Evan Williams Single Barrel 2002 Vintage

[Shell]

Some good friends were visiting from OH and brought a gift of a bottle Evan Williams Single Barrel 2002 Vintage. (These are good friends.) I hadn't had it before, and was really taken at how terrific it tasted. A few weeks later, and half the bottle had evaporated from just my wife and I.

I know there was a previous (closed) thread on the Evan Williams Single Barrel from, I think, the 1999 Vintage . I was wondering how the the two different years compare? Thanks.

[squire]

For some reason the 2002 expression stands out in my mind, I want to say it was good.

[Rockefeller]

Without dealing in absolutes, the general consensus is that 2000 was the best of the recent years.

Oddly enough, I visited my local store recently and they received a new shipment of the 2000. They had 2001 and 2002 in recent visits so it must have been random deadstock from the distributor.

[Clavius]

If you guys see the 2003, pick it up. It's pretty darn good, imho.

[squire]

Come to think of it I don't recall if 2002 was the year it was bottled or the year I bought it. One of the advantages of age is you can blame any mis-speak on a senior moment.

[smknjoe]

I have a bottle of the 2002 that I like quite a bit. If I remember correctly it's rich with a sort of sweetness similar to rum rasins. Definitely worth $25.00 or so.

[AaronWF]

The thing about single barrel offerings is that they can differ quite a bit between bottles within the same vintage even. The 2000 bottles I had from a barrel chosen by a private retailer were hands down my favorite. I had a '99 from the same retailer, and it literally tasted like a fist full of wheatgrass. The '02 was quite good, actually. Not as nuanced as the '00, but more delicately balanced than the '01.

[petrel800]

I think the general consensus you will find is that the EWSB is a great value pour. I can't say I've had a bad bottle yet. Some are more complex than others but I've found them all to be enjoyable pours.

2000 stands out in my mind as one of the best, but I've got a 99 open right now that is just fun and easy going. Go ahead and grab a few and grab different barrels and enjoy them all.

[cowdery]

The critical backstory on the current run of EWSBVs is the evolution of HH's whiskey-making at Bernheim. They took over the distillery in 1999, but they tell me there are few if any Bernheim barrels in the 1999 release, so 2000 is the first chance to taste Bernheim whiskey made there by the Beams, but 2000 was the year they made a lot of changes. We can look at 2001 as them settling into making the bourbon their way. The 2002 and upcoming 2003 are a continuation of that.

It shows in the whiskey, as they have gotten progressively better overall. If you like certain flavors, you might disagree. By 'better' I mean fuller, richer, and more balanced.

Buffalo Trace has its 'Holy Grail.' Heaven Hill merely aspires to make the best bourbon they can and the best examples of what they consider their best effort go into EWSBV.

I've had 2001, 2002, and 2003 in heavy rotation for the last couple weeks, upon which I base the conclusions above. The wild card, of course, is that being single barrels, some barrels age out better than others. Which means you need to try several bottles from each vintage. Oh well.

[squire]

Tough work I know but the job has to be done.

[MauiSon]

Just wondering, what's the highest numbered barrel seen of the 2002 vintage? I can start it with #649.

[jeffrey r]

My bottle is #964, barreled on 4-18-02, bottled on 10-19-12.

Gotta be honest, I thought this bottle was a dud after the first couple of pours. But something has changed for the better since then, and I am pleased with the bottle. Very good bourbon for $23 a bottle.

[tanstaafl2]

Picked up barrel #997 a few weeks ago here in Atlanta.

[smknjoe]

Barrel 699.

[SFS]

Mine was #922 IIRC (bottle got recycled).

[cowdery]

This is interesting because, while Heaven Hill doesn't report its sales, you can use the barrel numbers on EWSBV to get a pretty close estimate of how much of that they're selling. Let's say those 9-year-old barrels yield about 40 gallons of 140° proof whiskey each. How many 750 ml bottles is that at 86.6° proof? (I'll let someone with better math skills than mine finish the calculation.)

[SFS]

This is interesting because, while Heaven Hill doesn't report its sales, you can use the barrel numbers on EWSBV to get a pretty close estimate of how much of that they're selling. Let's say those 9-year-old barrels yield about 40 gallons of 140° proof whiskey each. How many 750 ml bottles is that at 86.6° proof? (I'll let someone with better math skills than mine finish the calculation.)

Is this a valid assertion Chuck? Just because a bottle came out of barrel #997, can we correctly infer that they used at least 997 barrels worth of bourbon in creating this year's SB offering? I don't know that we can.

I'm not being argumentative, I'm just wondering. In laboratory work, every reagent should be assigned a unique number, but I've audited a lot of labs where that criterion was nicely met, yet the identifying numbers were not incremented by 1 each time, or even assigned sequentially, so the total number of reagent bottles could not be inferred from the ID number (nor could their use). I would think that the barrel number would yield historical data about that barrel's contents and the history thereof, including it's use. But I doubt we can infer that barrel numbers are sequential, and even if they are, I doubt we can infer that all barrel numbers between integers X and Y were used for a given offering.

Edited February 10, 2013 by SFS
For clarity, and to correct multiple punctuation errors.

[callmeox]

Every barrel in the warehouse will have a unique serial number for tracking. The barrel number indicated on the label is probably a cross reference to the barrel serial number.

The real 'lot' information for a bottle is going to be printed on the glass.

[SFS]

But the math looks like this.

40 gallons = 151.4 Liters

1 Liter of 140 proof bourbon + 0.6166 L water = 1.616 L of 86.6 proof bourbon (this is actually not quite correct, with respect to volume, because 100 mL of water + 100 mL of pure ethanol will not yield 200 mL of liquid, regardless of the proof of that liquid, but that is another topic. For the sake of estimation, I'll not worry about that factor.)

997 barrels X 151.4 liters = 150,945.8 L of 140 proof.

Each of those 150,946 L needs 0.6166 L water, so that's another 93,073 L.

150,946 + 93,073 = 244,019 L which would make 325,358 bottles (of 750 mL each). At $23 each, that's $7,483,249.

Note: Beginning at the line that starts with "Each of", I rounded to whole units.

[squire]

You're on a roll there Ray, how many bottles would that be at 84 proof?

[SFS]

You're on a roll there Ray, how many bottles would that be at 84 proof?

Sorry Squire (does anyone else read that in a Monty Python voice?) but I'm only taking questions from Chuck on Saturdays. And so you know, my Sunday billing rate is MUCH higher. :yum:

[squire]

Do you accept payment in liquid form?

[SFS]

Do you accept payment in liquid form?

Already answered that. The smiley was picked VERY carefully. (And I've never had Barton).

I also believe in helping my fellow man, and have had two wonderful lessons in that this week from fellow SB'ers (who shall remain nameless, but they know who they are). So the answer is: at 84 proof, they'd get 335,422 bottles (of 750 mL each). But don't tell the Maker's Mark folks. It'll just be our little secret.

[cowdery]

Just because a bottle came out of barrel #997, can we correctly infer that they used at least 997 barrels worth of bourbon in creating this year's SB offering?

They are sequential. The first barrel emptied is number one, the second barrel emptied is number two. If there is a barrel number 997, then we know that at least 997 barrels have been emptied. That's exactly what it means.

Edited February 10, 2013 by cowdery

[SFS]

They are sequential. The first barrel emptied is number one, the second barrel emptied is number two. If there is a barrel number 997, then we know that at least 997 barrels have been emptied. That's exactly what it means.

Got it, it's just an incremental counter, and applies to the barrels emptied specifically for that bottling. I was incorrectly attributing to that "counting" number an equivalency to "serial number" (or some equivalent of a master ID for a given barrel), which is silly, now that I think about it.

Guess I've been brainwashed by looking at barrel ID's on 4R SB bottles.