Russell's Reserve 10 Small Batch Bourbon is soft yet satisfying

Last week I was musing on "small batch" bourbons and poking some fun at the undefined nature of the term and complaining about how some of the products didn't live up to their single barrel brethren. Jordan Devereaux suggested I try Russell's Reserve small batch bourbon. Like magic, a bottle of it arrived shortly afterwards in a bag from Danielle of Exposure - in a case of cosmic synchronicity.  The bag also bore news about the Russell's Reserve single barrel which is all over the blogosphere - and apparently already in stores in Kentucky according to journalist, photographer, author and whisky blogger Fred Minnik. First the tasting; then the analysis:

Russell's Reserve 10 Small Batch Bourbon 45%

Color: light amber with a coppery orange tint.

Nose: soft and inviting with floral citrus (orange, lemon, and lime), varnish and acetone, and a good dose of the rich musky loam aroma that is a common thread through the Wild Turkey lineage - perhaps a legacy of the yeast, warehouses or the very air and earth of that region of Kentucky. It's a nice bourbon nose, but not particularly distinctive or outstanding. It's not deficient in any way either.

The palate entry is sweet with corn sugars and pointed with a cinnamon red hots flavor note and palate heat. The cinnamon red hots wax into spicy oak with saw house dust and sandalwood hints. At the turn this oaky note shows it's bitter side and the finish is long and gentle with oak and char bitter melding with lingering cinnamon scented corn sweet. If sounds pretty good to you, you're on the same page with me. This is very nice bourbon. The sweet, musk, and bitter meld through the palate progression like a rich fierce beer. My criticism is the flavor density. This is soft and comfortable sipping. That's also a substantial strength. This could be an every day bourbon. It has enough richness and complexity to hold you, while being gentle enough and cheap enough to be a daily dram.


***  (almost four stars - I struggled with this one for a moment - but the struggle led me to the more conservative score).

Given that Russell's Reserve bourbon generally goes for around $30 this is a fine value.  In light of my previous small batch tasting I'd rank this ahead of Four Roses Small Batch.  Like Four Roses Small Batch, it's softer, less flavor dense, and less complex than the single barrel offering.  In this case the single barrel Wild Turkey I'm comparing it with is WT Kentucky Spirit 101.  Russell's Reserve Small Batch gets the nod for its red hots flavors - perhaps a sign of that 10 year ageing?  The elephant in the room here is Russell's Reserve Single Barrel with its barrel strength 110 proof.  If the RR Single Barrel stuff is the same mature flavor profile as the RR Small Batch, this could be really fine.  In the mean time, RR Small Batch is darned fine sipping bourbon with a laid back relaxed style but some of the nice flavors of the good stuff at a very attractive price.

Russell's Reserve hits the nerve... with verve.

Russell's Reserve Single Barrel Bourbon

Jimmy and Eddie Russel - the geniuses behind Wild Turkey

I'm a Wild Turkey fan - and I have a rather deep love for Russell's Reserve products - the upscale line introduced about a decade ago, perhaps as a response to Beam's Small Batch Collection. I think there's little debate that Beam's branding exercise was more of a success. But, as Jordan Devereaux, whiz kid whisky / cocktail science genius of the excellent and highly recommended Chemistry Of The Cocktail blog wrote in the comments section of my last post (a petulant diatribe against the loose meaning of the term "small batch):

Review of the 10 to come...

"Russell's Reserve is also a really good small batch bourbon. Definitely still has the distinctive WT yeastiness to it, but mellowed in comparison to the younger versions. And I think it's usually under $30, so it's even a decent value."
http://cocktailchem.blogspot.com/


And so it is. A full review of Russell's Reserve 10 will follow shortly (and a lovely bottle of it was just generously supplied by the lovely Danielle of Exposure). So, why is Russell's Reserve bourbon suddenly so present in the whiskey Zeitgeist?

It's because today is the day that the exciting new expression Russell's Reserve Single Barrel bourbon is out. This is exciting for a host of reasons:

• Cask Strength. As Chuck Cowdery - serious bourbon genius - explains:
  "For any Wild Turkey whiskey, 110° is just about barrel proof because they have an unusually low barrel entry proof."
  http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2013/02/new-russells-reserve-single-barrel-is.html
  
  If you read Sku's Recent Eats last Tuesday you just read a post about how rare high proof bourbons are. Beam has had a premium one since Booker's. Wild Turkey's is Rare Breed. A nice sip, but not really a high end bourbon. (Whisky geeks, please remember that Booker's is "small batch and this new Russell's is "Single Barrel"). So this is a fairly major addition to our pantheon of barrel strength bourbon.
  
• Not chill filtered - for uncut barrel goodness
• #4 Char barrels for that lovely richness of deeply charred oak.

Now all that sounds pretty good to me. Maybe enough to forget about the fact that there's no age statement on the bottle. Chuck and others have complained that the more mainstream Russell's Reserve 45% abv. sports a nice mature 10 year age statement for $35 - so it seems disappointing to them that the more expensive ($50) Single Barrel version lacks an age statement. I would point out that Four Roses Single Barrel also lacks an age statement and Jim Rutledge has eloquent reasons for why this is better. These have to do with individual barrel selection for flavor rather than a blanket subjugation of flavor by a dogmatic age statement label. Under the circumstances I'm in favor of giving Jimmy & Eddie Russell the benefit of the doubt on this one. Lord knows they have made plenty of good decisions before.

The proof will come in the tasting in any case. Keep your eyes peeled for this one. This might be a lovely addition to the canon.

(Note - this post has got a lot of action in the Comments - with a lot of good material coming out there.  Be sure to click the comments link and check them out).

An unexpected treasure: Russells Reserve Rye 6 is a diamond in the rough

A moderately inexpensive, relatively young, rye whiskey from a mainstream American mass market distiller... But I was extremely impressed by a smooth, creamy, floral, and beguiling rye with an unusually gentle character.

Russell's Reserve Rye 6 45% abv.

A lovely rich golden amber in the glass. The nose, after extended air (10-20 minutes) is delicate yet rich with honeysuckle, vanilla, lanolin, mineral and some sweetness with a vegetal components - alfalfa treacle? It's a light and lovely smell that is soothing and yet appetizing.

Entry is off-dry (slightly sweet) with dry cereal and a peppery quality that almost feels like the effervescence of soda. Midpapalate expansion is sweet with rich cereal sugars, oak vanilla floral essences, some sherry toffee notes, and a big dose of cream. The creaminess carries into the long and elegant finish with more peppery notes balanced by that sweet floral cream, fading into light wood tannins.

Lithe, fruity, floral, sweet and kissed with clean oak; Russels 6 takes rye into a sweeter, lighter, more feminine place than I usually experience rye. I like it... Wait, I LOVE it. A quiet and unassuming knock out.

(FYI - the mainstream American mass market distiller is Wild Turkey.  The name "Russell" refers to the father and son master distilling team behind Wild Turkey's success).  Find a good distiller and enjoy their talents - that's good advice I try to live by.  I have been quite impressed with the Russell family's work.


*****