Death's Door White Whiskey

[cowdery]

Kevin Erskine on The Scotch Blog today has an excellent post about Death's Door which also does a good job of making clear this whole idea of white whiskey. You can find it here.

Death's Door is not scotch. It's made in Wisconsin. There is a thread about it from last year here.

[Bourbon Boiler]

Interesting. Regardless of the stated strategy, I wonder if this could lead non-bourbon drinkers into bourbon if they like the sweetness and the immature flavor.

[silverfish]

Any guess as to why the label change?...

OLD:

NEW

[ILLfarmboy]

They wanted "white" in the name to explain the lack of color. Frankly, if that needs to be explained, they're marketing it to the wrong folks, or maybe not.

I just don't see vodka drinkers, especially young hipsters who know nothing about whiskey, going bonkers for white dog.

[cowdery]

White Whiskey has become the buzzword du jour.

[NeoTexan]

White Whiskey has become the buzzword du jour.

[Gillman]

I wonder what proof the product is distilled out at, presumably 190 or under.

Gary

[p_elliott]

I wonder what proof the product is distilled out at, presumably 190 or under.

Gary

To be whiskey it would have to be distilled at 160 or less.

[Gillman]

That's for bourbon or rye, "whisky" can be distilled at up to 190 proof. A lot of the character will depend on the final distilling out proof.

Gary

[BFerguson]

http://www.wearedesignbureau.com/2011/02/redesign-deaths-door/

Some background information on the label redesign.....

I was in a local shop the other day, they just had got some in stock, but in the old clear label.

[White Dog]

Death's Door loves to talk about Washington Island wheat. Do they use a small amount of Wisconsin grain? Yes, but the bulk of their Gin and Vodka is GNS that comes from out of state. Iowa, I'm told.

On top of that, there is no actual Death's Door distillery, and there never has been. It's now rectified for them at Yahara Bay distillery in Madison. I say now because originally it wasn't even bottled in Wisconsin, but rather in Iowa where they get the GNS. This is Templeton of the north.:horseshit: :horseshit:

[fishnbowljoe]

I still have a bottle of that from the first experimental batch they did. Joe

[BFerguson]

Did they number and date those early bottles. Out of sheer curiosity i went back and picked up the last two bottles they had. the bottles had a three digit number on the left of the clear number, and what appears to be a date, it was 10/08 on the right hand side. I figured i would open one for tasting, and bunker the other.

if they did for being so limited it sometimes had to believe that this can pop up randomly. I had never seen these in this particular store. At most, there were only there on the shelf for less than a week.

Thanks

B

[fishnbowljoe]

No numbers or dates on my bottle. IIRC there were only 900 bottles of the first batch. They actually aged these in used barrels for a very short time. The whiskey has a faint bit of color to it.

Here's are a couple of links about it from 08.

http://www.ppulse.com/Articles-c-2008-03-21-75103.113117_Deaths_Door_Spirits_Announces_Prerelease_of_White_Whisky.html

http://deathsdoorspirits.blogspot.com/2008/03/white-whisky.html

The first two pics are stock photos, the second two are of my bottle.

The label has changed. It used to be a clear label that just said Death's Door Whiskey. Now they have what appears to be a paper label stating Death's Door White Whiskey.

Joe

[BFerguson]

Thanks for the reply. The two that I picked up have the clear label, but no color to the liquid. Completely clear.

B

[Jonny.Applebury]

Every time I drink this Death's Door product, I taste raisins. Handfuls of raisins. It's kind of like bad grappa. This is from drinking it neat.

That said, a friend of mine swears by this stuff. He takes it on the rocks and often as a mixer.