three whiskeys (that's what I said now)

Kansas Clean Distilled Whiskey, Bastille 1789 French whisky, and the Parker's Heritage Collection Cognac-finished Bourbon. There are two things these three whiskeys have in common:

1: They're delicate in flavor, sort of the opposite end of the spectrum from rye.

2: I own them.

I actually wasn't planning on covering these whiskeys together originally, until it struck me that the three whiskeys I have on hand that I haven't blogged about do in fact share that first characteristic together, despite being three very different whiskeys: Clean is "spirit whiskey," a blend of aged and unaged wheat whiskey; the Parker's Heritage is a 10 year old bourbon finished in Cognac barrels; Bastille is a French whisky.

They all use wheat, so I suppose that's another thing they have in common - Bernheim's wheat whiskey would fit well in this post, if I still had any on hand.

Kansas Clean Distilled Spirit Whiskey is about as unusual an American whiskey as I've seen: a "spirit whiskey" which combines aged whiskey (I don't know how old, nor the mashbill, but I would guess since they don't say bourbon or rye that it isn't bourbon or rye) with unaged wheat grain spirit. Wheat is so, so light and sweet that that this is functionally similar to diluting the aged whiskey with neutral spirits, like Canadian whiskey. In some ways you lop off the distinctive characteristics of each element - you have neither the heat and funk associated with many unaged spirits (especially white whiskey) nor the depth and complexity of an aged whiskey. That doesn't mean you're left with nothing - there's still a solid whiskey backbone, and it makes for a spirit that's very easy to drink, though one that's easily lost when mixed with other flavors.

France isn't exactly associated with whiskey, and yet Bastille 1789 is about what I expected a French whisky would be: floral, elegant, delicate, brandy-like in a lot of ways, though drier. It's 80 proof but tastes even lower proof than that. The pamphlet around the neck says it's pot-distilled from barley and wheat and aged 5 to 7 years in Limousin oak, cherry wood, and Acacia casks. Really it's a lot like a brandy made from a whisky mashbill (an unusual one at that - I guess single grain or blended Scotch might use barley and wheat, but it's not a combination I'm used to). I don't know what the exact mashbill is, nor whether those casks are new or used, though I would guess they're new.

The Parker's Heritage Collection is a series of whiskeys, one released each year, overseen by Heaven Hill Master Distiller Parker Beam (member of the Beam family that produces Jim Bean and other whiskeys). This is the fifth release: a 10 year old bourbon (rye mash - all bourbons are at least 51% corn with the remainder wheat and rye; this one uses more rye than wheat) that spends its last six months in Limousin oak barrels that had been used to age Grande Champagne Cognac. It's a collaboration with Cognac distiller Alain Royer, and man it is my favorite thing. This is something we need to see more of. Using used barrels to "finish" a spirit is something you see with Scotch a lot, and sometimes rum - it makes sense, because so many used barrels are produced in the course of making liquor (and fortified wines), and they're full of flavor. Six months on Cognac barrels REALLY makes a difference with this bourbon - much more floral and fruit character than bourbon has on its own. The combination of the sweetness of bourbon and the Cognac notes is almost rum-like in some ways. Not coincidentally, it's the most expensive of these three whiskeys, at about $80 - but I've had Scotch at that price that wasn't half as good.

As different as they are, those similarities wind up being pretty important, because there is not much you want to do with these whiskeys other than drink them straight, make an Old-Fashioned, or make a whiskey sour. Anything else - vermouth in a Manhattan or Brooklyn, absinthe in a Sazerac, even liqueur - just overpowers the whiskey character. The Parker's can stand up to the most additives, and the Cognac even stays on the nose - but this is one time when it's true that an expensive whiskey can be too expensive to mix with; add more than a little bit of bitters or lemon juice to this, and you're not going to taste the difference between this $80 whiskey and a $25 whiskey.

This isn't necessarily a flaw of the whiskeys, mind you - it all depends on how you drink your whiskey. The Bastille is only 80 proof, and sweet enough that even people who don't often drink straight whiskey should have no problem with it if they have no problem with Manhattans. Add an ice cube if you want, but only one - this whiskey really disappears fast if you dilute it too much.

charbay

This post mentions free stuff. Check out the free stuff policy here.

Charbay Tequila Blanco; Charbay Whiskey Release II; Charbay Doubled & Twisted Light Whiskey.

Thanks to Jenni at Charbay, I have a small bottle of the best whiskey I've ever had.  (Papa Saz is knocked to #2.)

I don't even know where to start with explaining this whiskey.  Well, here's what it comes down to, I guess: whiskey starts out as beer.  Not as good beer, though - it starts as a sort of lobotomized unhopped beer, because hops were added to beer as a preservative, and thanks to the distillation process there's no need for them.  In 1999, the distillers at Charbay said, okay, but what if we made a good beer anyway?  What if we started with a good beer - what would that do to the whiskey?

Well, it makes a fucking great whiskey, that's what.

They started with a Pilsner made from European two-row barley and hops (California, Nugget, and Eroica), distilled it in a pot still, and aged it in barrels.  The first release of Charbay Whiskey was released in 2002, at 3 years old.  The second release - what I have - was bottled in 2007, at 8 years old.  It's bottled at 110 proof, and the hops are so unexpected that when I was giving Matt a sample of it, I misremembered and told him it was distilled from an IPA.  

First of all, you can smell the beer in the nose - there's a lot of spice that I would probably take for rye if I didn't know what I was drinking, and a lot of caramel.  The spice hits you right up front - again, like a good rye - and then the hops are there in a distinctive beer-like aftertaste.  

I could drink this every day, straight.  I can't afford to ... but I want to.  It's good with bitters, especially orange bitters, and I haven't tried it in a Boulevardier (whiskey/Campari/sweet vermouth) yet but -- wait, I will stop writing this blog entry until I have done so.

Okay, it's good in a Boulevardier, but the Campari overpowers much of the spice - though not the hop aftertaste - and I think this is a spirit best in more spirit-heavy cocktails like the Old-Fashioned and maybe a Manhattan that's light on the vermouth.  A little lemon and Aperol works, too.  The Boulevardier would probably work better here with different proportions - maybe 2 parts whiskey, 1 part vermouth, 1 part Campari.

The Doubled and Twisted, the bottle on the far right, is labeled a "Light Whiskey," and is Charbay's unaged whiskey - unlike the Charbay Whiskey, it's distilled from an IPA and bottled at 99 proof after only a day of barrel aging.  (An aged version is forthcoming.)  Since the Charbay is now my favorite whiskey, it's not surprising that the D&T is one of the best white whiskeys I've had - it's neck and neck with Glen Thunder.  All of the funky nose of an unaged whiskey is there, with a much more pronounced hop flavor.  It's very very cool.  Again, you don't want to overpower the hops - this is best in a whiskey sour or on the rocks.

The Tequila Blanco has no hops.  Just to be clear.  The distillers distill it in Mexico in a copper pot still, and the GPS coordinates of the distillery are right on the label.  It's a very tasty tequila, very peppery and green in a way that I love - I'm not as versed in tequilas, so I don't know which brands to compare it to, but I can tell you it's better than Patron (my usual brand).  

some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain

Isn't the Punt e Mes logo a lovely thing?

I actually discovered cocktails, real cocktails, in Indiana of all places.  After I'd rediscovered whiskey at the Irish pub in Bloomington, I started paying more attention to the drink menus, and ordered a Negroni because I didn't know what it was, and reading the ingredients -- Campari, gin, vermouth -- didn't exactly enlighten me.

Oh Campari.

You little devil.

I don't know how to explain Campari to you if you haven't had it.  Have you had Sanbitter soda?  Well there you go.  But most of you just said no, so like I said, I don't know how to explain it to you.  It's bitter.  It's sweet.  It's red.  It's too strong -- both too bitter and too sweet -- to drink straight, though dammit I'll do it if I have to.  Gin cuts it wonderfully, and I've made a ton of vermouth-less Negronis in the past, which aren't Negronis at all, but whatever, I was out of vermouth.  

I always tell people you need to try Campari three times before you decide what you think of it.

A Negroni made with whiskey instead of gin is a Boulevardier.  So this drink -- more or less equal parts wheat whiskey, Punt e Mes vermouth, and Campari -- is basically a Boulevardier, but Punt e Mes deserves special note.  Just like Campari did.  And the whiskey, yesterday.  This cocktail is all about special notes.  I should call it the Mezzanine instead.

Vermouth is a fortified wine, meaning you start with wine and add distilled liquor to it, like port and sherry.  Unlike those, vermouth is seasoned with herbs and spices.  Forget anything you've heard about using epically small amounts of vermouth in a martini ("tap the bottle against the glass," those vermouth misters, etc), it's all horseshit.  Vermouth is good.  If you want a glass of gin instead of a martini, ask for one.  If you want a glass of vodka, go screw.

Punt e Mes is an especially bitter vermouth, and is different enough from my usual vermouth selections -- Noilly Prat or Lillet Blanc (Lillet isn't vermouth, but it's similar enough that I sub it a lot) -- that to me, using Punt e Mes makes a drink distinctly different.  Maybe not enough to need a different name, but it's definitely noticeable.

By the way, the burnt peach garnish (which seemed to suit both the drink and the weather) will slide down the rim of the Mason jar and bump you in the face, turns out.  Sorry about that.  This is why I don't monkey around with that sort of frippery very often.

oh whiskey, you villain

In my glamorous work as a writer, I sometimes say that I know more about science than most humanities people, but less than actual science people.  That's the position I'm in with regards to cocktail coverage on this blog.  There are some fantastic cocktail blogs out there; before I started reading them, I learned about cocktails from Chuck Taggart's occasional cocktail posts on The Gumbo Pages (see the sidebar on this page) and Ted Haigh's "Dr Cocktail" column (there is an Amazon link to the second edition of Ted's ridiculously great and groundbreaking cocktail book at the bottom of this page).

I know much more about cocktails and liquor than most people, even most other cooking-oriented people.  But I know significantly less than many of the people who maintain cocktail blogs (and many who don't), particularly those of my age or older.  (Looking through blogs linked by blogs linked by blogs linked by blogs I read a couple weeks ago, I found a cocktail blog that went on and on about recently available but still obscure ingredients and molecular gastronomy notions, before coming to a post about how the author had never had a gin and tonic.  While it was sort of interesting to see someone come at the idea of a gin and tonic from that perspective -- as something new and exotic to their palate -- it made me feel so distanced from the blogger that, rightly or wrongly, I didn't feel there was much we had to say to one another on the topic of drinks.)

There are a few factors limiting my expertise, aside from simply "other people know more than me":

1: I rarely have more than one drink, maybe two.  I'm not saying this is a bad thing or anything, but it means it takes me a week to try even basic variations on a drink, so my learning curve is slowed.

2: I even more rarely go to bars.  I've never understood this collegiate nonsense about drinking at home, by yourself or otherwise, being stigmatized.  It comes close to suggesting there's no reason to drink except to get drunk, which is like saying there's no reason to eat except to get fat.  I don't object to bars, I have no problem with bars, but for $20 I can get a bottle of premium liquor, or I can get two or three premium drinks, depending on where I am.  Come on.

3: For the last three years, I've lived in New Hampshire, which has state-run liquor stores and restrictions on alcohol shipping.  Though the shipping restriction only (I think) requires the shipper to have a state-specific permit, and though the state has the highest per capita alcohol sales (because the prices are low and Vermonters and Massholes bordercross to take advantage of them), it's only very recently that it's been possible to order cocktailian ingredients by mail -- and none of them are available in the liquor stores.

I see people online talking about how allspice dram, for instance, is already "over," and meanwhile you can't even buy maraschino liqueur in New Hampshire.

I buy things in Massachusetts or online -- drinkupny.com has been good to me -- and I certainly give the NH stores their share of business.  Whiskey is good and cheap here, as is any domestic liquor.  It's been years since I've bothered with bottom shelf college kid bullshit.

So that's my cocktail background, my cocktail situation.  Right now I'm going to talk about whiskey, about three whiskeys of my recent acquisition -- none of these are available in NH: Bernheim wheat whiskey, Old Gristmill corn whiskey, and Baby Bourbon aged corn whiskey.

What I know about whiskey

Like beer, whiskey starts with fermented grain mash -- barley, rye, wheat, corn, there are a lot of possibilities.  Unlike beer, whiskey is then distilled, and usually aged.  Aged whiskeys are generally aged in oak barrels.  Aging in oak involves a flavor exchange -- the wood soaks up some things, and imparts others into the liquor, including vanillin, a flavor compound found in vanilla beans, roasted coffee beans, maple syrup, and oatmeal, and generally used in "vanilla flavoring."  (One reason vanilla flavoring is so weak compared to vanilla is because the real thing contains so much more than just vanillin.  It's like trying to express "chili con carne" with cumin.)

There is a LOT of variation within the possibilities laid out by that description, but whiskeys tend to fall into specific categories.  Bourbon whiskey, for instance, must be distilled from a mixture of more than half corn, aged in new charred oak barrels.  It doesn't have to be from Kentucky.  The mash generally includes wheat, rye, and malted barley in addition to the corn, and bourbons are often referred to as "wheat type" or "rye type" according to which is most prominent.  One of my standard household bourbons, for instance, is Bulleit, which is so heavy on the rye it can practically substitute for a rye whiskey in cocktails.

Rye, wheat, or corn whiskeys are whiskeys made with a mash dominated by that grain, by a minimum amount determined by labeling laws.  None of these are all that common, though rye whiskey is the most common -- you can find Old Overholt, Jim Beam rye, or Wild Turkey in most states.  Canadian rye is not the same thing as rye whiskey -- "rye" became the word for "whiskey" in Canada long ago, and is used synonymously there, but Canadian whiskeys are usually blended (meaning that the whiskey flavor has been diluted by adding neutral grain spirits).

Unaged whiskeys aren't found very often, though these days, as microdistilleries become the new microbreweries, you can sometimes find them sold locally by distilleries that need a way to generate revenue while they wait for their aged product to be ready for market.  The one type of whiskey often sold unaged is corn whiskey -- often called moonshine, though moonshine wasn't always made with corn.

If you tour a distillery in Kentucky, you'll get the chance to sample the unaged product after it's been distilled, on its way to the barrels.  It's interesting stuff, but harsh, and the flavor profile hasn't developed as much as it will in the barrel -- at least that was my one experience with it.

Okay, so that's whiskey.  It's a broad category.  

Bernheim Wheat Whiskey

This is, as far as I know, the only wheat whiskey in existence, and although I was curious how much it would stand out -- there are plenty of wheat-type bourbons, and the wheat pretty much overpowers the corn in them -- the difference is certainly there.  Oh, in a blind taste you might think it was bourbon, if only because "wheat whiskey" just isn't a category in your head.

What's interesting about the difference is how smooth and light and clean this whiskey is, almost crisp -- this, in an age when differentiating your product so often means going to Flavor Extremes.  It's nice.  It's very pleasant.  I'll be honest, I don't know if nice and pleasant are enough to get me to pay mail-order prices on it a second time, but it's a good sipping whiskey, so the fall may change my mind on that.  It's certainly very very drinkable.

Old Gristmill Corn Whiskey

This whiskey, good lord.  I am such a fan.

This is an unaged corn whiskey made from New York corn at Tuthilltown Spirits, one of the only (THE only, maybe? I don't know) distilleries in New York.  I've had several Tuthilltown products now, having bought one of their apple vodkas for a Remake The Appletini project I'll blog about in the fall when it's appropriate.  I'm hugely impressed.  Their stuff is expensive, especially by New Hampshire standards, so I'm trying to force myself to go slow ... but honestly, when I head into the bar part of the kitchen to make a drink, if I don't already have something specific in mind, Old Gristmill is one of the first things I reach for.

Though unaged, this is very unlike the white dog I'd sampled at Buffalo Trace a few years ago, and that may partly be because it's 100% corn, or it may be because the Buffalo Trace product wasn't meant to be drunk unaged.  There are probably proof differences, too -- I'm sure they told us the proof of the Buffalo Trace stuff at the time, but I didn't make a note of it.  Old Gristmill is 80 proof, about standard for a base liquor.

It's extremely flavorful, with a sweet nose that reminds me of cachaca more than whiskey, and of the few vodkas I've liked.  The flavor is slightly sweet, and not harsh at all, with surprisingly little burn.  I guess because of what it is, because of the moonshine associations, I was expecting something hotter -- but after all, it's 80 proof, not 151.  There's a fruit-like character to it which made immediate sense because this time of year, New England has finally given up the goods, and the farmstand has corn on the cob sweet enough to eat raw.  Raw liquor that hasn't had the flavor distilled out of it tends to have an earthiness to it, a funkiness, and that's what I get here.

I love this stuff.

Hudson Baby Bourbon

Another Tuthilltown Spirits product, this is an aged corn whiskey which I assume starts out the same as the Old Gristmill.  It's "baby" bourbon for three reasons: it's aged for only three months, in small charred new oak barrels, and sold in 375ml bottles (which cost more than I usually pay for 750ml of bourbon, so this won't be a frequent purchase).  

Unlike other bourbons -- every other bourbon, as far as I know -- the Baby is 100% corn, and that alone would be enough to make it markedly different.  This is one of those little conceptual pockets produced by labeling laws: bourbon must be at least 51% and aged in charred oak.  Corn whiskey must be at least 80% and, if aged, cannot be aged in charred wood.  Corn whiskey aged in charred oak, then, must be bourbon, provided it follows the other minor provisions (which have to do with the proof to which it's distilled and whatnot).  The smaller barrels make the most of the brief aging -- by increasing the ratio of surface area to the volume of the aging liquor -- which pushes the flavor profile pretty far from Old Gristmill.  

This is actually less smooth than Old Gristmill, believe it or not, which might in part be the higher proof (92 instead of 80).  There's a hint of burn, and lots of barrel flavor, but it's still mellow.  Not mellow like the Bernheim, but you certainly wouldn't guess this baby was only a trimester old.  There's caramel and pepper, some citrus flavors -- it's a very good bourbon, and though I've been having it mostly straight or in whiskey sours, I'm looking forward to trying it in cider when the weather turns cold.

I'd like to see more from Tuthilltown in the future.  They have a rum and several whiskeys I haven't tried, so that'll keep me occupied.  I'm hoping they have some longer-aged spirits in the works, and I'd definitely try unaged rye or multi-grain whiskey if it were available.

Whiskey cocktails

There are a million things you can do with whiskey, but there are a few standbys I always come back to, and use when trying out a new whiskey.

The Old-Fashioned

One of the oldest cocktails around, this gets fucked up all the time by people adding a handful of fruit and topping it with soda water.  That just isn't this drink.  The benefit to this drink is it's a good way to explore a new whiskey or a new bitters.  It also doesn't use anything fresh like citrus, so when you're out of everything, you can usually still make an Old-Fashioned.  Trust me on that.

Add a little icewater to a rocks glass.  Add a little sugar to it and swirl until it's dissolved.  Add 2 ounces of whiskey and 2-3 dashes of bitters.  Add ice.  Add a couple cherries -- either fresh tart cherries or alcohol-preserved cherries.

The Whiskey Sour

Still one of the best drinks around.

about an ounce of fresh lemon juice

a little sugar dissolved in the juice, to taste (I never measure this, you can figure it out)

2 oz whiskey

Shake with ice and serve on the rocks.

The Last Word variant

Normally this drink is made with gin, but you can sub in just about any other base liquor and you've got something nice.  It's a great example of an "equal parts" cocktail that manages a really fine balance.  It's also the reason I'm almost out of Chartreuse.

Maraschino liqueur, in many ways the central figure of the cocktail revival, may need an explanation.  Don't confuse it with maraschino cherries -- they're related, but don't taste anything alike (and maraschino is "mar a SKEE no").  Maraschino liqueur is made with Marasca cherries, the crushed pits of which contribute a funky almond-like flavor (almonds, like cherries, are members of the prunus genus).  Maraschino cherries, on the other hand, are in most cases made with sweet cherries that have lost most of their flavor and been partially candied in a dyed and artificially almond-flavored syrup.

Old Gristmill is especially good in a Last Word.  The Bernheim wheat whiskey becomes a little lost to the Chartreuse.

1/2 oz whiskey

1/2 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice

1/2 oz green Chartreuse

1/2 oz maraschino liqueur

Shake with ice, strain.

this little piggy

Normal blogging will resume in about a week, I'm still buried in work.

"Pink" in the kitchen ledger means pink salt, i.e. curing salt, which among other effects keeps cured meat pink.

Yes, this bacon was cured with Bulleit bourbon.

Yes, it is awesome.

(The date in the ledger is wrong, since this bacon is from 2009.  Don't ask me how I screwed that up.)

Because the bacon was cured the same way country ham is, instead of with a briefer cure, it's intensely flavorful -- the maple flavor is actually pronounced (and you can smell it when the bacon cooks), as is the bourbon.  It's very salty, and the hot-smoking gives the smoke flavor a real raw edge to it.  The streaks of lean have the sort of flaky texture of country ham, while the fat has the same gamy funk.  Lord, this is some fucking good bacon, especially for something I was winging (you notice there are no proportions in the ledger, I just tossed things together until it seemed right).

some days I feel like my shadow's casting me

Basically, think of this blog as a place where I list all the words that I know, in no order except as I think of them, and then tell you what I know about the words and some sentences they're useful in.  Only the words are food.

For instance: fat-washing is the infusing of alcohol with flavors from fat or something fatty.  That which is fat-soluble is also alcohol-soluble, so if you combine something greasy and full of flavor with some flavorless alcohol like 100 proof vodka, the flavor tumbles down the hill from the high point to the low one.  (I don't know if this means you can make bourbon-flavored non-alcoholic butter. That would be nifty, though.) 

You've heard about this because you're on the internet and you've seen bacon vodka or bacon-infused bourbon or a bacon Old-Fashioned, and so on. You introduce the fat to the alcohol, let them sit for a while, and then put the thing in the freezer so that the fat becomes solid and easy to remove.  That way you're not dealing with greasy vodka and bacony mouthfeel later.

For instance, I made butter-infused single-malt whiskey. (Not Scotch.  I used Wasmund's, an American whiskey made very similarly to Scotch.  "Whiskey" basically describes a process of distilling alcohol from grains, which may or may not be malted; malted grains are germinated (so that they sprout) and then dried to keep them from developing further. Single-malt whiskey is composed purely of whiskey produced by a single distillery; the term is associated with Scotch, obviously.  Whiskey terminology is complicated, fairly stupid, and widely misunderstood -- keep an ear out for how many times people in movies say "whiskey and bourbon," when bourbon is a type of whiskey.  For that matter, even most people familiar with whiskey think bourbon has to be made in Kentucky; most of it is, but the term describes a specific process and spectrum of ingredients, and bourbon can be made on the moon for all that it matters.)

I melted the butter, combined it with the whiskey, and let it sit for a few days before putting it in the freezer.  Unlike the people who've described fat-washing bacon and the removal of a disk of fat from the top of the frozen bottle, my butter stayed pretty well distributed throughout the whiskey.  But the solids were solid enough that they could be filtered out with a mesh strainer without a problem.

Took the butter-flavored whiskey, blended it up with vanilla ice cream, grade B maple syrup, and some dots of Angostura bitters on top.  Tada.  Butterscotch cocktail.