Knob Creek Single Barrel Rye!!!!!!

[BottledInBond]

On 1/23/2018 at 3:40 PM, Kpiz said:

I picked up two of Ace Spirits' KC selections a few months ago and they were pretty good. However, I was put off of their barrel selections a bit when they were asked for tasting notes on a couple of their new KC picks and they responded "the knob creek barrel's flavor doesn't vary so dramatically that they would require different tasting notes for each release". While I appreciate their candid response, it made me question their judgment (or at least their palates). What's the point of doing barrel selections if they all taste the same?

Louis is the owner there. Nice enough guy, but he does not know whiskey on the level of many people I know. I can guarantee that I know way more about whiskey than he does, and I say that based on plenty of personal interactions over the years. Thus, I don’t expect his barrel picks to be awesome necessarily until I taste them and decide for myself. I’ve passed on many barrels they have picked. Like I said, nice guy, smart in terms of many of his business decisions, but not a real whiskey geek and it wouldn’t surprise me that he gave that kind of response. 

[flahute]

12 hours ago, BottledInBond said:

Louis is the owner there. Nice enough guy, but he does not know whiskey on the level of many people I know. I can guarantee that I know way more about whiskey than he does, and I say that based on plenty of personal interactions over the years. Thus, I don’t expect his barrel picks to be awesome necessarily until I taste them and decide for myself. I’ve passed on many barrels they have picked. Like I said, nice guy, smart in terms of many of his business decisions, but not a real whiskey geek and it wouldn’t surprise me that he gave that kind of response. 

Well that is interesting!

Ace comes off like a well oiled and dialed in place.

Thanks for this info.

[BottledInBond]

His marketing is good. He started that store and picked that name specifically to make it search friendly online. He sells a lot of volume including a lot of private barrels because he ships. The vast majority of Ace sales are online. The brick & mortar store isn’t even open the normal hours of most liquor stores. Because he sells volume he does move through barrel picks regularly but he doesn’t go do barrel selections in person generally. I bet he has only picked 5% of the barrels he has done in person at a distillery. I’m pretty sure he takes some barrels that he doesn’t even get samples of to try before agreeing to take them. He also will try to convince you that everything and anything is awesome. Read his twitter history sometime..... I stop into his store once in a while when I’m in the neighborhood (it’s a 10 minute drive from my house) and have talked to him and his employees many times. Like I said, nice guy, smart business person, but I’ve never once thought he knew good whiskey from bad whiskey. Now I do think he knows a little more about scotch for whatever that’s worth, but I’m not a scotch guy at all personally

[Kpiz]

On 1/25/2018 at 7:57 AM, BottledInBond said:

Louis is the owner there. Nice enough guy, but he does not know whiskey on the level of many people I know. I can guarantee that I know way more about whiskey than he does, and I say that based on plenty of personal interactions over the years. Thus, I don’t expect his barrel picks to be awesome necessarily until I taste them and decide for myself. I’ve passed on many barrels they have picked. Like I said, nice guy, smart in terms of many of his business decisions, but not a real whiskey geek and it wouldn’t surprise me that he gave that kind of response. 

 

6 minutes ago, BottledInBond said:

His marketing is good. He started that store and picked that name specifically to make it search friendly online. He sells a lot of volume including a lot of private barrels because he ships. The vast majority of Ace sales are online. The brick & mortar store isn’t even open the normal hours of most liquor stores. Because he sells volume he does move through barrel picks regularly but he doesn’t go do barrel selections in person generally. I bet he has only picked 5% of the barrels he has done in person at a distillery. I’m pretty sure he takes some barrels that he doesn’t even get samples of to try before agreeing to take them. He also will try to convince you that everything and anything is awesome. Read his twitter history sometime..... I stop into his store once in a while when I’m in the neighborhood (it’s a 10 minute drive from my house) and have talked to him and his employees many times. Like I said, nice guy, smart business person, but I’ve never once thought he knew good whiskey from bad whiskey. Now I do think he knows a little more about scotch for whatever that’s worth, but I’m not a scotch guy at all personally

 

As Steve said, this is really interesting so I appreciate the info. I wouldn't have guessed any of this but it does make sense in light of what they said about KC barrel selections not needing different notes.

[Kpiz]

On 1/25/2018 at 12:51 AM, The Black Tot said:

And, of course, they don't.

Of course not. My confusion was more that they would continue doing barrel selections if to them they all taste the same, but BIB illuminated that in his comments above. They pick them because they sell well.

[Tony Santana]

I got to try a sample of a KC Rye store pick that's supposedly been ordered by my local store.  Really liked it.  A great cinnamon thing going on.

[kevinbrink]

ModernThirst had a review of this yesterday, the pick they reviewed was from Westport Whiskey and Wine and was 5 Yrs 4 months and was $43.99, sounds good to me really looking forward to seeing how this compares to Pikesville.

[Kane]

1 hour ago, kevinbrink said:

ModernThirst had a review of this yesterday, the pick they reviewed was from Westport Whiskey and Wine and was 5 Yrs 4 months and was $43.99, sounds good to me really looking forward to seeing how this compares to Pikesville.

Dollars/years seem appropriate for the market. I consistently disagree with MT reviews, so gotta pick one myself on sight.

[kevinbrink]

9 minutes ago, Kane said:

Dollars/years seem appropriate for the market. I consistently disagree with MT reviews, so gotta pick one myself on sight.

Yeah agreed, was more interested n the Price/Specs than the Review.

[EarthQuake]

Would have liked a few more years but hey, a ~barrel proof 5 year old rye for $43, I won't complain.

[Bbstout]

On 1/26/2018 at 12:43 PM, BottledInBond said:

His marketing is good. He started that store and picked that name specifically to make it search friendly online. He sells a lot of volume including a lot of private barrels because he ships. The vast majority of Ace sales are online. The brick & mortar store isn’t even open the normal hours of most liquor stores. Because he sells volume he does move through barrel picks regularly but he doesn’t go do barrel selections in person generally. I bet he has only picked 5% of the barrels he has done in person at a distillery. I’m pretty sure he takes some barrels that he doesn’t even get samples of to try before agreeing to take them. He also will try to convince you that everything and anything is awesome. Read his twitter history sometime..... I stop into his store once in a while when I’m in the neighborhood (it’s a 10 minute drive from my house) and have talked to him and his employees many times. Like I said, nice guy, smart business person, but I’ve never once thought he knew good whiskey from bad whiskey. Now I do think he knows a little more about scotch for whatever that’s worth, but I’m not a scotch guy at all personally

Concur with what BIB said. He is a great marketer. His picks are a crap shoot. I used to shop there years ago before he built his brand up. He regularly had good sales ($20 EC12) and the like. Now it seems like everything is overpriced. Good for him, his timing was perfect.

 

[Bbstout]

On 2/20/2018 at 10:57 PM, Tony Santana said:

I got to try a sample of a KC Rye store pick that's supposedly been ordered by my local store.  Really liked it.  A great cinnamon thing going on.

Steve's or Riley's?

[Kpiz]

Ace Spirits just got in a barrel as well and it looks like the samples they received were also about 5 years old. The proof out of the barrel is higher than I thought it’d be at 127-129. Here’s a link to pics of the samples they got:

They’re charging $48.99

[Tony Santana]

On 2/22/2018 at 3:24 PM, Bbstout said:

Steve's or Riley's?

Actually, McFarland Liquor.

On 2/22/2018 at 3:24 PM, Bbstout said:

Steve's or Riley's?

 

[Bbstout]

8 hours ago, Tony Santana said:

Actually, McFarland Liquor.

 

I was close.

[smokinjoe]

9 hours ago, Bbstout said:

I was close.

Indeed.  You had the state nailed...

 

 

[fishnbowljoe]

On March 5, 2018 at 12:59 PM, Tony Santana said:

Actually, McFarland Liquor.

 

Great store! It's been a while since I've been up that way though. I really need to get up there again one of these days. I have a s**t ton of their store coupons.  It's also too bad their sister store, Party Port closed. I liked that place too. Both kinda old school. FWIW, I much preferred stopping in at those places rather than Steve's or Riley's. 

 

Biba! Joe

 

[Tony Santana]

On 3/6/2018 at 7:13 PM, fishnbowljoe said:

Great store! It's been a while since I've been up that way though. I really need to get up there again one of these days. I have a s**t ton of their store coupons.  It's also too bad their sister store, Party Port closed. I liked that place too. Both kinda old school. FWIW, I much preferred stopping in at those places rather than Steve's or Riley's. 

 

Biba! Joe

 

Party Port was about as old school as it gets around here.  I heard their sign sold for a pretty penny.

[Kpiz]

K&L just got a cask of this and I picked up a bottle over the weekend. It’s pretty solid - notes are below.

Smell: bright and piney. A little bit of graininess indicating it’s still fairly young (K&L has no notes on this but I assume it’s just over 5 years like the ones other stores have). Turbinado sugar.

Taste: like a pine cone with caramelized sugar on top. Just a tiny bit of that raw grainy flavor. Incredibly drinkable for 115 proof. Medium length finish, nothing new shows up here.

Not a great depth of flavor here but the flavors it has work really well. I wish I had some regular KC Rye to compare this to but I don’t at the moment. I do have a an open bottle of the old Willett wax-too 4yo rye that could make for an interesting SBS though.

[tanstaafl2]

On 3/29/2018 at 1:24 PM, Kpiz said:

K&L just got a cask of this and I picked up a bottle over the weekend. It’s pretty solid - notes are below.

Smell: bright and piney. A little bit of graininess indicating it’s still fairly young (K&L has no notes on this but I assume it’s just over 5 years like the ones other stores have). Turbinado sugar.

Taste: like a pine cone with caramelized sugar on top. Just a tiny bit of that raw grainy flavor. Incredibly drinkable for 115 proof. Medium length finish, nothing new shows up here.

Not a great depth of flavor here but the flavors it has work really well. I wish I had some regular KC Rye to compare this to but I don’t at the moment. I do have a an open bottle of the old Willett wax-too 4yo rye that could make for an interesting SBS though.

 

Kind of why we decided not to do a single barrel. Nothing really stood out in the samples from what was on the shelf. 

[Kpiz]

On 4/1/2018 at 11:22 AM, tanstaafl2 said:

Kind of why we decided not to do a single barrel. Nothing really stood out in the samples from what was on the shelf. 

I don't blame you. I'm enjoying my bottle but an extra 15 proof points alone doesn't justify 2x the price of the standard bottling. I might just buy a mini bottle of KC Rye for the sake of comparison, it's been too long since I've had it to recall how similar it is to this K&L barrel.

 

Were you offered additional barrel samples after you declined to buy any of the first three?

[tanstaafl2]

1 hour ago, Kpiz said:

I don't blame you. I'm enjoying my bottle but an extra 15 proof points alone doesn't justify 2x the price of the standard bottling. I might just buy a mini bottle of KC Rye for the sake of comparison, it's been too long since I've had it to recall how similar it is to this K&L barrel.

 

Were you offered additional barrel samples after you declined to buy any of the first three?

We did not ask. Instead we were trying to get 2 KC bourbon barrels.

[Kpiz]

14 minutes ago, tanstaafl2 said:

We did not ask. Instead we were trying to get 2 KC bourbon barrels.

Ah that's right, I think you mentioned that. I'm glad KC is still cranking out such high-quality barrels. They don't seem to sell as well here as I'd expect for some reason that I have yet to figured out, but that's a discussion for another day. Or another thread at least!

[tanstaafl2]

Looks like they are pushing the Rye. Won’t give us 2 bourbon barrels so we are getting more Rye samples.

[Paddy]

^^^^The boom has finally caught up with KCSB as their stocks are showing a bit of stress, and therefore being managed tighter.  For example, if you could get 4 barrels last year, you'll be doing good to get 2 this year.  Barrel pricing was also recently (ahem) adjusted for local retailers.  Did you guys see the same, Bruce?