Adulterated Bourbon: Red Stag Honey Tea and Jack Daniels Honey

I enjoy the taste of bourbon, but am not so snooty that I don't enjoy sweet mixed drinks from time to time - and even liqueurs.  Early on in this blog I gave Jim Beam's cherry flavored bourbon liqueur Red Stag four stars because I felt that the sweetness augmented, rather than obscured the taste of the bourbon - a rarity among whiskey liqueurs in my experience.  Tonight's tastings underscore that conclusion.  Both items are "honey" adulterations.  Honeys are the new rage - perhaps a descendent of the beloved toddy.  Every brand seems to have one out.  The idea is pretty simple.  Bourbon is often sweet with corn sugars and tree sugars from the oak wood - giving a toffee or caramel or brown sugar flavor profile.  The addition of honey amps this up and harmonizes and produces a whiskey that, in theory, is sweet and satisfying and mixes well into a variety of beverages.  Theory has a tough time living up to reality - especially when you're talking about messing with America's national beverage.

First up - Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey.  Jack Daniel's Old Number 7 is a familiar entity for me - like most Americans.  It is soft and gentle with a muted flavor profile that has some caramel up front and licorice in the back.  The softness and lack of a big corn midpalate is the supposedly the signature of the Tennessee "Lincoln County Process" of dripping the new make through a massive pile of maple charcoal.  The philosophy of charcoal filtering raw rough whiskey to soften it makes more sense when you're just going to drink it right away.  The practice of barrel aging whiskey adds a lot of mellowing, so the business of barrel aging charcoal filtered whiskey ends up with a product that is sometimes too mellow in my opinion - missing too much of what I love in bourbon.  But might this mellow softness be just the ticket for a honey?  The muted flavor profile might get out of the way and let the honey shine...

Jack Daniels Honey

Color: Gold

Nose: honey, brown sugar, treacle, nutmeg. Rather nice in a heavy handed dessert kind of way.

Entry is syrupy and thick and moderately sweet. Midpalate expansion is soft and gentle with honey, spirit heat that gives a medicinal feel, and the soft candy corn meets licorice and wood notes of Jack. The Tennessee light charcoal and honey corn flavor swell with a big sweet honey and mint midpalate bloom. There is a bitter note in the finish - but it's almost welcome after all the sweetness. This is almost good enough to drink neat - but not quite. In coke and sprite it's ok - but its gentle nature makes it get lost a bit in the mix. This is the most successful of the "honey" bourbon adulterations in my experience so far (see my earlier pan of Wild Turkey American Honey). You can actually taste the bourbon and you can really taste honey here. However it still isn't quite good enough to recommend.  Close - actually very close - but the texture is too thick and the medicinal note combines to read a bit like cough syrup.  What works is the honey flavor.  If only the bourbon flavor were a little richer and the texture a little thinner.

**

In my earlier review of the cherry flavor of Red Stag I gave four stars.   It was just flat out delicious.  Sales of Red Stag have been stellar and Jim Beam has followed up by releasing two new flavors, "Spiced" and "Honey Tea".  Going with the honey theme I'm drinking the latter:

Red Stag - Honey Tea

 

Color - light yellow amber
Nose Jim Beam bourbon, lemon, and simple syrup.

Entry is syrup thick and sweet. Expansion has that good Jim Beam bourbon flavor but is dominated by a bright but not fruity lemon note, a medicinal spirit heat, honey and some vague sense of tea. In the turn the classic beam sour barn flavor signature shows, among fake melon notes, some tannin that might be from wood, or from the hint of tea. This is a mess. The syrup thickness and excessive sweetness is cloying, and the tea traces seem out of place and lost in action. The finish is loaded with ersatz flavor notes.  I don't buy the tea flavor or the honey flavor here.  Only the bourbon flavor is good - and it's not good enough to correct the sins.  This works better in Ginger Ale or Sprite (but only just OK there), but it's not drinkable neat. After the success of the regular cherry Red Stag I was expecting better.  This experience doesn't give me much hope for the Spiced expression either - but I'll try to have an open mind. 

**

Bottom line - I still haven't met a honey I like well enough to recommend.  Red Stag original is a cherry flavor.  The fact that it works is beginning to seem like a rare aberration among adulterated whiskeys.  So far my advice is to make your own toddy to your own taste.  The gist is as follows:

2 tablespoons honey

a shot and a half of bourbon

a quarter cup more or less of boiling, or very hot, water - to taste.  Lots of folks use a whole cup.

You can get fancy with a cinnamon stick if you want, and a twist of lemon, if you must.   Dissolve the honey in the water and mix in the bourbon.  Consume warm.

...unless Evan Williams Honey is the one...

Part 3 of Corroborating the Value Whisky Review Water Integration Experiment - more time.

Before I begin I must state that the inspiration for this series of experiments, Ryan of Value Whisky Reviews, has decided to hang it up and stop blogging. I'm sad to see him stop, but respect his decision in light of the personal reasons he gave. However the inspiration of Ryan's approach burns bright. His fascinating empirical studies on the effects of oxidation and evaporation on the flavor of whiskies in open bottles and his water integration experiment particularly captivate me. I will be repeating these experiments, as I had already begun to do - and will endeavor to think like Ryan and bring some structure and rigor in figuring out new experimental approaches to the issues of enjoying and living with these vibrant and mercurial elixirs.

Now, about the water integration I wrote two posts on last week: no, I'm not done, not by a long shot. Where we left off last week was that I had successfully corroborated Ryan of http://valuewhisky.blogspot.com/ conclusion that allowing a rest period of a couple of days after diluting whisky produced a smoother, more rounded, better integrated result. However there were troubling aspects to this conclusion: the nose and the sugar notes of the entry were muted and rounded along with the heat. I wondered, what would additional time do.

I performed two additional experiments for this third installment:

1) Bookers diluted with only 1/8 volume of water allowed to integrate for 9 days. The idea here is to rectify the problem of the unacceptable loss of opening sweetness. Bookers at 7/8 is 111.9 proof. This is, granted, very high. Just the edge off.

Color: medium copper.

Nose: much of the full Bookers nose is now in evidence after a week: brown sugar, cherry compote, molasses, corn pone, tobacco and fresh sawn oak. The nose is more relaxed and less hot than the uncut version - but unlike the previous dilution experiments it comes off as an integrated whole.

Opening is bright and sharp with brown sugar - yes the sugars that were too muted at 4/5 are well present at 7/8 and a week of water integration. Midpalate expansion is sharp and hot with jammy bitter orange, stewed peaches, and rich oak. The mouthfeel is good - not rich but at least as full as the uncut. The turn is full of bitter wood, and the sour tang so distinctive of Jim Beam's mash, and dark char. It's a heady stew. I'm not certain it works as a sipping whisky to rival the really good ones - but it's in the ballpark. Its also noticeably easier to drink than uncut Bookers - still hot but not quite as debilitatingly so. There's no hint that this is a dilution. Unless you had it side by side with the uncut stuff it wouldn't occur to you.

2) Port Charlotte PC7 at the previous 4/5th dilution, but allowed to integrate for 8 days.

Color: Light gold.

Nose: earthy peat with a note of iodine, salt, library paste and a hint of distant mint. There's also some tar and bacon.

Entry is sweet and round and rich with toffee malt, oatmeal and mead. Midpalate expansion is big and forceful with earthy peat arriving in a big way. The fade sees the peat turn to tar and ash with a deep anthracite coal combustion note. This is unmistakably Port Charlotte, but the big burn is gone. Some of the razor sharp sugar intensity is gone too, but without an uncut dram to directly compare you would be hard pressed to notice. This is fine Islay dram that doesn't read as a dilution at all.

The key ingredient is time. A splash of water is not just a splash of water - that's the big lesson here. What begins as thin, watery, and diluted ends up tightly bound with the flavor signature that originally was there. I suspect that congeners and flavor compounds in whisky are not readily soluble in water. When water is first added it doesn't dissolve an essential aspect. You taste the poorly integrated water.  After a marrying period the water becomes more fully integrated with a richer mouth feel, more sugars apparent up front, less spirit heat, and more rounded presentation in general.  As far as I know, this effect wasn't documented before Ryan's post.

http://blog.khymos.org/2007/06/03/new-perspectives-on-whisky-and-water/

There have been some excellent posts on the effects of a splash of water in general, however.  My favorite is  New perspectives on whisky and water by Martin Lersch / June 3rd, 2007 in Khymos.  It describes the process as follows:  "Malt whisky contains high concentrations of esters and alcohols with long hydrocarbon chains. When water is added, the solubility of these esters and alcohols decreases, and a supersaturated solution results"... "The over-all effect is a fractionation of volatile compounds upon dilution with water: water insoluble compounds are concentrated in the aggregates (or micelles) of long chain esters, water soluble compounds remain in solution and compounds (probably those which are slightly soluble in water) that were originally trapped in ethanol micelles are liberated. "... "So after all, the popular notion that addition of water “opens up” the aroma of a whisky is true, but who would have thought that the effect is a combination of “masking” (inclusion of some arome compounds in long chain ester micelles) and “demasking” (opening up of ethanol micelles)".

All of this explains how adding water transforms the flavor of whisky both by exposing something hidden,  breaking up congeners locked in micelles, and by muting some other flavor elements by locking them up in bunches caused by supersaturation.  However, the issue of time is not explicitly discussed in the article.  Do all of these things happen at once?  Do they happen over hours?  Days?  Weeks?   

My experience is that big changes happen over the first 30 minutes, but additional changes are clearly detected after 2 days and even more changes are clearly detected after 8 and 9 days.  Things really start to get good after extended marrying time.  Why?  At the moment I don't have a clue.  However these three experiments show me that Ryan has discovered something profoundly true about marrying time for whisky and water.

The final question is "so what"?  Am I really going to dilute and vat my cask strength whisky a week or more before drinking it?  In most cases, no.  The distilleries do that most of the time.  The results of these experiments don't suggest a clear course of action in my opinion.  I will drink cask strength whisky undiluted most of the time.  I have gained the knowledge, however, that marrying time produces a smoother, less hot, more integrated dram.  This effect continues for many days.  This a data point; more information.  Use it as you see fit.

Corroborating the Value Whisky Reviews Water integration experiment part 2 - PC7

For background on Ryan of Value Whiskey Reviews' hypothesis about time integrating water please see my previous post "Corroborating the Value Whisky Reviews Water integration experiment - part 1" or read his original post here. I'd like to emphasize that Ryan's hypothesis is specifically that water integrates with whisky over time, reducing apparent spirit heat at the same level of dilution as freshly poured water. Integrated water also has a thicker mouthfeel, better body, and longer finish, to go with the reduced spirit heat. Ryan is NOT arguing that dilution is better or worse than not diluting - or making any argument about how much dilution is appropriate for a given whisky. The argument is solely whether time produces the smoother, thicker "integrated water" effect.

In yesterday's post I performed the integrated water experiment with Bookers bourbon. I found that the integrated water effect is readily detected with Bookers. Unfortunately I confused the issue somewhat talking about whether I enjoyed the level of dilution (1/5 - 50.8% abv) or not. Specifically, I did not enjoy that level of dilution with Bookers - but that was besides the point of the experiment. I'm so used to reviewing drams for enjoyment that it was tough to stay on topic. I'll discuss both topics tonight (whether the integrated water effect is detectable; and whether 1/5th dilution is enjoyable with PC7) - but I will keep these topics separate under distinct headings.

1) Integrated water experiment part 2: Port Charlotte PC7. PC7 is a superb cask strength Islay dram from Bruichladdich that is heavily peated (at 40ppm). It is 61.5% abv, which dilutes to 49.2% abv at 1/5th dilution. Integrated Water (IW henceforth) has been resting for 82 hours (about 3 1/2 days).
Recently Poured Water (RPW) is
the same filtered water at the same temperature added right before first tasting:

IW: Nose: iodine and peat with good presence.
Entry is rich and sweet with strong mouth feel and rich flavor. Plenty of spirit heat at the midpalate expansion but it comes on gradually and feels connected to a good sense of grain. Finish is long and flavorful.

RPW: 0-15 minutes of dilution: Nose is very polite - aromas missing in action. Entry has razor sharp sugars like the uncut. Big spirit heat at the midpalate expansion - much hotter than IW at the same proof! Body is thin and watery. Finish is lively, but noticeably shorter.

RPW- 30 minutes after dilution:
Nose is warmer and beginning to show iodine and peat notes.

Entry is noticeably less sharp - but still retains some of the intense sugars of the uncut product. Body is noticeably less watery - still slightly more watery than IW sample. Finish is fuller, but still dramatically thinner and weaker than the IW
sample.

RPW - 60 minutes after dilution:
Nose still weak but incrementally improved. Entry still rich, vanilla notes prominent now. Body still noticeably thinner than IW and finish less robust, but differences are smaller than at 30 minutes to a small degree. This is becoming enjoyable.

2) subjective analysis of whether dilution is pleasing.

PC7 succeeds on a number of levels: powerful grain sweetness on entry, rich earthy peat at midpalate, and seductive mix of oak, peat ash, and bituminous coal note in the looooong finish. These multiple attributed seem to hold up better to dilution than Bookers intense up front sweetness does. The IW sample in particular comes off as a rich and tasty dram you might encounter commercially and happily buy. The RPW samples suffer from watery body more, but after 45 minutes or so are quite enjoyable at this level of dilution. However, a nip from an uncut sample shows a vivid intensity that both diluted samples miss. Like the Bookers example, I would still choose to drink this dram uncut - or diluted to a smaller degree.

Conclusions: Ryan's Integrated Water Hypothesis is corroborated again. Allowing marrying time measured in days results in a diluted dram with dramatically altered properties as compared with a dram diluted to the same degree but without marrying time. Integrated water is smoother, richer, has fuller mouthfeel, and a stronger longer lasting finish than any of the RPW samples (although the RPW samples become more IW-like over the course of an hour). The IW water benefits come at the expense of some of the entry's sugar intensity compared with the RPW sample. Smoothness and roundness seems to polish the entry as well as the other phases. Fascinating!

Corroborating the Value Whisky Reviews experiment with integrating water - Part 1

I sure love the flavor density and intensity of cask strength whiskeys (and whiskys). However, they can be difficult to drink. The heat, power, and intensity of alcohol at cask strength can overwhelm the palate and the senses. The traditional solution - adding water - is problematic. As Ryan at Value Whiskey Reviews explains:

" I don't like to add water for three main reasons:
1. It never seems to do anything positive - just makes it more diluted and blander.
2. Even when you add water to tame a high-proof whisky, it doesn't seem to "integrate" and take the bite away. So now you have less flavor, and it's still too intense.
3. It's too much work figuring out how much to add and keeping track of that. KISS is my strategy whenever possible: Keep It Simple, Stupid."

I've always found that to be the case too. I allude to it again and again in various reviews on this site. For example, in my review of Bookers bourbon I wrote:

"Wow! I'm after another sip right away, but at this high a proof I must take my time. The first big question is "can I use water"? You always can, but sometimes it robs a whiskey of its heart."

In my review of Port Charlotte PC7 I wrote:

"The explosion of flavors is unusually intense and I want more right away. However the mouth sear from the high proof makes me slow down and have a drink of water every 3rd or 4th sip. Early on this intense young cask strength heat made me tempted to put water in it. Doing so cuts the heat but also dilutes the intense sweet salty smoke intensity that wows me. I opt for interspersing sips of water to cut the fire in my mouth and take this whiskey neat."

Ryan, figured out a solution - for Redbreast CS Irish whiskey anyway. He wrote up this fascinating experiment with the periods of time involved in integrating water into whisky using Redbreast 12 cask strength on Sunday, 3/11/12:

"...two days ago I poured 10 mL of bottled water into an empty 50 mL miniature bottle, then filled the rest up with Redbreast 12 CS. The end result - if I did the math correctly - should be 46-47% ABV, plus or minus. The exact number isn't too important. The important part is that that sample has been "integrating" over the last two days, and tonight, I am filling another sample bottle with the exact same ratio of water, and then pouring a dram immediately (well, after shaking to mix the water). So I am going to compare and see if there is any difference between "recently poured water" (RPW) and "integrated water" (IW)."

Ryan discovered that the sample that had been diluted with 1/5th water and allowed to sit and "marry" for two days ("integrated water" (IW)) was smoother, mellower, and more richly flavored than the sample that had just been diluted (recently poured water (RPW)). I wondered if Ryan's method of integrating water would work on the cask strength Bookers bourbon and Port Charlotte PC7 Islay Scotch single malt whisky expressions that I had previously attempted to water down - but without ideal results. So this Tuesday I put up four 50ml bottles. Two of them were filled 4/5th full of Bookers. In one of those I added 1/5 water. In the other I left 1/5th empty to allow me to mix water in at the same proportion immediately before the testing. The other two 50ml bottles were filled with Port Charlotte PC7. In one of those I added 1/5 water and in the other I left it 1/5th empty for the addition of water at the time of the test too.

So, lets see if Ryan's discovery that water integrates better with cask strength Irish whisky over time works with cask strength expressions of bourbon and Scotch whisky from Islay.

Water integration Experiment: Bookers 3/15/21012 6pm - 60 hours of integration.

Integrated Water (IW) has a noticeably muted nose. Less hot and sharp, but also less sweet and less woody. Corn and vegetal notes now prominent.

Entry is much smoother, but sweetness intensity greatly reduced. Body is thinner than uncut - but dramatically thicker and less watery than RPW. Midpalate expansion is still hot. Finish is still nice and long with Jim Beam sour note.

Recently Poured Water (RPW)

Nose is sharper, sweeter, more like uncut Bookers.

Entry has obvious watery note but the razor sharp sweetness of Bookers is plainly detectible. Midpalate heat is greatly reduced compared to uncut - but still hotter than IW. Midpalate flavors are fresher and more vivid too. Mouthfeel is much more watery, however than IW. Finish is noticably impacted. The spirit heat burn remains but the sweet and wood which dominated the finish are substantially reduced, as is the Beam diagnostic sour note.

After 30 minutes the body has noticeably improved. Sweet entry still in evidence. Midpalate still hot - but finish is getting better. After 45 minutes minor advancements on this line.

For me this is much more of a mixed bag than Ryan found. The RPW had more of uncut Booker's nose and sweet intensity on entry, but at the cost of a watery mouthfeel and an impaired finish. IW was substantially shelved down in the nose and missing the brown sugar intensity of Booker's entry. However it had much better thicker mouthfeel, midpalate corn structure, and a richer, more satisfying finish. What a conundrum. It's almost a tie - with neither one winning. Neither dilution did uncut Bookers any favors. In the future I'll still take my Booker's neat even if it means going slow and enduring the sear. However, if I do decide to cut Bookers my conclusion is the opposite of Ryan's: it's better to add water just before sipping and give it 30-40 minutes to rest and marry. Longer integration robs it of too much of it's nose and front end.

It's clear that I'm observing the same effects that Ryan found: extended time for integration yields a rounder smoother nose and front end and richer body without sacrificing the finish. However it seems that Ryan found this transformation served Redbreast 12 CS well and I found it ill suited to Bookers. The intense sweet nose and entry are Bookers greatest charms. The gains in smoothness and body and finish do not compensate for their loss in the case of Bookers bourbon.

Tomorrow we will see what happens with Port Charlotte 7...

Bookers bourbon is a massive flavor bomb of cask strength bourbon richness

The top of the line of Jim Beam's Small Batch Collection, Bookers is a 127.9 proof monster (at least my current bottle). Booker's is a small batch offering (a vatting of a relatively small number of casks), bottled at full cask strength which varies in proof and age from 121 to 127 proof (according to the web site, because the distiller chooses casks for each batch by flavor and the strength of each cask is unique) and from 6-8 years in the barrel (for the same reason). I guess my 127.9 proof example is "pushing the envelope" for Bookers. I'm not complaining. Alcohol is a flavor carrier and Bookers is a big flavor bomb.
The dark tea orange color speaks of a heavy char in the barrels and you can smell it. The toffee caramel aromas mix with the char to produce dark chocolate / cocoa notes. There's also vanilla and tobacco and leather in there. As Master Series reviewer Paul Pacult notes - there a "paraffin" note.

Take a sip and pure sweetness hits first. An intense sugar hit like maple syrup right on the tip of your tongue. The midpalate mammoth wallop of orange fruit (citrus / apricot), toffee, and caramel corn hit a nanosecond later followed by spirit heat, wood tannins, oiled leather and vanilla aromatics from oak. That paraffin note I own to Paul Pacult shows up here as well. The high proof makes itself known in the huge midpalate hit and in a big spicy burn which hangs on for minutes as this bourbon finishes long and simple with a wood smoke, sugar glow, sourmash twang, and burnt orange throat bitterness.

Wow! I'm after another sip right away, but at this high a proof I must take my time. The first big question is "can I use water"? You always can, but sometimes it robs a whiskey of its heart. The answer here is "yes you can". You can put quite a bit of water into Bookers and it still tastes clearly of Bookers (i.e. delicious). It loses some intensity (particularly the aroma and midpalate explosion) but might gain something in the fruit esters department. It certainly is easier to drink with some water.

Bookers is clearly the most powerful bourbon flavor experience I've had so far. The flavor profile is first rate too: distinctive, complex, and luscious. Excellent stuff!


****

Knob Creek Small Batch is a big dense chewy bourbon with tons of character

The anchor of the Jim Beam small batch collection (the lowest price, shortest bottle, longest posted age in the barrel and the biggest sales of any small batch bourbon) Knob Creek is a big substantial bourbon that oozes class and quality. It begs to be sipped neat and slow. It stands up to the best bourbons without embarrassing itself.
In the glass it's a rich spessarite garnet reddish orange with a tinge of henna. The redness is coming from the #4 char oak barrels. That's the darkest level of char. This char level shows up all over Knob creek - from the color to the nose to the last notes of the finish. Knob Creek's extensive time in the wood is a big part of its character and the fact that the wood was darkly charred is a big part of the wood's character.

The nose brings up toffee, leather, and bitter orange. Further nosing brings out vanilla, cream, and some earth mustiness - like forest floor leaves and loam. It's a complex, appetizing, and pretty sophisticated nose for a bourbon that some folks don't respect enough, in my opinion, because it's so universally available.

The initial taste on first sip is sweet with brown sugar and moassess. That's followed up by a big midpalate expansion spicy on the edges of the tongue with 100 proof and full of a sophisticated sherry quality. The finish is redolent with oak wood and a bitter orange note in the back of the tongue. There's char in the finish, vanilla, sandalwood perfume and a distant and pervasive backdrop of charcoal and creosote. You don't notice it at first but it builds up as you devour your glass. There's also a sour tang that shows up slowly over time that I have come to associate with Jim Beam. It's very subtle but it's the thread that binds the disparate Jim Beam stable together.

This is a big, rough, very masculine bourbon. It's a frontier cabin with leather, musket, and wood fire raging. It's also elegant and refined - to a point. I have no trouble recommending it - but have to point out that Elija Craig 12 has a lot of the same flavor profile (but more sweet and less char) for substantially less money. In any case, you'll have no trouble finding Knob Creek and once you start sipping I sincerely doubt anyone would regret any part of it even for a minute.


****

Jim Beam Red Stag Bourbon - Utterly delicious neat and born to be mixed

For the record, I'm not a liqueur drinker. I'm a whiskey drinker who prefers single malt scotch and single barrel bourbon neat, never anywhere near ice and aired for 10 minutes before first sip after well sniffing in a small cylindrical glass. I was expecting to HATE Red Stag - but it seduced me because it puts the taste of bourbon first. It smells like bourbon with a hint of cherry pipe tobacco in the glass: notes of popcorn, molasses, tobacco, leather, and cherry. At first sip the first taste is bourbon: corn, honey, bacon, and molasses. The mid palate explodes with cherry and tobacco and leather. It's sweet, but it's oddly sophisticated. The finish is sweet with honey, cherry, and smoke.
It's utterly delicious. I polished off my glass like a hungry wolf. The cherry is robust - but tastes real. It never obscures the bourbon which shines through with character, age, and American cowboy splendor like Johnny Cash's voice.

I'm a whiskey snob, but this liqueur is the only whiskey adulteration I've ever loved. The cherry bourbon alchemy is killer mixed with coke. It's even better in a modified Manhattan. I suspect it will work in any mixed drink where bourbon plays a part and you'd consider putting in a cherry.

Why only 4 stars? I love this stuff - but I'm a whiskey purist and this isn't pure whiskey.  It's an adulteration and displays a liqueur's syrupy sweetness, thick sugary mouth feel, and a candy fruit intensity of flavor that's alien to real whiskey.  By all rights I ought to hate this... Yes... where's my glass? I want more... ****