Wheated bourbons

Greetings from Boston, home of the Bourbon Boys. We love wheated bourbons, especially Van Winkle's
Does anyone on the website know if the following bourbons are wheated:
VanWinkles 12 year old "lot B"
VanWinkles 20 year old
Van Winkles 23 year old.
Jim Murray, author of several whiskey books says that the 20 and 23 year olds are not wheated. It was our understanding that all theVan Winkles were the same wheated recipe only aged for different times. Any info on this will be greatly appreciated.

The man himself, Julian VanWinkle III, participates in this forum, so he can tell you for himself, but I am quite sure that all of the whiskey he bottles under the VanWinkle name is wheated.

--Chuck Cowdery

I should have said "all of the bourbon he bottles under the VanWinkle name is wheated," since obviously the Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye is not wheated.

--Chuck Cowdery

Julian makes some of the finest bourbon on earth. However, if I understand my conversation this past weekend with him, the 20 yr old was not wheated nor was the 23 yr old. The new 20 yr old coming out soon is wheated.

As Chuck said, Julian will undoubtedly read all this. I'm fairly certain I understood correctly.

Greg

Hi Bourbon boys.
Greg is correct. My original 20-Year "Pappy", which I am out of, was un-wheated as is the 23-year "Pappy". The new 20-year "Pappy" coming out this December is wheated. It is the same distillation as my 10, 12 & 15 year Bourbons. This will be the first time this particular distillation has been bottled at 20-years old, and it is wonderfull-if I do say so myself!
Julian

Trust me, Julian, you sure aren't by yourself! The New Pappy is one outstanding bourbon. Linda & I spent Friday evening at D.Marie's with Mike, Greg, and Jo (sorry to have missed you and Sally) sipping (among many other things) their sample of the new bourbon. We'll be adding a new page to our website about that and Mike's tour of the Shively distilleries soon, and the following about the new Pappy Van Winkle 20-year-old is a quote from it...

"...you don't even have to drink this bourbon to be blown away by it; you need only pass the glass under your nose every once in awhile. Jo's comment after tasting her first sip (this time around that is; it's the second time she's tasted it) is just simply, 'WOW!'. *Well, that pretty much captures everyone's opinion."

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

One comment. The world misses the real Pappy, the man - for good reason. A great man. The world of bourbon lovers should miss the old Pappy Van Winkle's 20 yr. old but welcome the new Pappy 20 yr old with open arms. Can we really go from ecstasy to sublime? We think so.

Greg

While I can not answer whether all the Van Winkle's are wheated, I can tell you about the most magnificent wheated bourbon I have ever encountered. I recently toured the Buffalo Trace distillery and met bourbon brand manager, Ken Weber. He showed me a bottle of W.L.Weller 19 year old wheated bourbon. The package is an eloquent Arian wine bottle complete with hand written labels showing the distilled and bottled dates. A scripted name is printed on the bottle and a back paper label tells the story of this marvelous whiskey.
So moved was I, that I asked for a private tasting and he took me to his office in the stately Stony Point mansion (home of Col. Albert B. Blanton) and poured me a small sample. This is what legends are made of. With only 300 cases being produced, the world may never know what the absolute best tastes like. I have already contacted my favorite package store and signed up for the first available bottle.

I trust everyone else is as delighted as I am to have a Buffalo Trace representative in our midst.

--Chuck Cowdery

Ken,"WOW!!! ",is all I can say. It seems a shame that this is such a limited production run that few of us will get the chance to experience what may be "The Ultimate Bourbon". While it is obvious that personal taste is going to rule when anyone votes what is the all time best, I wonder what our webmates would vote as "The Ultimate Bourbon". This could be a lot of fun or it could start another war.
I guess I am biased, but I have to say that wheated boubons have another level of class that non-wheated spirits can't touch. If
adding more wheat to the mashbill can work such magic, why haven't more distillers become aware of this secret? Has Julian Van Winkle, like The Shadow achieved the "power to cloud mens' minds", so that he has staked out this lofty summit of bourbondom and kept it to himself?