US whiskey: it's the little things that count

DBS gets stuck in

The groundswell of “craft” distilling continues to accelerate (only today I discovered a new distillery just five miles from my house). Over here in Britain it tends to take the form of new gins, and sometimes vodkas. (There are some interesting new whisky products—Welsh whisky, English whisky—but these take so long to mature that the start-up companies tend to put out vodka and gin too, to help pay the bills while they wait.) Meanwhile in the US the number of new whiskey producers is skyrocketing too; while 99% of all the whiskey made still comes from just 13 large producers, the total number of distilleries now numbers in the hundreds, with several being the first in their state since Prohibition—it’s as if the whole industry went to sleep with the Volstead Act and is only now waking up. Some focus on very local production, buying only local grain and executing every stage of the process “from grain to glass” on their premises, yet I’m pleased to say that many of these very locally-minded products are making their way over here to the UK. Last week I was invited to a Boutique American Whiskey Tasting of eight products from four distilleries, organised by the crew behind the Boutique Bar Show and held at “classic Americana” bar and restaurant Steam and Rye.

Michael from Maverick talks us through FEW

First up was the FEW distillery, offering its bourbon and rye whiskey products. The distillery is located in Evanstown, north of Chicago: building a distillery here was a particularly bloody-minded gesture, as in the years before Prohibition Evanstown was the stronghold of the Temperance Movement. In fact it was founded as a dry community and remaining so up until the 1990s. The distillery’s name comes from the initials of Frances Elizabeth Willard, head of the forces of Temperance at the time. As another nod to the history of the period, the bottle and label design evokes the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. The FEW bourbon is a three-grain blend, mixing southern tradition with the spiciness of the rye more typical of the north—it is 70% corn (from a co-op in Indiana), 20% malted barley and 10% rye (from Wisconsin), aged in charred oak barrels. The nose hits me with wood first, plus cooked apples and oranges, and something like oatmeal. The palate has woody vanilla and meal again, with a hint of eucalyptus. It’s pretty smooth for a youngish whiskey (though there is no age statement) at 46.5%. The rye whiskey shifts the balance to 70% rye, 20% corn and 10% malt. Michael from Maverick Drinks, who handle the range in the UK, explains that rye is expensive and low yield and tricky to ferment. One new trick applied to this product was the yeast—it is a strain usually found in red wine making, specifically Syrah gown in the Loire valley. The nose has that meal quality that I’m beginning to associate with the brand, while the palate is sharp and spicy with cooked apple and caramel. And I’m convinced I’m getting a red wine angle too, with cherry and stone fruit.

An Old Forester julep

Old Forester is not actually new at all: in fact it dates back to 1870, in Louisville, Kentucky. In those days whisky wasn’t usually bottled at all but shipped in barrels and poured into decanters at the bar: there was nothing to control how much an establishment might water it down. One George Garvin Brown, a pharmaceutical salesman, noticed that quality was often poor and hit upon the idea of selling a bourbon in sealed bottles, each one signed by him to guarantee its quality. The result was “American’s First Bottled Whiskey” (technically the first exclusively bottled whiskey). In those days whiskey was frequently prescribed as a medicine (for pretty much everything), and the name Old Forester comes from that of a respected local physician who may or may not have endorsed it. Incidentally, this medicinal use of alcohol was one of the exceptions to Prohibition—yes, a doctor could prescribe you a bottle of whiskey—making Old Forester the only bourbon continuously distilled and marketed by the founding family before during and after Prohibition.* Tom from Brown-Forman tells us that Old Forester has never gone away, and in the area where it is made you see a lot of people drinking it. But as a brand it has been in the background in the Brown-Forman portfolio for a long while.

Old Forester is 72% corn, 18% rye and 10% barley, fermented using a “jug yeast” (i.e. nurtured, not chemically engineered) in open steel vats for seven days, double the time for most bourbons. Only 15 barrels are made at a time, and the barrels are made by the distillery themselves from white oak with a high toast and low char. Again there is no aged statement, but I think Tom said it was aged for about 7¼ years. We taste two bottlings, an 86 proof (43%) and a 100 proof (50%) “Signature” edition. The nose of the 86 is spicy and aromatic and for me carries a whiff of mint, which is carried over on to the palate, which is sweeter that the FEW samples. (Although this talk of sweetness and mint sounds as if I’m just imagining a julep…) The 100 proof is spicy but distinctly elegant on the nose, with a hint of citrus, and again smooth and polished on the palate.

The story of Hudson Whiskey is just as rich in strange incident. The Tuthilltown Gristmill, 40 minutes north of Manhattan in Gardiner, was purchased in 2001 by Ralph Erenzo as a site for a climbing centre. However, planning permission was refused, allegedly because neighbours didn’t fancy the idea of strangers trooping into town. The site had a working windmill, and one day a chap asked if he could mill some grain; they got talking and decided to go into the whiskey business, setting up the first distillery in New York since Prohibition. (Note that since then there are now 290 distilleries in the state, which gives an idea of just how much craft/artisan distilling has taken off.) It’s another grain-to-glass enterprise, aiming to “capture local flavour and ambience using the agricultural resources of local farmers while leaving a smaller footprint on the environment”.** They have also pioneered some interesting techniques: after someone suggested they could enhance the wood-ageing process by agitating the barrels every day, they hit upon the idea of playing bass-heavy music in the warehouse. (No one would comment, but I’m sure I’ve heard that it is, naturally, New York hip hop.)

I rather like the squat Hudson bottles

The Hudson Four-Grain Bourbon balances the richness of corn with the smoothness of wheat, the pepperiness of rye and the sweetness of malted barley. The make-up is 70% corn with 10% or each of the others. The aroma has a dusty sweet-dry quality that reminds me of halva (a Middle Eastern confection made from sweetened sesame seed paste) along with smoke and a hint of sandalwood. The palate is strong but smooth, with mint, caramel, orange and rye spice. We also try a 100% rye whiskey. This was not an easy course to take for a new distillery: as mentioned above, rye is tough to ferment, and their first eight or nine batches just turned to wallpaper paste. However, it was worth it, with the end result having a complex nose of apples, meal, toffee, caramel, prunes, kumquats, a blue smoky note and a hint of varnish. The palate is surprisingly subtle with elements of cooked apples, mint, sharp spice and cinnamon.

Finally we are introduced to Balcones, a tiny distillery built under a flyover, using handmade stills, that set out to create an entirely new tradition: Texas whisky (spelled without the “e”). Baby Blue and True Blue are the regular (46%) and cask strength (61.8% ish) version of their groundbreaking whiskey made from roasted atole blue corn meal. (Apparently all batches start out the same and any could go either the True Blue or Baby Blue route, until the master distiller decides, after which it can be shaped through the precise charring of the barrel, etc.) This is completely different from the other samples we’ve had, with a nose of maple syrup, pancakes, caramel, candyfloss and varnished wood. (Apparently the distillery is very hot, and they use small barrels, so there is a lot of interaction with the wood.) It is very soft on the tongue, with the same sugary flavours, plenty of wood and a hint of apples.

Our whiskey ambassadors at Steam and Rye

The Balcones team’s quest to push the envelope doesn’t stop there. They also produce Brimstone, made from corn smoked over a Texas scrub oak fire (the world’s first wood-smoked whisky, apparently), Rumble, made from honey, sugar and figs, and our last sample of the day, their Texas Single Malt Whisky. If I expected it to taste like single malt Scotch I was in for a surprise: the nose has more in common with the blue corn whisky, with strong meal elements, but also fruit and something strangely vinous. The palate is unexpectedly soft but with tropical fruit notes and an odd toasted aftertaste.

The lesson from all of this is that there is a hell of a lot going on in the US whiskey world at the moment. Age statements tend to be out of fashion, and you have some interesting techniques (such as the Tuthilltown bass frequency angle) to speed up the ageing process, while distilleries like Balcones are really opening up the possibilities of what you can make spirit from. The weight of tradition is much less of a marketing trope (in fact in this batch Old Forester really stands out for being so old), and instead brands identify themselves by the struggle, determination and ingenuity of the story behind the start-ups. The pioneering spirit—what could be more American than that?

* I think that there were four brands that had medicinal licences to carry on through Prohibition, of which I know Four Roses was one.

** I never thought of distilling as particularly wasteful of the earth’s resources, but this idea of “green distilling” is another trend. The Adnams distillery in Southwold has won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for the sustainability of their operation.

Our gang at the tasting in the strange environs of Steam and Rye (I'm in the middle at the back)

Aged gins: is the wood good?

In the march for novelty in the crowded gin market it seems that time of barrel-ageing may well have come. I was invited to a tasting of half a dozen varieties at Megaro Bar by King’s Cross in London last week. The event was hosted by Maverick, who are handling the Professor Cornelius Ampleforth aged version of the Bathtub Gin, and the line-up also included Filliers from Belgium and three from the US, from New York Distilling, FEW and Smooth Ambler.

I suppose it was inevitable that someone would try this, partly because barrel-ageing is fashionable with all manner of drinks (including pre-mixed cocktails) as part of our current love affair with all things small-batch, artisanal and homemade, but also because there is a school of thought that some of the character of the elusive Old Tom Gin may have been the result of resting in barrels.* Certainly Seagram have been resting their gin in charred white oak barrels since time immemorial in order to smooth off the rough edges.

Geoff Robinson from Maverick leads the tasting

Note the term “resting”. In Seagram’s case it is a matter of just 3–4 weeks. Defunct brand Booth’s used to rest their product for 6–12. Some believe that in the days when gin was shipped in barrels, rather than bottled at the factory, it would have gained some subtle benefits from just such a short period in contact with wood. But in any case no-one seems to age gin for more than a few months; extended time in wood is presumably found to erode the character of the botanicals, or subordinate them overly to the barrel flavours.

While we were milling around before the presentation we were given Collinses made with the Ampleforth version. I was immediately struck by a musty note, which I realised was the wood; it did indeed taste a bit like the inside of a barrel. This product ages in “octave” barrels, just one-fifth the capacity of standard hogsheads, which means greater exposure to the wood.

When we came to the tasting proper, this gin was the first one we sampled. The Ampleforth has a strong nose of juniper, orange peel and cloves (all of which are in the botanical mix, plus coriander, cinnamon and cardamom). The palate is strongly bitter-sweet (actually first sweet, then bitter) with a very woody taste. It’s fierce but not rough. In a way it seems typically full-on for the Ampleforth infusions (cf. their smoked vodka compared to the relatively delicate example from Chase; from a cocktail point of view the Ampleforth version proved much more useable, with the Chase example too easily lost in a mixed drink). We are later sent home with a sample that I make into a Martinez (Jerry Thomas style, equal parts gin and red vermouth with dashes of curaçao and bitters), which, being related to the whiskey-based Manhattan, seems like a good thing to try. Sure enough the woody character pokes through. I find it at first a little disconcerting for that musty quality, but at the same time it does work. I wonder if that particular flavour is a combination of vanilla wood notes combined with high aromatic juniper flavours. I gather they create a blend of batches variously aged in bourbon and sherry barrels, and then rest the mix a bit longer in malt whisky barrels. The total ageing time is just 3–6 months, and the flavour is not really like wood as it presents itself in whiskey, dark soft flavours and rich vanilla. Instead it is fresh and vivid, like a mossy tree stump that has just been split.

Next up is Filliers Gin 28, from Belgium. This gin is essentially clear but with a pale, almost greenish tinge. It is aged for four months in ex-Cognac barrels. The nose offers orange, menthol, leafy lime peel, something rooty and floral (angelica?) and, unexpectedly, chocolate. On the palate I’m getting chocolate orange again. I’m not getting much obviously woody about it, though I wonder whether the chocolate notes have been picked up from the Cognac-impregnated barrels. (There are, we are told, 28 botanicals, a secret blend of citrus fruits, herbs and roots.)

After this we move to US samples for the rest of the tasting. First up is Smooth Ambler’s Stillhouse Barrel-Aged Gin. We’re very much in American whiskey territory here: it’s made from a mash bill of 68% corn, 16% wheat and 16% malted barley and aged for at least four months in a mixture of new and used bourbon casks from the same distillery.

The result is a pale gold, with a nose of toffee, pencil-lead juniper, plus odd things like blue cheese and warm vinyl. (I suspect the high ABV—49.5%—is yielding some in-your-face fumes.) It is spicy on the palate with sawmill wood flavours and hints of banana esters and some black pepper. It has a full, mealy mouthfeel. (Botanicals are juniper, coriander, cardamom, angelica root, orange and lemon peel and black pepper.)

FEW’s example is a rich amber-gold colour, made from a mash of 70% corn, 20% wheat and 10% unmalted barley, aged in small barrels (the greater surface area to volume ratio yielding more wood influence), some new, some ex-rye and ex-bourbon, all from the FEW distillery’s own whiskeys. There are five botanicals with an emphasis on juniper and coriander. The nose yields lots of strong mentholic juniper fumes, almost like Bostik, with a bit of chocolate, coriander, orange, banana and something floral. On the palate the bold flavours conjure anise and a strong heft of caraway.

The name of the next sample—Chief Gowanus New Netherland Gin, from New York Distilling—is a mouthful in itself. It is a greeny-yellow colour and has a nose of green juniper with a floral musky undertone, some toffee and high, spicy grain notes, perhaps from the three months it spends in the distillery’s own rye whiskey barrels. The palate is not that woody, but strikes me as light and fruity. There are in fact just two botanicals, juniper and cluster hops. The spirit base contains no malt—it is rye-based—yet some people in the room felt that it was evocative of the “Hollands Gin” that you see referred to in old cocktails books (generally considered to be genever): this is certainly the intention of the producers, aiming to recreate the style of spirit that would have been drunk back when Brooklyn was still a Dutch colony.

Finally we taste Dry Rye Reposado from St George Spirits. Its colour is dark amber, but even this one has only spent 4–6 months in wood, in this case casks previously used for Syrah and Grenache wine. The botanicals include juniper, caraway, coriander, lime, grapefruit and black pepper, and the nose suggests juniper, biscuits, orange marmalade, coffee, chocolate and prunes. The palate is surprisingly sweet and soft, with juniper and bananas. (I actually get less caraway from this than from the FEW which, to my knowledge, actually contains none.)

As you can see there was quite a bit of variety in how these products are put together—and almost as much variety in how they are labelled. At our tasting there was much talk of defining a recognised category for this sort of product. You might wonder if this is really necessary, but there are those who feel that these spirits are likely to be overlooked by bartenders and mixologists unless they occupy a recognised seat at the table. Some also worried that, without definitions for the category, some might knock up aged spirits using chips or staves of wood for a quick result, rather than the more time-consuming use of a barrel.**

DBS, looking a bit like Bacchus, with Becky Paskin from The Spirits Business

Which brought us to the matter of terminology. If you want a recognised category, what do you call it? Aged, barrel-aged, cask-aged, rested..? (St George use the tequila term reposado to get at the idea of a shortish time in wood.) DBS tells us that the term “yellow gin” was used for this sort of thing by such people as Kingsley Amis and David Embury, but we all agreed this was not a selling proposition (ever heard of the deadly yellow snow?). Likewise “brown gin”, apparently also used, sounded even worse. There was some favour for “amber gin”, however.

I think the category is a noble enterprise, and there were those in the room who declared some of the examples to be “sipping” gins, which were too complex to ruin with mixing. I’m not sure I really feel the same way: I think it is telling that my favourite was the Filliers, which was probably the least wooded. For my money the influence of the barrels in these examples seemed too coarse and sawdust-like, compared to the smooth subtlety you can get in a whiskey that has spent many years in wood. I’m guessing, however, that producers have found that if you age gin in wood any longer than a few months the delicate influence of the botanicals is lost altogether. It is as if you can flavour spirit either with an infusion of herbs, spices, roots and barks, or by a long period subtly interacting with wood—but not both.

* Old Tom Gin is, generally speaking, a style that was popular before London Dry took over. It is generally considered to have been sweeter, though opinions differ as to whether this was simply through the addition of sugar, or through the use of a botanical intensity focusing on ingredients such as liquorice that give an impression of sweetness. It seems likely that much of this was an attempt to mask poor quality base spirit, and and that the invention of the column still, which makes it easier to produce pure spirit, made this approach unnecessary, paving the way for a leaner, crisper, drier, less botanically heavy style of gin.

** I’m not convinced this is such a big deal, as long as you don’t actually lie on the label. It’s not as if there is a grand, revered tradition that anyone is trying to piggy-back on. It’s all frontier territory for now.