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maybe,but if that is the case bourbon is going to get a run for its money as manufacturers experiment with putting whiskey up in all kinds of barrels to get different flavor profiles, and it will be cheaper for them as they will be able to use the barrels over and over. I had thought a la scotch and early times,the only amerrican whiskey I know that uses old barrels,that you would get a very light whisket,both in color and flavor if you reused barrels.
As Lincoln supposedly wrote in his one and only book review, "if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you will like." If people want to make high proof whiskey, age it in used cooperage, and add flavorings and colorings, more power to them. If anyone wants to drink that sort of thing, they can be my guest, but I don't think bourbon or other American straight whiskey styles will be particularly threatened. It's a different animal.
Back when vodka was first becoming popular, in the 1960s, several whiskey companies invested a lot of money in the technology to make something called "light whiskey." It was a huge bomb. Why should someone who doesn't like the taste of whiskey choose something that tastes a little bit like whiskey over something (vodka) that doesn't taste at all like whiskey and doesn't, in fact, taste much like anything at all?
More praise for Michter's.
http://www.nj.com/living/ledger/inde...7840248290.xml
Omar
Although typically ill-informed, the article makes an interesting point. The absurdity of all these people who claim to be using 200-year-old recipes (e.g., Jim Beam, Bulleit) is that whiskey the way they made it 200 years ago would have tasted like crap compared to what we have today.
Yes, and let me try to indicate what I think is misinformed or at least incomplete. Michter's was certainly used as the name of the whiskey in the post-Pro era before 1975, in fact I am sure from the day Forman sold the whiskey it was branded as Michter's. The distillery itself was called, I believe, Pennco, but Michter's was used to style the whiskey. Second, the Michter name certainly was associated to the one and same distillery that Bomberger owned. There was a series of families with German-derived names that owned the distillery and at some point Michter's was one of them.
The information that the unblended whiskey is aged in (presumably new) charred wood is interesting because it comes with the tidbit that a straight whiskey formula was used except with less than 51% corn. Michael Jackson wrote in 1988 that Michter's used in the mash 50% corn, 38% rye and the remainder barley malt. It sounds like Chatham may have known this. Apart from being told that, possibly, when they acquired the trademark rights Jackson's 1988 World Guide To Whisky stated what the mashbill of Michter's Original Sour Mash Whiskey was. So the unblended Michter's may be reproducing the Michter's taste as it was before the distillery closed in the mid-1980's. Chatham knows of Hirsch (being long-aged 1974 Michter's distillate) and perhaps tried to duplicate the flavor allowing of course for the Hirsch version being much older. I thought the current Unblended Michter's was from a bourbon mash but aged in plain wood; it turns out to be something of the obverse: a non-bourbon mash distillate aged in new charred oak.
The Revolutionary reference is wrong not just because at the time whiskey was drunk young but because whiskey then, certainly in Pennsylvania and at Mount Vernon, was made mostly from rye. Washington used about 64% rye according to the research reported by Mike Veach as I recall.
How could reducing the (mild) corn element in the current Unblended Michter's reduce the "bite"? Something doesn't make sense here, what about the non-corn grains in there, especially the rye (which provides a lot of taste, so if bite is to be reduced one would think rye content would be reduced, not corn).
Anyway, it is good to see attention being given to various kinds of whiskey albeit the story sounds a bit disjointed and wrong in certain particulars.
Gary
Here is my common sense take on Michners. It is not distilled and bottled by the same people,so it has to be bought from someone.It is not a big enough brand for it to be made to some esoteric formulation,so I suspect that it has a bourbon mashbill. The label says that it is matured in '...bourbon-soaked white oak barrels.' To me that means used cooperage. Michners flavor is different from other bourbons or Kentucky Whiskies. It is different enough for me to believe that the statement that '..it is further mellowed by..signature filtration.' is code for some form of flavoring being added to the whiskey before it is bottled bottled. Maybe someone in the know will devulge more .
Your decoding is very astute.
I had the chance to taste this whiskey, finally. A very interesting product. I can't fathom what that "signature filtration" might be. The words don't literally refer to any kind of flavoring, which is not to say it isn't flavored. The reference in the labelling to bourbon-soaked cooperage clearly denotes reused bourbon barrels, I agree. The taste reveals a clear rye edge, this whiskey derives from a high rye mash, whatever its origin. The flavour is rather unlike bourbon. The full-bore barrel character of bourbon is missing, but there is a strong woody character at the same time. It reminds me of the kind of rummy Canadian whiskey that some makers here once put out (e.g. Captain's Table, if anyone remembers that one) mixed with an older rye-recipe bourbon. Say, Trace blended with CC 15 year old with a shot of old rum thrown in. There is a persistent sweetness that may indicate flavouring of some kind, but I don't think it is sweetened or flavored. I find ice improves this one, brings out the taste. Taken neat, it shows some jagged ("granular") edges but still is tasty. A one-off, and it adds variety to the scene.
Gary