Have to get it in MO.

Which Willett?

Elijah Craig 23 hit the stores here. Virginia was allocated a total of 45 bottles, and 2 of them are on reserve for one guy at a local store. What a stupid system.

Pot still reserve. Big ole fancy bottle. 7/117 barrel 115.

I read reviews on ec23. Or whichever one. Said its not worth 200 super woody. Of course naturally in a barrel that long. I think it was the breaking bourbon blog. Anyone can attest here?

Ok maybe it was the 21 yr. Everyones tastes are different but...

http://www.breakingbourbon.com...h-craig-23-year.html

For me, almost all Bourbon over about 18yrs is over-aged and too woody.

EC12 gets it right. I don't care for the 18 and 23yo expressions, though I hear this new batch of 23 isn't particularly woody, so who knows, maybe it'll be an exception. There are some, the Willett Ryes in the 21 and 23yo range are excellent. But in general... like, Pappy 20 is great (not hundreds of dollars a bottle great), but the 15 and 12 are better, and I don't like the 23yo Pappy.

different strokes.

I don't even bother with the Ocean Aged and such variations. there are too many delicious, basic Bourbons and Ryes out there for me to even fiddle with the Angels Envys of the world. every time Bourbon takes a step closer to the Scotch world it's a mistake, IMO. keep it simple...

Agreed on going towards scotch. Terrible idear.

I didnt get the angels envy hype i have a 3/4 bottle on my bar i likely wont touch anytime soon.

I do disagree with ur avatar 46n2. I keep saying to myself whos this new guy??? Oh never mind, lol.

I'm not yet satisfied with the new avatar.

Not only is it different, it's also too unclear/fuzzy.

I'm still working on some alternatives.

Thanks for the review, Deqlyn. Checking out other reviews, there are others not quite so harsh, but most damn with faint praise. Good to know I didn't really miss anything. Still hate Virginia's system. I, too, am not a fan of very woody bourbon. The oldest bourbon I have is the 20 year old Barterhouse, which is not particularly woody considering.

Any time, how's the barterhouse orphan barrel bernheim stuff? I havent done it yet. I like that guys review page. I check others too so as not to waste money. Of course plenty of good comments on sigforum.

Trying to keep my bourbon posts to this thread now.

quote:

Originally posted by jigray3:
Thanks for the review, Deqlyn. Checking out other reviews, there are others not quite so harsh, but most damn with faint praise. Good to know I didn't really miss anything. Still hate Virginia's system. I, too, am not a fan of very woody bourbon. The oldest bourbon I have is the 20 year old Barterhouse, which is not particularly woody considering.

agreed on the fine ABC System we have in Va,

IIRC, you mentioned travel to NOVA on business,

have you ever stopped over in Md or DC and tried a few liquor stores?

I'm in DC every now and again, but never seem to be there when they are open, or have time to stop,

wondering if there is a better price, or selection...


FWIW, I have been to several NC stores, and they use the same system we do,, state controlled