Ten High Straight Bourbon Whiskey

[mark fleetwood]

I got a note from Mark Brown indicating that they're revisiting the Great Bourbon list to see if Ten High should be on it or not. No talk about the brand's departure or demise.

If you want to start a movement, start one to bring it back to Illinois.

We always talk about KY's historical distillery sites, are there any left standing in IL?

[tmckenzie]

Well, for a cheap bourbon, this has been quite a thread. I hope Sazerac has somebody reading it. Maybe they will bring it back as a good value bourbon. I will volunteer to pick the barrels.

[cowdery]

We always talk about KY's historical distillery sites, are there any left standing in IL?

The old Hiram Walker plant in Peoria, on the river, is still in operation as an ethanol plant operated by Archer Daniels Midland. I know they make beverage ethanol (i.e., vodka), industrial alcohol and fuel. There is another ethanol distillery in nearby Pekin, that also was originally a whiskey distillery, that makes mostly fuel ethanol. If there are any picturesque closed distilleries around, I don't know about them. Illinois plants were always larger and even in their late 19th century heyday they made as much GNS as they did whiskey.

[squire]

For our house an acceptable cheap Bourbon to replace Ten High is Benchmark.

[TheNovaMan]

I really tried hard to like it Squire, but I just can't get past the odd, synthetic taste I get from it.

[squire]

Maybe we got a better batch down here Pete.

[TheNovaMan]

It's possible, but I've noticed that taste to varying degrees in all three BT products I've tasted, and it's in both my bottles of Benchmark, which had a couple years between them.

[squire]

Actually, Benchmark has been cheaper here than Ten High for quite some time. I would like to think BT blends it to a profile but at that entry level price I wouldn't expect it or think so because the latest bottle we bought is much better than one from some 7-8 years ago.

[JPBoston]

I enjoyed the one (family sized) bottle of Benchmark I had as well. Not bad at all, really.

[cowdery]

Benchmark is made at BT. Ten High is made at Barton. Benchmark is a young BT or ER, while Ten High is a young VOB.

[BigBoldBully]

After having only ever seen the blended Ten High, I just saw some tonight that was labeled "straight sour mash" and was kind of excited, but leery. Is all the straight Ten High labeled this way nowadays, rather than as "Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey," or is sazerac trying to fool me again?

[MauiSon]

I don't know what's up with Ten High. I could ask, but where would be the fun in that?

Ten High was once a huge brand and I thought it still had a pretty good following, even though they're obviously all cheap ass m***erf***ers, but maybe they all finally died off or switched to Imperial, which was Ten High's blended whiskey counterpart historically.

I guess that's why the most common dusty in Honolulu is Imperial, followed closely by Canadian Club.

[tmckenzie]

After having only ever seen the blended Ten High, I just saw some tonight that was labeled "straight sour mash" and was kind of excited, but leery. Is all the straight Ten High labeled this way nowadays, rather than as "Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey," or is sazerac trying to fool me again?

If it says straight, it is the real deal, always a good value pour in my book. That of it as Baby Old Barton.

[squire]

Baby Barton, I like that.

[bllygthrd]

Baby Old Barton.

LOL ... I'll never look at the three bottles of Ten High KSBW I have the same.