Why A Bar Pour May Not Be For Us Newbs...

[bayouredd]

Since I am a cook by inherited skills, I do possess a pretty sophisticated palate for the spices. This certainly doesn't mean that my bourbon palate has the education...

 

Single pours at the bar have been: Woodford Reserve which I thought was grand. ETL & FRSB not so much. The Woodford has since become ok & my wife enjoys it, but there are so many more that I would rather. Reviewers have me thinking that I haven't been fair about the latter pair and need more than a couple ounces to contemplate.

 

Prime Example:

A salesman from a distributor talked me into a bottle of EHTSB. My first pour was bubblegum & GLUE??? WTH!!! If I would have had this pour at a bar, I would have moved on. By the middle of my second pour, I was craving the glue taste. It was waaay strange! Third pour & I was locked in with bananas, bubblegum & the glue thang. Three days later, I stumbled on a review that said the taste was varnish. Yup, that was exactly the taste I needed described to me. The Colonel has since, become my second favorite bourbon & the first BIB that I will keep around.

So for now, I need more than a bar pour to evaluate...

Luv from a newb...

 

[flahute]

6 minutes ago, bayouredd said:

Since I am a cook by inherited skills, I do possess a pretty sophisticated palate for the spices. This certainly doesn't mean that my bourbon palate has the education...

 

Single pours at the bar have been: Woodford Reserve which I thought was grand. ETL & FRSB not so much. The Woodford has since become ok & my wife enjoys it, but there are so many more that I would rather. Reviewers have me thinking that I haven't been fair about the latter pair and need more than a couple ounces to contemplate.

 

Prime Example:

A salesman from a distributor talked me into a bottle of EHTSB. My first pour was bubblegum & GLUE??? WTH!!! If I would have had this pour at a bar, I would have moved on. By the middle of my second pour, I was craving the glue taste. It was waaay strange! Third pour & I was locked in with bananas, bubblegum & the glue thang. Three days later, I stumbled on a review that said the taste was varnish. Yup, that was exactly the taste I needed described to me. The Colonel has since, become my second favorite bourbon & the first BIB that I will keep around.

So for now, I need more than a bar pour to evaluate...

Luv from a newb...

 

There's a lot to unpack here.

 

First, any newcomer to bourbon is going to experience a lot of changes to their preferences. What they love at first may become very average to them later. What they don't like at first may become a favorite later. The palate is a fickle mistress which explains some of it, but also, your palate needs to get used to the different things it is tasting at high proof. Newcomers will drink a 100 proof bourbon and get nothing but alcohol heat for a while. A year later and 100 proof is bursting with flavor and they consider it the minimum proof they will drink. Everyone's different......

 

ETL is pretty average honestly. It became a thing because it was a great value for what it was back in 2013. Now it's overpriced and over hyped. It's also a single barrel bourbon which means there will be variation. Which leads me to, FRSiB. Also a single barrel. If you didn't like the first one you tried, try again. It's a mainstay favorite for many here for a reason. (You may still end up not liking it which is OK. It has a 35% rye content which is another things newcomers need to get used to.)

 

You are correct that a single pour is not enough for evaluation. The palate......it could be off and a whiskey could taste horrible to you. Two days later and the same bottle can taste like ambrosia. We still recommend the bar pour however. When a newbie is faced with about 100 choices and can't decide where to start, the bar pour is the best way to narrow the focus so those new purchases aren't a total shot in the dark that have a 50/50 possibility of leading to great regret. (And ALL of us have many regrets.)

Per your example above, a bar pour of that would have led to avoidance. BUT, I guarantee you that if you go down the path that most of us go, you'd have ended up revisiting it down the road and finding out that you liked it.

[musekatcher]

4 hours ago, flahute said:

There's a lot to unpack here.

 

First, any newcomer to bourbon is going to experience a lot of changes to their preferences.

Your newcomer description and evolution was a pretty accurate account of my re-acquainting.  I find the bar pour is good at identifying the more distinctive bourbons that leave a lasting impression, to be further explored at home after purchasing a bottle.  I travel, and its convenient to have a few bourbons before retiring.  I wish the average bar would keep more interesting options.  I prefer to take the time, over successive evenings, and focus on a brand at a time to reveal the best a bourbon has to offer.

[FlyBill]

I don't think you need a significant amount of bourbon to get a good impression of it.  I have gone to scotch and whisk(e)y tastings and tried many at a time.  I do like to try new stuff first when I'm at the bar, but it's not required.  I agree that some of these single barrels vary quite a bit, but haven't had too many bad bourbon's.  I have had plenty of over valued bourbon's, but that's a different case.

 

Recent pours that I've tried are WLW 17. GTS 17. ORVW 12 (16 & 17 vintages), Littlebook, Michter's Toasted Rye and PH 11.  Most good and I found a bottle of the Michter's and am working on getting a ORVW from a friend.  Was disappointed with the Littlebook, but have seen great reviews of it.  

[BigSkyDrams]

I realize this is off-topic, but somewhat related, so here it is: my difficulty with bar pours is justifying the price for some of them. At the places I’ve been, the pricing can be seemingly super random. Like just this weekend, I saw OF1920 priced at $26/1.25 oz pour. Nonetheless, I could walk in at least three different liquor stores in the same town and pick up a fifth of it for $60. No way I’m paying that much for 2.5 oz when the same $ can get me ten-fold the amount of the same thing. 

 

Conversely, the same bar had ETL for $8/pour, and that has not been on the shelves here for a few years, and the last time it was in town it retailed over $50.  Just one example.

 

And I understand bars have high overhead and necessarily price their pours to make a profit. But unless it’s for a unicorn that I’m unlikely to find a bottle of, my preference is to do my research on new bottles by reading reviews from trusted sources and discussing with the forum, go with a familiar and reasonably priced pour when I’m at the bar, and save the rest of what I would have spent at the bar to just buy a full bottle of something so I can give it a fair shake on whether it suits me over the course of many pours. Even if I don’t love it, it will still be consumed, if not neat, then for cocktails or gifted to friends who are less discerning about their whiskey.