Sazerac Rye mashbill

[Gillman]

My guess is Sazerac 18 is same source as COK, i.e., UDV.

[cowdery]

I've often thought about that question and my conclusion is that it's an illusion. There was nothing special about those batches of COK and Medley, and some of Heaven Hill's Rittenhouse from that period. It's just that when they were finally bottled, so many years later, the actual number of bottles sold was very small, so one or two barrels went here, one or two went there. A batch of, say, 200 barrels isn't a particularly large batch, but when it dribbles out under a bunch of different names, a handful of barrels at a time, it seems like more than it is.

[Brisko]

So did they plan all along to make a superannuated rye, or was it just dumb luck that they had these barrels aging for so long? (I assume partially dumb luck or else they would have had more in the pipeline).

And, to clarify, because I'm a little slow:

VW= COK (UDV) and Medley.
Rittenhouse 21/23/25 = Heaven Hill
KBD= CoK?
Hirsch= CoK?
Saz 18= CoK?
Michter's 10= CoK?

And pardon a neophyte question, but where was the CoK/UDV rye being run at that time (I was still learning to tie my shoes in 1982)?

[cowdery]

The COK was made at Bernheim in Louisville.

Remember how the glut worked. Sales kept declining, so even after they stopped making so much, inventories continued to grow. When companies stopped making it altogether, but still had brands through which to sell it, they always bottled the oldest whiskey first. They also would then either discontinue or sell their rye brands, not necessarily with stock since the buyer was probably overstocked too. There was some left over and it just sat there, aging, until somebody decided they wanted it. It wasn't much, relatively speaking, so most people weren't interested. It was only when someone found/created the boutique market that they started to sell a few barrels, then a few barrels more. I'm prepared to believe it was Julian Van Winkle who started it. He started to see sales of extra-aged bourbons picking up and thought 'why not a rye?' And his business model worked in small quantities, that might just use a barrel or two at a time. The barrels he rejected then wound up at KBD, where they got bottled as a lot of other things, but always in very small quantities.

[Brisko]

That makes a lot of sense when you put it in that perspective. Thanks, Chuck.

I recall reading a thread on bourbonenthusiast where Mike Veach was talking about the early Van Winkle rye, which was at the time all drawn from Medley stock that he purchased from UDV/Diageo. After his initial success, he went back to them to get more and they had sold about half of what was left, so they offered him the CoK that the also held.

I wonder where the rest of that Medley ended up.

[DeanSheen]

I'm just wondering when supply will ease. At this juncture this stuff is scarce enough that I have to start hunting for it. The last bottle I had I bought in Bardstown because I had not had any in a long time. My thinking for not buying more was that we were still waiting for the annual release of this and that I would snag some when that happens.

Well it appears that Ohio got barely a dribble this year so I guess I have to wait till next year and snag a bunch then. At least in state.

[cowdery]

Supply of what? If you mean the very old stuff, we're unlikely to ever see that again. If you mean 4- to 6-year-old rye, there's plenty of it about, though perhaps not in Ohio. It takes control states a while to pick up on trends, like a decade.

[DeanSheen]

Supply of what? If you mean the very old stuff, we're unlikely to ever see that again. If you mean 4- to 6-year-old rye, there's plenty of it about, though perhaps not in Ohio. It takes control states a while to pick up on trends, like a decade.

I meant the young stuff. We were getting it pretty regular here and I'm under the impression that the last allocation just dribbled out.

[cowdery]

In your case, I think the problem is mostly geographic.

[Josh]

Our supply of Saz Jr. is pretty limited too. For most of the year it's easier to find Handy here than Saz. No joke.