Invasion of the Bourbon Snatchers.

[cowdery]

Another take on the Ten High degradation.

Invasion of the Bourbon Snatchers.

It feels good to stop fighting it. There is no pain. All you have to do is shut your eyes and relax.

[Josh]

To paraphrase Bobby Knight in his 1988 Connie Chung interview, if it's inevitable, just "relax and enjoy it."

[spun_cookie]

To paraphrase Bobby Knight in his 1988 Connie Chung interview, if it's inevitable, just "relax and enjoy it."

Very nice chuck... a good straight, err blended read...

[fishnbowljoe]

Wow! There goes that dog chasing its tail again. Joe

[p_elliott]

I don't agree with you blog Chuck. I do agree that the bourbon industry seems to be in good shape. I don't agree with cheapening up a product and changing the label ever so slightly so no one will notice to cover their tracks is OK. That like going in the back door and saying just relax and everything will be OK if you get my drift.

[pepcycle]

Whether we want to face it or not.

This is a problem that WE, yes US, created.

I'm proud that they have to put vodka in Ten High. That leaves more product to age for the good stuff. The stuff I like. The stuff I'm privileged to pay a premium for.

I lament the loss of lower shelf products that are pretty good and I will fondly remember when Ten High was straight whiskey.

Now, if the reason they're doing this is that the bean counters figger that Ten High is mostly mixed with Coke or taken in shots, then shoot them.

If they're making better whiskey by aging it longer then God Bless'm.

I just can't make myself believe that the bean counters aren't behind this strictly for the $$$$ and they'll just make twice as many of bottles of Ten High with half as much whiskey.

[ILLfarmboy]

I haven't had any Ten High in ages. I don't care so much that the product has been cheapened. I agree with the thrust of Chuck's blog. But what sticks in my craw is the name "Ten High Bourbon – a Blend". I know it is perfectly legal as Chuck pointed out in the other thread. But it is still disingenuous. A more upfront move would be to call it Ten High Blended Whiskey. Honestly I wouldn't care if the product disappeared all-together. That way aging stocks of bourbon would go to-wards other better labels.

But calling it "Ten High Bourbon – a Blend", may, to the uninitiated, sound like a blend of straight bourbons, sort of a bourbon version of a vatted malt.

I was in town earlier and the store had all straight bourbon Ten High. I wanted to see if the percentage of GNS is listed on the new stuff.

[cowdery]

The percentage of GNS should be listed on the new stuff.

There is a difference under the rules between blended bourbon and blended whiskey. Blended bourbon must be at least 51% straight, full proof bourbon. Blended whiskey must be at least 20% straight, full proof whiskey.

So they are, in effect, paying a premium to use the word bourbon, as they should.

[Buffalo Bill]

Excellent article Chuck... thumbs up! BB

[Waiahi]

I gotta ask....on a forum that is populated with a bunch of Bourbon fanatics that can wax poetic on the literally hundreds of different kinds of Bourbon's that I've never seen or heard of...where bourbon's like MM, KC, JB and WT are "plain" or "standard fare" how many folks here actually buy Ten High for drinking?

Being a bourbon novice that I am, I haven't even bothered with the literal bottom shelf bourbon like Ten High. I haven't even tried Early Times....

I've pretty much settled that if I'm gonna get a bottle of "cheap" bourbon, I'll get the Evan Williams black label or JB rye (Yeah, I know, JB Rye is not technically a bourbon...but I like it better than JBB, JBW, and a few other lower-end bourbon's).

[bluesbassdad]

I gotta ask....on a forum that is populated with a bunch of Bourbon fanatics that can wax poetic on the literally hundreds of different kinds of Bourbon's that I've never seen or heard of...where bourbon's like MM, KC, JB and WT are "plain" or "standard fare" how many folks here actually buy Ten High for drinking?

Being a bourbon novice that I am, I haven't even bothered with the literal bottom shelf bourbon like Ten High. I haven't even tried Early Times....

I've pretty much settled that if I'm gonna get a bottle of "cheap" bourbon, I'll get the Evan Williams black label or JB rye (Yeah, I know, JB Rye is not technically a bourbon...but I like it better than JBB, JBW, and a few other lower-end bourbon's).

I have an open travel-pack bottle of Ten High that I bought out of curiosity. It's drinkable and recognizable as bourbon. I prefer it to JB white, but not to EW black. With nothing else to recommend it, other than low price, I doubt that I will replace it.

I have at least two other bottom shelf bottlings that I haven't opened, Heaven Hill and Rawhide Brand.

There's a case to be made that a bourbon fancier can only benefit from experimenting and learning what price/quality ratio suits his taste and finances.

Yours truly,

Dave Morefield

[cowdery]

I think I may have a little cred here and I, personally, drink everything. I don't know of any other reliable way to determine what something tastes like, so I drink it. If someone here or anywhere automatically looks down their nose at something below a certain price, that's their problem.

There are some cheap bourbons that are awful. Yellowstone and Old Crow come to mind, and Rebel Yell, while not quite as bad, is still pretty bad. Ten High straight bourbon is a fair sight better. It's a good choice for everyday drinking if the difference between its price and, say, Evan Williams black (which is better) makes a difference in your budget.

I would go so far as to say if you aren't buying Ten High for drinking (as opposed to what?) you are missing something, an important part of the bourbon enthusiast experience.

But that's also a personal opinion, which I'm basing not on a review I read but on the evidence of my own taste buds.

[sotnsipper]

I think I may have a little cred here and I, personally, drink everything. I don't know of any other reliable way to determine what something tastes like, so I drink it. If someone here or anywhere automatically looks down their nose at something below a certain price, that's their problem.

There are some cheap bourbons that are awful. Yellowstone and Old Crow come to mind, and Rebel Yell, while not quite as bad, is still pretty bad. Ten High straight bourbon is a fair sight better. It's a good choice for everyday drinking if the difference between its price and, say, Evan Williams black (which is better) makes a difference in your budget.

I would go so far as to say if you aren't buying Ten High for drinking (as opposed to what?) you are missing something, an important part of the bourbon enthusiast experience.

But that's also a personal opinion, which I'm basing not on a review I read but on the evidence of my own taste buds.

Well said Chuck. Sad to say today I was in about 9 different stores and ALL of them have the blended now in the 750 and liter sizes. The only straight left is in the 1.75 bottles.

[Waiahi]

I think I may have a little cred here and I, personally, drink everything. I don't know of any other reliable way to determine what something tastes like, so I drink it. If someone here or anywhere automatically looks down their nose at something below a certain price, that's their problem.

There are some cheap bourbons that are awful. Yellowstone and Old Crow come to mind, and Rebel Yell, while not quite as bad, is still pretty bad. Ten High straight bourbon is a fair sight better. It's a good choice for everyday drinking if the difference between its price and, say, Evan Williams black (which is better) makes a difference in your budget.

I would go so far as to say if you aren't buying Ten High for drinking (as opposed to what?) you are missing something, an important part of the bourbon enthusiast experience.

But that's also a personal opinion, which I'm basing not on a review I read but on the evidence of my own taste buds.

Well Chuck (great blog you have btw), I must say, that here in Hawaii, EWB is about the same price as Ten High...so given the choice of spending the 10.00 - 12.00 for a 750 ml, and based on what I've seen written on this forum after lurking and reading for a few months, I pretty much grab the EWB. I WOULD try Ten High or Early Times if someone offered it to me, or I find it on an an insanely cheap sale price here...but given that I've discovered that I really like EWB, why bother with what most people say is an inferior bourbon given that they're the same price here?

Aside from that, I don't think Ten High (straigtht or blended) is going to really make me feel any less like I'm missing something than I already do, since I can't find Bookers, Stagg, Wellers (or the one I really want to try, Four Roses) ...and a whole host of other Bourbon's ya'all are constantly raving about on this forum!

There's one store here that I've found that had more than the typically mass marketed bourbons - WTRB, and EWSB and a Basil Haydn's and that's about it as far as bourbon diversity goes here in Hawaii.