I.W. Harper Returns

[dcbt]

You mean Blanton's-RHF-ETL-Hancock's

Hah. Yea, I did initially think about going back to edit my post but forgot about it.

[Josh]

You mean Ancient Age-Blanton's-RHF-ETL-Hancock.

Anyway, Blanton's is a little different than the rest because it all comes out of one particular warehouse and I don't think that's the case with the others. But I guess that proves the point.

[cas]

So I picked up a bottle of the NAS this week. About $30 here in MI. I had pretty low expectations given the low proof and the discussion here so far. But it's a handsome bottle and I figured I could always mix it. Worth a try. I'm on my first glass, have had a few sips, and am very pleasantly surprised. This could be a very good summertime sipper, fairly light, but with a bit of character. We'll see how it holds up as I go through a glass or two.

Craig

[The Black Tot]

You mean Ancient Age-Blanton's-RHF-ETL-Hancock.

Anyway, Blanton's is a little different than the rest because it all comes out of one particular warehouse and I don't think that's the case with the others. But I guess that proves the point.

Yup, and I thought about adding AA to the list, but apart from the delicious discontinued 10yr, regular AA is the only one I'd dismiss for being just bad. It's more dissimilar than all the rest are.

[mbroo5880i]

Yup, and I thought about adding AA to the list, but apart from the delicious discontinued 10yr, regular AA is the only one I'd dismiss for being just bad. It's more dissimilar than all the rest are.

I ran across two store selected barrels of ER10 a few years back that were from adjacent barrels in the same rickhouse and they were drastically different.

[t44tq]

Funny thing is, my experience with I.W. Harper comes from drinking the stuff in Japan nearly 20 years ago. It was one of the cheaper bourbons you could buy (cheap meaning $30- Blanton's was more like $80 at the time). I never thought the stuff was very good, but my tastes have changed considerably since then. To me, the stigma of being "cheap bourbon" will kind of always stick around in my mind.

[cowdery]

This is nothing new, a variety of 'different' whiskeys coming from the same basic stockpile. Are they different or the same? There is always somebody grasping this concept for the first time and 'exposing' the great 'it's all the same' scandal.

The rationale for saying they're different is simple. Every product has it's own profile, put together by the master distiller. Sure, you may have one mash bill and everything more-or-less the same age, but every barrel ages differently so you can not only create a profile, you can duplicate that profile so the product tastes more-or-less the same over time, as well as different from its stable mates. Diageo is primarily a scotch maker and this is what scotch makers do, blend different whiskeys together to create a unique flavor profile. I wish Diageo would talk about this because it could be very interesting and might begin to explain why they let so much bourbon get so old. They're thinking like the scotch blenders that they are.