Knob creek single barrel or Stagg Jr?

[BDanner]

10 minutes ago, emr454 said:

If I could find Stagg Jr for $50 I would definitely buy it. IMO $52 is too high for KCSB. The bottle I bought was about $39 if I remember correctly. 

This post sums up both the good and bad of living in a control state...The GOOD: When we can find something limited (like a Stagg JR) it's always at regular retail. The BAD: Very good regular releases that are readily available and oftentimes on sale everywhere else(like a KCSB) are also always at regular retail. $39 won't even buy you a bottle of regular KC here if you include the 7% sales tax.

Edited January 5, 2017 by BDanner

[RWBadley]

4 hours ago, Flyfish said:

I would rather give my money to companies that does the best job of satisfying my preferences in bourbon. Beam, BT, 4R and HH have figured out how to do that.  If I only dealt with companies who totally satisfied all my moral requirements, I would be walking, starving and naked.

 

Haha! True that, I'm with ya.

 

Not a big morality statement on my part, and I do like what Beam has done building brands and serving excellent bourbon over the years. I have some beautiful old Beam decanters and glass bottlings. They were a huge driver of the quality bourbon movement with the small batches developed. I have the greatest admiration for the old Beam. Truly I do.

 

I have been a big fan of JBB 8, only to see that go NAS. Lucky I stocked up a little- as I am not in love with the new bottling whatsoever. OGD114 going away? Ouch. It's easy to write off that loss as demand driven, but still...

 

Some of the old time (and new) juice was/is incredible.   And- in 1997 they helped out Heaven Hill after the fire with distillate. Good guys.

 

That was long ago now, and the subtle change in corporate think we shall see. I was surprised and rather put off about the latest Bookers price increase to 99$ as a testing of the waters only to back off with I could just assume negative feedback and consumer consternation driving it.

 

The release of Bookers 25th was magnificent. The Bookers Rye 13yo became a huge hit. I missed getting a taste- at the what? 299$ price point (and higher secondary market) it was Highly crafted indeed. But they are apparently working on leaving no dime unturned. This I understand from a profit standpoint, however still find it irks me for some reason. Too industrial- less artisan if you want to call it that. Almost to the point I would just rather not fund their situation further.

 

Anyways,  thanks for calling me out on it. Didn't mean it hard and fast- I just have a general feeling of malaise and indifference toward Beam -Suntory at the moment.

 

Cheers,

RW

Edited January 6, 2017 by RWBadley
....

[JPK]

Thanks again for the replies.

 

yes...the good and bad of a control state for sure.

It does make the higher proof at the same price StaggJr more attractive.

 

RwBadley...Thank you for the explanation. I like to know to which type of company my $$$ are going as well.

 

[smokinjoe]

17 hours ago, Flyfish said:

I would rather give my money to companies that does the best job of satisfying my preferences in bourbon. Beam, BT, 4R and HH have figured out how to do that.  If I only dealt with companies who totally satisfied all my moral requirements, I would be walking, starving and naked.

Heehee.  Besides that, you'd be celibate, have no friends, and couldn't look at yourself in the mirror.   

[Bourserker]

I did a little taste test of both of these since I happen to have a bottle of each open.  I have a KCSB Liquor Barn (KY) pick that was in my bunker, and a 130 proof Stagg Jr.  It's subjective of course, but I greatly prefer the Stagg Jr.  To me it has an ok balance with a tasty chocolate/coffee note, and is not as sweet as the KCSB.  The KCSB also has that "Beam funk", which I sometimes like and sometimes don't.  Also, the regular Stagg is one of my all time favorites, and the Stagg Jr.  tastes enough like it that it makes it a good pour since it's not super expensive, and occasionally obtainable.

[MTNBourbon]

Funny, to me, both of these are hot, kinda spicy. Most likely would not buy again, well I have not bought any KC in years. Stagg Jr., probably not, but we will see, I do have a bottle sitting around, maybe it age's well.

[Clueby]

I like them both but prefer SJR by a wide margin. I definitely get the funk/peanut thing from KCSB which like others have said is sometimes good/sometimes not. They both can be spicy and hot but SJR has that rich, chocolately thing that is missing form KC. Of course KCSB tends to be at least $10 cheaper.

[mortre]

I did a little taste test of both of these since I happen to have a bottle of each open.  I have a KCSB Liquor Barn (KY) pick that was in my bunker, and a 130 proof Stagg Jr.  It's subjective of course, but I greatly prefer the Stagg Jr.  To me it has an ok balance with a tasty chocolate/coffee note, and is not as sweet as the KCSB.  The KCSB also has that "Beam funk", which I sometimes like and sometimes don't.  Also, the regular Stagg is one of my all time favorites, and the Stagg Jr.  tastes enough like it that it makes it a good pour since it's not super expensive, and occasionally obtainable.

I've never had KCSB, but regular KC had that Beam funk, and I've never liked Beam funk. I've had a buddies that loved it though. That said, I had a bottle of Jr batch 4 that I liked some nights, and some I didn't. I picked up a bottle of batch 7 the other day and I liked the first pour. Less heat than batch 4, but that was my first barrel proof so it could be my pallet.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[JTaylor]

6 hours ago, mortre said:

 

I've never had KCSB, but regular KC had that Beam funk, and I've never liked Beam funk. I've had a buddies that loved it though. That said, I had a bottle of Jr batch 4 that I liked some nights, and some I didn't. I picked up a bottle of batch 7 the other day and I liked the first pour. Less heat than batch 4, but that was my first barrel proof so it could be my pallet.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
 

 

There are many posts here attesting to how much better the recent Stagg jr. batches are compared to some of the earlier batches. I've never had any of the earlier batches but the recent ones I've had were full of flavor.

[JoeTerp]

5 hours ago, JTaylor said:

There are many posts here attesting to how much better the recent Stagg jr. batches are compared to some of the earlier batches. I've never had any of the earlier batches but the recent ones I've had were full of flavor.

I've only tried batches 3 & 4 to date and I've found them to be very good. I believe the general consensus is that 1 & 2 were a bit of a mess and that they really turned it around since. 

[tanstaafl2]

14 minutes ago, JoeTerp said:

I've only tried batches 3 & 4 to date and I've found them to be very good. I believe the general consensus is that 1 & 2 were a bit of a mess and that they really turned it around since. 

 

I know that is the general consensus and Batch 1 is certainly a bit feisty but I find I can dial it back a bit with a little water until it is quite pleasant, at least to me.

[flahute]

16 minutes ago, tanstaafl2 said:

 

I know that is the general consensus and Batch 1 is certainly a bit feisty but I find I can dial it back a bit with a little water until it is quite pleasant, at least to me.

I was never able to get it there with water only, but with OC8 or BT I achieved an extremely pleasant bourbon that I found myself going back to night after night. I also do this with batch 2. At this point I only have one batch 2 left and water works just fine with batches 3 and higher so I haven't done this vat in a long time.

[tanstaafl2]

22 minutes ago, flahute said:

I was never able to get it there with water only, but with OC8 or BT I achieved an extremely pleasant bourbon that I found myself going back to night after night. I also do this with batch 2. At this point I only have one batch 2 left and water works just fine with batches 3 and higher so I haven't done this vat in a long time.

 

Have never tried using BT (no OC at hand) but I can give it a go and see what happens!

[fishnbowljoe]

IIRC, batch #1 of Stagg Jr. was basically the only batch that most folks didn't care much for. I never bought any of batch #2, (because I wasn't too pleased with the bottle of batch #1 I purchased ) but I don't remember reading many negative comments about it. Personally, I think batches #3 &#4 were/are very good. I just opened a bottle of batch #5. So far, so good. 

 

Cheers! Joe

[Paddy]

^^^^I'd quantify batch 1 as a hot mess.  But that's just me.

[flahute]

22 minutes ago, fishnbowljoe said:

IIRC, batch #1 of Stagg Jr. was basically the only batch that most folks didn't care much for. I never bought any of batch #2, (because I wasn't too pleased with the bottle of batch #1 I purchased ) but I don't remember reading many negative comments about it. Personally, I think batches #3 &#4 were/are very good. I just opened a bottle of batch #5. So far, so good. 

 

Cheers! Joe

I'd agree with Paddy that #1 was a hot mess. Batch #2 was better, but still had issues. It really hit its stride with batch #3.

For me, batches #1 and #2 required mitigation with either OC8 or BT vatted to bring the proof down. (No water). This worked wonders and even the batch #1 vat became a very enjoyable drink. Batch #3 and higher are just fine with water.

[apspeedbump]

On 1/5/2017 at 1:15 PM, flahute said:

What you need to do is dilute Jr. with basic BT or ER10 instead of water. I did this with the infamous batch 1 that most people hated (and I agree, it wasn't good on its own or with water).

BT and ER did good things to it and it was very drinkable.

 

That's funny.  I did the exact same thing but with a barrel.  Had 2 bottles of Batch 1 which were too hot for me and I barely had touched them and a bottle of passable store-pick ER10.  Vatted them together in a 2L mini-barrel for 6 weeks and the resulting 1.5L (lost a lot in Angel's share and some in spillage) was phenomenal.

[bourbon4all]

On 1/5/2017 at 6:00 PM, RWBadley said:

 

Haha! True that, I'm with ya.

 

Not a big morality statement on my part, and I do like what Beam has done building brands and serving excellent bourbon over the years. I have some beautiful old Beam decanters and glass bottlings. They were a huge driver of the quality bourbon movement with the small batches developed. I have the greatest admiration for the old Beam. Truly I do.

 

I have been a big fan of JBB 8, only to see that go NAS. Lucky I stocked up a little- as I am not in love with the new bottling whatsoever. OGD114 going away? Ouch. It's easy to write off that loss as demand driven, but still...

 

Some of the old time (and new) juice was/is incredible.   And- in 1997 they helped out Heaven Hill after the fire with distillate. Good guys.

 

That was long ago now, and the subtle change in corporate think we shall see. I was surprised and rather put off about the latest Bookers price increase to 99$ as a testing of the waters only to back off with I could just assume negative feedback and consumer consternation driving it.

 

The release of Bookers 25th was magnificent. The Bookers Rye 13yo became a huge hit. I missed getting a taste- at the what? 299$ price point (and higher secondary market) it was Highly crafted indeed. But they are apparently working on leaving no dime unturned. This I understand from a profit standpoint, however still find it irks me for some reason. Too industrial- less artisan if you want to call it that. Almost to the point I would just rather not fund their situation further.

 

Anyways,  thanks for calling me out on it. Didn't mean it hard and fast- I just have a general feeling of malaise and indifference toward Beam -Suntory at the moment.

 

Cheers,

RW

Agree 100 % I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy the Beam products that I have but I won't be buying anything Beam anytime soon cept maybe some ogd 114 at my current local store price of $20. 

 

O and I prefer Stagg Jr by a wide margin.

Edited February 2, 2017 by bourbon4all