Sazerac (6- to 7yo) Rye

Name: Sazerac Straight Rye Whiskey
Proof: 90
Cost: $27.52 after sales tax in Middle Tennessee
Distillery: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY
Bottle: 1890's-style 10-sided barrel with long, narrow neck and wooden-topped cork stopper. The white-lettered front label is stencil-screened onto the glass; the back label is clear stick-on. See picture below.
Appearance: Orange-amber hue, with uniform 'legs'.
Nose: Unique combination of cinnamon tinged with orange-y citrus. Some vanilla slides in, but the chief sensations alternate between the Red Hots and citrus. Hints of a summer garden, but herbs, not flowers.
Taste: Orange marmalade caramels. Light, but pleasant, heat, cinnamony-fresh. Young leather at the end. In that order, from front to back. To mix the flavors, just roll it around in your mouth. Mouthwash-fresh.
Finish: A definite presence, but with medium heat and length. Very clean and freshening.
Conclusions: Wow! I like this better than I realized the first couple of times I poured it. Both the aromas and flavors are very well-balanced and, while not muscular and forward, are nonetheless pleasing and integrated. This is a whiskey with 'flow', a sense of progression like a passenger train -- you are going to get to your destination from the time you board, but the scenery enjoyably changes en route.
I dropped a Maraschino cherry and its pre-mixed quasi-Manhattan juice in the last ounce or so, and it makes a noticably spicy cocktail. It holds up to the added sweetness quite well, providing a pleasing contrast. I suspect the label's claim that "This rye whiskey is the perfect choice to make the Sazerac Cocktail, America's First Cocktail" is something more than mere marketing.
Well done again, Buffalo Trace! http://www.straightbourbon.com/forum...lins/toast.gif

I know a lot of you think Gary is crazy, with his vatting experiments and all http://www.straightbourbon.com/forum...mlins/grin.gif, but I was perhaps one of his earliest converts after an entertaining and instructive discussion in the Bardstown Gazebo one evening.
Well, Gillmanizing was reborn in my glass again tonight on a whim, after I'd finished a 'formal' tasting of the new, young Sazerac rye (see above) -- to which I decided to add an equal part of the new Bernheim Original straight wheat. Call it the ultimate "Un-bourbon" -- two straights that don't take a turn for the worse.
Again, I ask -- as I did after vatting some Van Winkle rye with the Bernheim earlier -- 'Is this what Woodford Reserve was trying for with the 4-grain bourbon?'. Maybe the trick is to not worry about it being straight -- because, as with my earlier rye-wheat vatting, this is very good, I think. I don't think that about the WR Four-Grain.
If somebody has some Four-Grain to spare for a taste-off, I'm inviting Gary to be the judge of the "Distill or Vat? 4-Grain Shootout" at April's Sampler Gazebo.

What about Corner Creek?

Tim, as with all your reviews, I was simply mesmerized. I mean, you put me there. I can see it. I can taste it. Now I can't wait to have some in my glass. Thanks!!! http://www.straightbourbon.com/forum...lins/toast.gif

Ken

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What about Corner Creek?

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Many here believe that the reference to four grains on the Corner Creek bottling is the whimsy of some overzealous and -- well, to put it bluntly -- ignorant copywriter who didn't know any better, and that it's not actually four-grain.
Even if it does, indeed, include all four grains -- wheat, rye, corn and barley -- the corn is at least 51%, making it straight bourbon, and the wheat and rye bourbons were most likely 'married' after unbarreling, not distilled together, as was the Woodford Reserve effort.
The referenced rye-wheat, 'single-glass' vatting(s) of mine above would not be bourbon, since neither the rye nor the wheat were.

True that.

Tim,

I found your post much more enjoyable than any liquor while I'm in my present condition. (Sniffle, snort. Ha-a-a-ack! Groan. Wheeze. Stagger. Ker-plop.)

I'll look for the new Saz the next time I happen to be in a sufficiently civilized locale.

Just one question, though. I want to be clear about your use of imagery, as follows:

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a sense of progression like a passenger train

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Would that be a passenger train gliding nonchalantly across the Great Plains or one charging headlong into a darkened tunnel? http://www.straightbourbon.com/forum...mlins/grin.gif

Yours truly,
Dave Morefield

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...Just one question, though. I want to be clear about your use of imagery, as follows:

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a sense of progression like a passenger train

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Would that be a passenger train gliding nonchalantly across the Great Plains or one charging headlong into a darkened tunnel? http://www.straightbourbon.com/forum...mlins/grin.gif

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Dave, that's that change of scenery I'm talking about -- all that rye grass and grain as you pass over the Plains, and that dark tunnel once you've drunk too much! http://www.straightbourbon.com/forum.../icon_pidu.gif

Do I hear a train whistle?
Ed

If I saw that bottle, empty lying beside the tracks I would have to think it had been there for 90 years. Good call resurrecting that glass BT. I always enjoy seeing the old bottles in that style at the Getz.