Ten High Bourbon - Keeper?

[Gillman]

Recently I bought two bottles of some strip stamp Ten High, a bourbon at the time certainly. Probably early 80's production. I tasted both - dusties can be deceiving in terms of quality never mind the brand - but they were fine. One was gifted to a California friend on the board, one is in my bunker. Excellent bourbon of the last generation. I don't say it was top of the heap but it was good solid stuff. So often here we trumpet older bourbon (say 10 years and up) as the acme of quality. The genius of the last generation of distilleries was to make a very palatable bourbon at (often) 80 proof, or 86, with rich taste, at 4-6 years old, even allowing for the glut factor. The Woerner's private label I've mentioned here a few times is another example (3 out of 4 pints top-rate and the 4th quite nice but I decided to vat it with only one other bourbon). Ditto same-era George Dickel. And lots of other examples as people here know.

Gary

[cowdery]

Our Ten High says,"Straight sour mash" on the label. I assume it's not straight Whiskey. Nowhere does it say straight bourbon whiskey. Are they trying to pull one over on us?

That's very odd and something new since Saz took over. The word 'whiskey' is nowhere on the label? That seems impossible. It has to have some kind of official 'type' designation.

A blend can't be straight but you can have straight whiskey that doesn't conform to any specific type (i.e., bourbon, rye, corn), but it's still whiskey.

Picture, please.

[Lost Pollito]

I'll post the pic tomorrow. It really is a strange wording issue. Curious to see what you think Chuck.

[Lost Pollito]

Here is the label we have in the store.

[Brisko]

Here is the label we have in the store.

Am I missing something?

It says "Kentucky Straight Sour Mash Bourbon Whiskey"

The word order is unconventional and the gratuitous font-switching is annoying, but it seems legit.

[Gillman]

Yeah that's not a blend. If no lesser age is stated, it's 4 years old at least.

Gary

[Lost Pollito]

The word order is unconventional and the gratuitous font-switching is annoying,

That's what makes me a little skeptical.

[tmckenzie]

That is the good one. I will have to find a pic of the blended. But that ain't the blended. I have drank enough of it to know.

[cowdery]

The key words are "straight," "bourbon" and "whiskey." So long as they're all present and accounted for, it's the real deal.

They probably have research to show that "sour mash" is a very meaningful term to their customers, so they incorporated it into the KSBW formula. There's nothing special, at law, about KSBW, in that precise order. It's just a convention.

[Lost Pollito]

I guess my beef is that ,"Straight Bourbon Whiskey" is not written together. "Straight Sour Mash" just sounds weird to me.