Readers' Collections

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New pictures on our website! (headlines at eleven??)

Anyone interested can check out the new page by clicking the link under my signature here. The music on the Table of Contents page is more upbeat, now. Select the last link to see new photos of our collection. Those who were at the Bourbon Festival already saw prints of these (Linda proudly whipped them out for anyone who'd pause long enough for her to get her purse open). Although they're fairly decent sized, they're active thumbnails and clicking them will display even larger, more detailed pictures. I got rid of the list; it was really difficult to maintain (which means it was last updated several months ago) and it looked like one of those stupid inventory lists some stores seem to delight in posting to web pages. By the way, now you know where the slower, jazzy version of Little Brown Jug went.

=John=
http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey

[kitzg]

COOL....

[kitzg]

John, do you know the age of the Old Cabin Still decanter you've got in the photo between the Old Grand Dad decanter and the Old Mill Spring (or whatever it says)? I have one of those (without the bourbon in it) and wondered about the age.

Greg

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Hi Greg!

No, but Julian probably could tell you. I'm pretty sure it was from back when Stitzel-Weller made this bourbon. It's a commemmorative, not an antique, and I think it may have originally had a paper label on the other side. Ninety percent of my bottles contain original product (which includes anything you'd actually drink from, of course), but a few of the lovely glass back-bar decanters just look silly without liquor in them. In those cases (the Old Cabin Still being one), I've at least had the decency to fill it with current Cabin Still whiskey and not colored water. Now, if I ever got hold of a bottle of real S-W Old Cabin Still, and the label was too badly mutilated to display (which, as you can see, would require a lot of mutilation), I'd dump the contents into the decanter. I've already done that with one or two.

=John=
http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey

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John you have a big and beautiful collection,however it seems to me that your bottles are far too full.

Linn Spencer

Have Shotglass. Will Travel.

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Greg,
That Cabin Still decanter is a reproduction of a typical bar decanter that was issued in the late 1960's or early 1970's. If you go to the library or local bookstore and get Kovels' Bottle Collecting Guide it should be in there with an exact date.
Mike Veach

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John and Linda,
Great Collection!!! I do have to warn you that you do make a tempting target with all of that fine old bourbon. You may find me knocking on the door one day glass in hand.
Mike Veach

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Very Nice! So many choices, so little time......

[bourbonmed]

John,

Congratulations. Amazing collection --- you should consider holding a bourbon festival on your own. Don't let your homeowner's insurance company see the photos, they may not want to insure the Lipman distillery.

I noticed a bottle of 'Lot 40' and 'Pike' something, both Canadian products, I believe. Care to share your taste notes on those? Are they similar to bourbon? I haven't seen those bottles locally.

I did see Buffalo Trace. How do you like it?

Also, do you have Evan Williams 1783 in your collection? I hear it's a pretty good, inexpensive product.

Omar

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Hi Omar!

In our collection, we have what I call "reference" products. They include a couple bottles of Scotch, Irish, American Blended, and Canadian. They're all good ones. The blendeds are Kesslers and Seven Crown, the Irish are Tyconnerrel and Tullamore Dew, the Scotches are Aberlour and Ardbeg. The Canadian whiskeys are Pike Creek and Lot No. 40, which (along with Gooderham & Worts) make up Corbys' version of Jim Beam's Small Batch Bourbons. They're close to impossible to find in the U.S. (although I think they're on the verge of breaking; they can be found in some select areas). Pike Creek doesn't impress me at all. I'd call it typical Canadian. Lot No. 40 is an entirely different matter. I think very highly of that whiskey. If you enjoy the Pennsylvania type of creamy rye, particularly Old Overholt, you would love it. Remember that not all the Monongohela whiskeymakers went down the river to Kentucky after the whiskey rebellion; those who weren't all that happy about leaving Mother England to begin with travelled north to Ontario. That's the basis for this rye whiskey. There's more about it in the Rye topic here.

I really enjoy Buffalo Trace. They've managed to capture what I call the "old whiskey" flavor really well. The taste reminds me of the way a freshly plowed field of really rich soil smells. That's why I don't like taste descriptions... I meant that as a high compliment, but someone out there will think, "gee, John says it tastes dirty". Oh well. If you haven't tried this one yet, shame on you. :-)

=John=
http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey

[kitzg]

Quick comment. John was kind enough to share Lot 40 with us. I heartily agree -- a great rye-based product (though VanWinkle Family Reserve 13 yr. is my hands-down favorite actual Rye whiskey). In addition, John let Jo and I taste Buffalo Trace. While I'm willing to try it again (and I certainly thank John for sharing), what John calls "freshly plowed field" came across as musty to us. But as I've often said, everyone's taste buds are different. Thought you might want to read what my taste buds thought before you ran to the store to buy BT.

Greg

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I have heard others talk of the "mustiness" in Buffalo Trace but I have never experienced that flavor in the product. It makes me wonder if they have a quality control problem because musty whiskey is generally considered a bad thing. After all the reason they have all of those wonderful racks in the warehouses is to improve the air circulation preventing musty bourbon.
Mike Veach

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"Look my way,
And a thousand violins begin..."

(Oops! sorry)

=John=
http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey

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You had it right off the bat. Thedford is marketed by McKendric, those wonderful people who brought us the mesquite-flavored McKendric Western Whiskey that inspired philosophical discussions on just how far you can go and still call your product "bourbon". Not quite that far, apparently; they don't call it that, which I appreciate because it allows me to continue saying "there are no 'bad' bourbons", which I could NOT do if they called that crap "bourbon". Of course, they don't say where it came from, but then neither does Julian.

To be perfectly fair, Islay Malt Scotch is also filled with a characteristic burnt flavor (they call it smokey; I say "Sure, like eating a Lox and used-cigar sandwich with your whiskey"). Perhaps people who really appreciate Ardbeg and Leapfrog would find McKendric less offensive than I do.

McKendric also markets another brand, Longhorn Creek (just like the whiskey they made at the good ol' Alamo, between the seiges and the massacres). It's also mesquite-flavored, but apparently not the same as the Western Whiskey. Maybe it's Tennessee whiskey like good ol' Davy Crockett used to drink, I dunno. I've never had the opportunity to avoid that one. The McKendric website is at http://www.mckendricwhiskey.com. A search of that site shows no reference (even hidden, as far as I can tell) to Josiah Thedford.

Actually, although there certainly wasn't any bourbon in colonial times, there WAS whiskey being produced in Kentucky then. I suppose most of it was pretty crude, really. Hot, stark, and not aged very much more than the time it took to get it to a market (maybe a few months at the most). Farmer/distiller whiskey wasn't really the same thing as "bourbon", which (I believe) was a liquor produced FROM whiskey, by riverside-based marketers who bought the raw whiskey, in whatever containers it arrived in, from the inland farmer/distillers, dumped it into new charred oak barrels, and stored it in their warehouses until (1) it had turned red and mellowed out a bit, and (2) the river's level had risen high enough to ship it downriver to New Orleans where French people bought it as a type of American cognac. I doubt that anyone called it "whiskey" until the laws came around that defined anything distilled from grain as "whiskey". So anyway, much as we might hate to admit it (since Thedford and it's ludicrous "history" really is strictly a marketing gimmick), their whiskey might be pretty close to the "real thing".


=John=
http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey