How much Hirsch 16 yr old is left?

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Originally Posted by cowdery

but everything since 1993 has come from stainless steel. That's most of the 16-year-old and all of the gold foil.

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Chuck, do you happen to know how much of an affect, if any, the steel has on the flavor of the bourbon?

I saw a bunch today for 129.99

I saw some the other day for 79.99.

I saw some a month ago for 29.99. A bottle of it was my thanksgiving bourbon. It reminds me of Old Overholt.

Over here Hirsch 16 ranges from $150 Aus to $195 Aus. All gold foil. Doubt very much if any of the wax varients would have ever hit our shores.

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Originally Posted by NickAtMartinis

Chuck, do you happen to know how much of an affect, if any, the steel has on the flavor of the bourbon?

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Zero. The whole idea of dumping it into stainless is to get it away from the wood to stop it from getting any woodier. In stainless it is pretty much the same as it is in the bottle, inert.

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Originally Posted by TroyM

Over here Hirsch 16 ranges from $150 Aus to $195 Aus. All gold foil. Doubt very much if any of the wax varients would have ever hit our shores.

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They probably did hit your shores but 15 years ago or more, when they were made.

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Originally Posted by cowdery

...In stainless it is pretty much the same as it is in the bottle...

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Yep, but does it change over time?

We know that whiskey changes in a glass left out overnight and a bottle with a goodly amount of airspace will change if left for a period of years. When I asked about BT's stainless tanks I was told that they have no special measure to prevent an airspace - so if the tank is half empty, it's half airspace, and allows for a lot of interaction.

Roger

PS - I think Chuck's use of the term "inert" was quite on the spot. Dictionary.com references use phrases like "sluggish by habit or nature" or "not readily reactive with other elements" to define inert. Inert doesn't mean unchangeable, but rather slow to change.

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Originally Posted by cowdery

Zero. The whole idea of dumping it into stainless is to get it away from the wood to stop it from getting any woodier. In stainless it is pretty much the same as it is in the bottle, inert.

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Thanks. I'm still a bit surprised that there is no flavor carry-over.

I have a bottle open (I'm drinking some now) and one bottle bunkered from when I was told it wouldn't be available anymore--that was about a year ago. I'm pretty sure I saw about 6 bottles the other night at Sam's HP.

All I can say is: Makes Pappy 20 at around $90 a pretty good buy.

These are the sorts of things that only raise further questions.

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Originally Posted by cowdery

When I spoke to the Preiss folks a little more than a year ago, they had 500 cases in their inventory. It probably will continue to be available, but the price will go nowhere but up.

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Let me state unequivocally, I have NO doubt your account of the events / discussion is accurate, Chuck.

Take a look at what Henry Preiss said June 15, 2004 (at 5:29PM to be exact):

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Originally there was about 54,000 liters and over the years we marketed the brand and up to today there are about 200 cases left and everything is now bottled and in special storage.

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So about 300 more cases have materialized since then. There's been a couple of math problems surrounding the whiskey IMHO and here's another one.

Actually, I misspoke, having written that from memory. Here is exactly what I reported in Volume 9 Number 6 of The Bourbon Country Reader in October of 2006:

"The remaining Hirsch bourbon, the stash that had been tanked in Cincinnati, went [to Buffalo Trace] too. In 2003, Preiss had the last of it bottled by Buffalo Trace. It came to 2,500 cases, more than all of the previous production combined. That is the 16-year-old, 91.6 proof, gold capsule product that is in stores now. When we spoke with Steve Fox in last August, they had about 1,000 cases left."

Steve Fox is National Sales Manager for Preiss Imports. I'm not sure why I remembered it as 500, but that's entirely my mistake.