Ten High Bourbon - Keeper?

[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.

[Photodudems]

That's what I've got sitting in my cabinet at the moment. It's not too bad, but a little sharp compared to my EW BIB that I finished a week or so ago. It kicks me in the mouth.

[cowdery]

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

Especially with the weird font change. Not smooth.

[craigthom]

Gary, were your bottles made in Peoria?

[craigthom]

Here is the label we have in the store.

I miss the "Aged in Cask".

[Gillman]

Craig, I don't have mine anymore! It didn't last long. Maybe the donee of the other bottle will reply if reading this.

Gary

[T Comp]

Gary, were your bottles made in Peoria?

If the bottles were anything older than the late '70s it is doubtful it would have been actually distilled in Peoria as Chuck states that Peoria stopped distilling in '73. I have a Hiram Walker's Ten High "AGED IN CASK" label with a bottom bottle date of '83 and faux tax strip. Even though the label says "distilled by Hiram Walker & Sons Inc., Peoria, Illinois" I presume it was actually made by Heaven Hill. The Bourbon is as Gary described above.

I recently found a true Peoria distilled 8 year Walker's DeLuxe (non metric, half pint, true tax stamped, no health warning and bottom bottle date of '77 that is far superior and a rich, creamy almost cognac tasting bourbon.

I believe Hiram Walker retained the brand for some time after it closed the plant in Peoria, but contracted with Heaven Hill to produce it. They closed Peoria in 73, so they probably contracted with Heaven Hill in the late 70s, when they started to run out of the Peoria whiskey. I'm not sure when Walker sold the brand, but I think it was always just a contract job at HH, then HW moved the contract to Barton, which eventually bought the brand, and then only a few more years after that, took the Hiram Walker name off the label. They also added their own (i.e., Tom Moore's) founding date of 1879.

Chuck's Bourbon Country Reader, Volume 12 Number 5, (which I have somehow misplaced but not hard for me to do) has more on Peoria distilling too.

[Photodudems]

The Ten High is gone (thank god). I kept getting more and more medicinal tasting as I drank/used it. It has been replaced with EW BIB for now and I definitely like that much better.