Whisky Party

As regular readers know, late last year the Whisky Party crew put together a group of friends to purchase a 3 gallon barrel of single malt American whiskey from Tuthilltown Distillery in New York.  After much work (and mishaps) shipping 23 bottles to various places across the country, all three of our bloggers were finally able to taste their bottles.  Here are the tasting notes on our very first (and hopefully not the last) private barrel of whiskey, along with a head to head look at how it compares to the official single malt bottling offered by Tuthilltown.

HUDSON SINGLE MALT WHISKEY – OFFICIAL BOTTLING

Gable Erenzo at Tuthilltown describes this official bottling as a “very American style whiskey” that tries to bridge the gap between a bourbon and a scotch.  The whiskey has the mash bill of a scotch (100% malted barley), but is aged using a bourbon process employing charred, fresh oak barrels.  The Hudson Single Malt contains a vatting of whiskey aged anywhere from 5 months to 2 years, depending on the barrel size, with smaller 3 gallon barrels aged for a shorter span, and larger 14 gallon barrels aged up to two years.  It should be noted that it is only sold in 375 mL bottles.

ABV: 46%

Color: Copper/Burnt Orange

Nose: Vanilla, Spice, fresh cut wood

Taste: Vanilla and spice dominate.  There is some sweetness but it is muted.  Could be citrus fruits.

Overall: The fresh wood aging is hugely apparent in the taste of this whisky.  I’m not a big bourbon or rye drinker, but the spicy vanilla with a hint of sweetness is right out of that playbook for my palate.   As a single malt scotch lover, it misses the mark for me.   Those who like the spicy sweetness of a bourbon or rye might enjoy this experiment, however I fear it is something of a mermaid.  When you want a woman, you get a fish, when you want a fish, you get a woman.  In this case, those who want a single malt will get a bourbon, and those who want bourbon will get a single malt.     [--Whisky Party]

Other Opinions:

• Dr. Whisky makes no value judgments, but finds this whiskey full of spicy wood and earth flavors.  He calls it a “sipping whiskey.”

HUDSON SINGLE MALT WHISKEY – SINGLE BARREL

On to our private barrel of whiskey.  If you want to read the story about how we came to purchase a full 3 gallon barrel from Tuthilltown, you can read the posts by my co bloggers:

• On Buying a Barrel of Whiskey: Tuthilltown Distillery
• Tales from the Cask: Tuthilltown Distillery Tour and Tasting

Distilled: 5/20/2009

Bottled: 12/22/2009

ABV: 46%???? (not listed, but this is standard ABV for the single malt)

[Whisky Party - Bottle Number 11/23]

Color: Reddish Copper

Nose: Heat.  Vanilla, spice and sweetness.  Wood.

Taste: More hot vanilla spiciness.  A sweet flavor that might be oranges.  A hot finish and still a heavy influence of fresh wood.

Overall: This is exactly the same as the official bottling, except bigger and rougher.  Everything is magnified in this expression from the heat to the flavors.  In that sense it is a true single barrel – lots of character without the “balancing” of vatting together multiple barrels to take the edges off.

[Strong Like Cask - Bottle Number 12/23]

Legs: Small but very quick.

Color: Pennies reflecting yellowed water

Nose: Vanilla and blood oranges. Very sweet. Also a very sharp tinge of alcohol.

Palate: Oranges again, dunked in some sugar. However, alcohol permeates and it’s pretty one note. Sweet oranges are there, but it’s not a dessert dram. It’s pretty rough around the edges

Finish: Very warming. Turns quite bitter but the citrus remains throughout.

Overall: This is interesting, and I’m surprised it has the color and flavors it does for only spending 7 months in a barrel. Its youth really shows as it’s not too complex and pretty rough around the edges. It’s alright to drink, but I can see it actually going very well in an old fashioned, lending some of its orange flavor to that. I don’t think I’d usually reach for it neat or for a dessert dram. Is it worth it to have our own barrel of old fashioned cocktail making whiskey? Potentially.  But I think I might have had slightly higher hopes for this.

[Dodgy Drammer - Bottle Number 19/23]

Color: Deep copper.

Nose: Malt barley, fresh baked bread, some citrus, sour cherries.

Palate: Grains, a touch of vanilla malt, harsh prickly spices, bark.

Body: Flabby.

Finish: The flavour drops off immediately, leaving a grainy, alcoholic sting beneath the tongue.

Overall: Disharmonious.  Way too young.  This is one of the least enjoyable whiskies that I’ve ever had.  Where at $40 for an entire 750ml bottle it might have been worth it for the experiment, at almost $80 for 750ml it is a downright shame.  It was aged in a 3 gallon barrel for about 7 months; while the flavours produced from this may be beneficial to a finished, vatted official bottling, on its own it doesn’t stand up.  This disappointing experience has got me to thinking about Tuthilltown’s prices in general, since all of their bottles go for over $40 (except the Corn Whiskey) but are only 375ml– for that price ($80 or more per 750ml) there are way better options when it comes to single malts, ryes, and bourbons (even though their rye and bourbon are quite nice).

Conclusion:

As you can see, we all pretty much felt that this was too rough and young a whisky for too high a price.  Gable Erenzo at the distillery let us know that in the future Tuthilltown will release single malts with higher age statements.  My advice is to hold off until that time.  For now, if you are going to buy Tuthilltown, stick with their Baby Bourbon.

–Whisky Party

Mike F recently wrote of his trip to the Tuthilltown Spirits Distillery, the female planner of which (LadyDrammer?) checked with me before making arrangements as to whether I thought it would make a good holiday surprise and if I was interested in joining.  Although the distillery canceled their tours for the day on which I was on the east coast and able to go, in looking at the Tuthilltown website, I saw that they offer the option to purchase a barrel of whiskey.  It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but have always been scared away by a) the cost and b) the lack of options available.  It seems that Tuthilltown whiskey was able to counteract both.

The Plan

Tuthilltown offers the option to buy barrels in 3 gallon, 5 gallon, and 7 gallon sizes.   On their website, they estimate that each gallon will produce 8 to 11 Tuthilltown-sized bottles (375 ml).  Whenever I have seen the opportunity to buy barrels before, it seems like the up front commitment is thousands upon thousands of dollars.  A 3 gallon barrel seemed totally doable without much hassle for me and my friends (we figured that it wouldn’t be too difficult to find buyers for between 24 to 33 bottles of whiskey), and after a few e-mails to test the water, we decided to go through with it.  Turns out, after only a couple of e-mails, we had every bottle spoken for at both the minimum and the maximum count (24 to 33).

The Process

The first step was placing the order for a 3 gallon barrel online through their website. I then waited for them to make contact.  At this point, I hadn’t specified the type of spirit we were looking for – only the barrel size.  It wasn’t long before they got in contact, and we started discussing some of the particulars.  Throughout the process, Gable Erenzo and Luz Reid from Tuthilltown were amazing.  I had to give them my credit card to let them know I was serious (as well as to put a deposit of under $100 down to pay for the barrel).  And then our conversations continued.

Throughout this period of about a week and a half, Gable and I spoke about what was available.  At that time for 3 gallon barrels, we could have chosen single malt, baby bourbon, or rye.  He also amended the website’s statement to let me know that we’d probably get about 6 to 8 bottles per gallon (he said the angels had recently been taking a larger share), and then we discussed shipping options.  We were responsible for paying for all bottles that came out of the barrel, at a price discount of around 10% per bottle.  My friends and I decided to go with the single malt, which due to local regulations prohibiting the sale of non-NY products at the distillery (as we indicated in an earlier post, the barley is from Canada), Tuthilltown arranged for us to purchase our whiskey at a local liquor store.  This just added an extra process as I had to call up the liquor store and give them my credit card.

Out of the barrel, we actually got 23 bottles – closer to the original website-stated minimum estimate.   This had us scrambling a bit after we had originally told people that they couldn’t take part based on the reduced estimate  of 6 to 8 bottles per gallon (after people dropped out, the numbers did not work out as smoothly).  My only complaint throughout this initial process might be that we talked too many times, and I found myself having to repeat things as they wanted to make sure they got everything the way we wanted it.   Perhaps when it comes down to it, this isn’t such a bad thing, but I felt at points that they might not have the best internal communication or have written everything down that was spoken about and relevant.

Making it Special

Some other interesting things came out of this – first, as far as customization of the label when you buy a barrel, your options are extremely limited.    All liquor labels are approved by the NY State liquor board, and that process takes months and resources far beyond what we had (and probably beyond what Tuthilltown should reasonably be willing to do).  Your option is to basically choose a label that they have already approved with the state liquor board and customize it through the batch number and date space.  Most often with the barrels they have available for purchase, they recommend their “New York Whiskey” label.  They did not actually have enough of these current labels to cover our order (they ran out).  We lucked out and got the last batch of their initial run of these labels, which are actually longer than the current stock and therefore slightly more rare and “custom”.  However, we didn’t see pictures of the labels beforehand and they were described as ‘just like the current “New York Whiskey” label but longer’ which turned out not to be entirely true; some of us considered the large pregnancy warning covering the original label to be overwhelming and vastly different than the ‘New York Whiskey’ label we were shown.  Some also complained that the labels weren’t affixed to the bottles very well, as a few wound up crooked and unaligned.

Second, we also got to keep the barrel.  I had it shipped to a friend who homebrews beer so that we can try our own barrel-aged ale.  This was pretty great of the distillery (it didn’t actually add to the cost of the whiskey – the original deposit went to the total purchase price).

Third, though we wanted some aspect of immediate gratification, Tuthilltown will work with you to really get whatever it is you may want.  They’ll age something longer, find fun barrels for you, or just tell you what they have in stock on hand and let you come in and taste it.  Obviously we didn’t go for these options and our original plans to taste before bottling did not pan out,  but it’s nice that they exist.

The Outcome

We will post our tasting notes and review of the whiskey itself in another, forthcoming post.  However, regardless of how the whiskey tastes, I’m happy we went through with this.  It’s an interesting process in which to take part, and something as I said before I always wanted to do.  We did it on the cheap, relatively speaking (mind you, I understand and acknowledge that $40 dollars for 375ml of whiskey is not cheap, but in my mind,  the ability to have your own unique barrel of whiskey for that price amongst some friends is worth it, especially when you only have to cover 23 bottles in total).  It’s worth noting that not every member of WhiskyParty or the group of friends at large feels this way.

Would we do it differently next time?  Probably. I think we’d have to taste the product beforehand.  $75 for a bottle of whiskey is a bit much right now to purchase a whiskey without knowing how it tastes.  In addition, I’d ask more specific questions up front on the barrel used and the aging time (vs. standard aging time for official bottlings).  There’s too much risk involved in not finding something with a taste that everyone will be excited about.  However, all in all, the process was easy, the distillery was extremely helpful and supportive, and cracking open a bottle of whiskey out of your very own barrel is something special.

Doing it Again (Other Opinions)

Though limited, there are indeed options to buying barrels from distilleries.  In general, buying a cask or barrel of whisk(e)y is extremely expensive up front, involves patience (usually) and is then expensive because of duties and import fees on the tail end.  The options seem to change often, so there is no real master list, and as usual, opinions vary greatly:

• The Scotch Blog has a great, researched and detailed post on it (though it’s a couple of years old at this point).  He basically says it’s not a smart move if you’re doing it for investment purposes.
• John Hansell posts about some of his experiences with buying a Bushmills Millenium cask and then asks the community where purchasing casks is an option.

Current (though not extensive) options available:

• Bruichladdich allows for purchases of casks, with different wood types and potentially different peat levels.
• Though removed from the website currently, Tuthilltown obviously has recently offered barrel purchases.
• Tullibardine offers cask purchases.
• GlenGoyne offers cask purchases of different wood types and potentially may have stuff not part of the catalogue.
• Isle of Barra, which I hadn’t heard of before, also allows for up front cask purchases.
• Nant Distillery in Australia has what you’re looking for (if you’re looking for casks).
• Half a year ago, John Hansell posted about Glenglassaugh offering purchases and they may still.  The distillery put out a nice (if not necessarily well organized) FAQ afterwards.
• QuarterCasks offers you the option to go in on casks from a variety of distilleries.
• Bladnoch offers you to buy a heavily peated lowlands malt in a full cask or a tenth share.  Pretty cool!

- StrongLikeCask

Tasting Notes from Blogs We Trust:

• Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey has won Malt Advocate’s award for Artisan Whiskey of the Year.  Congrats to a great American craft distillery.  Meanwhile, the MacPhail’s Collection wins best buy of the year.
• Dr. Whisky reviews Hudson Single Malt Whiskey from Tuthilltown.  Look for our own notes on this bottle soon.
• John Hansell also reviews Smoking Ember “Pure Malt.”
• Whisky for Everyone went on a tear this week, reviewing Glenmorangie Sonnalta and 18 year old, Glen Garioch Founder’s Reserve, Penderyn Peated, and  Kavalan Port Cask Finish.
• Whisky Fun gives mediocre grades to four official Macallan bottlings.  Two independent bottlings of Glenkinchie do much better.
• Edinburgh Whisky blog gives Tamdhu 25 year old a thumbs down.
• Scotch Hobbyist says that Penderyn Welsh Whisky is worth a try, if not his favorite.
• Four tastings this week from Whiskey Notes: Glen Grant 1972 (Duncan Taylor), Glen Dronach 1972 Olorosso Cask (La Maison du Whisky), Bunnahabhain 1974 (Adelphi Sherry Cask), and Nikka Yoichi 1991 (La Maison du Whisky).  All four whiskies are award-winners, winning high marks across the board.
• Whisky Host recommends the Singleton of Dufftown.  Unfortunately, it is not available in the states and not to be confused with the Singleton of Glendullan.

Whisky(e)y News on the Web

• The latest episode of Whisky Cast tastes samples of the forthcoming new bottle from Maker’s Mark.
• Nonjatta says the Paris whisky scene is buzzing.
• The Wall Street Journal has an article on Japanese Whisky (subscription only).
• The Boston Globe writes about Stimulus, a single malt release from Massachusetts’ Nashoba Winery.
• Here’s a decent article on different types of whisky – certainly better than the error-prone article from Forbes last week.
• Masters of Malt have a cool little article about the reinstallation of the oldest still in Scotland at the Bruichladdich distillery.
• Tony Blair as the new face of Ardbeg?  Not too sure about that one . . .
• The Scotch Malt Whisky Society of America has some tastings in the works.
• Tullibardine is offering casks for sale.
• Finally, don’t miss Whisky Host’s latest deconstruction of obscure tasting notes.  In this edition – the “inside of a dishwashing glove.”

At the end of our very interesting tour of the Tuthilltown Spirits’ distillery we enjoyed a tasting session in their quaint farmhouse/shop.  Surrounded by barrels of whiskey everywhere, there were many varieties of Hudson Whiskey to sample.  This un-aged new make Corn Whiskey suprised me as one of my favorites.

Hudson New York Corn Whiskey

Abv: 46%

Color: vodka

Legs: medium-to-large sized beads but slow and many of them; they just keep dropping; slow enough that waiting for them to take the photograph required some patience

Nose: corn fuel (shockingly), but also corn cob, corn bread, and a hint of buttery, saltless popcorn; the currants I usually associate with new make are also there, with some other, subtle berries (rasberries?); the corn bread prevails as the most significant, and the nicest, note

Palate: fried corn, more corn bread, and a considerable mentholic quality stand out; some tropical fruits (pineapples?) also come into play

Body: light but not too light, with a slight firmness and an even mouthfeel; much more structure than your average moonshine

Finish: considerable; toasted corn bread

Overall: when I originally tasted this at the distillery, I loved it—still do.  No aging?  No problem. And for $28/375ml it’s considerably cheaper than its aged, expensive counterparts.  This fresh-off-the-stills dram has just a slightly ethanolic nose, but the overall breadiness of the corn flavours is awesome.

- DodgyDrammer

Going back about a month, a great Christmas gift was bestowed upon me by the galfriend that fashions herself “LadyDrammer”  (we’ll see if that name sticks; more drams might be necessary as upkeep).  It was a visit, tour, and tasting at Tuthilltown, “New York’s first whiskey distillery since prohibition.” Not all that far from NYC, this Hudson Valley distillery is a quaint operation, converted from a mill granary, that literally accomplished changing the NYS laws to allow farmhouse distilleries to serve and sell alcohol on the premises (with a few legal caveats—more below).

Upon arrival, we hurried to what is essentially a converted barn-stillhouse to catchup with the tour that had just started (they run two per day, one in the morning, one after noon).  Ralph Erenzo, one of the two founders, was already educating the tour group, beside the mash tun, about grain acquisition and composition—two aspects of the Tuthilltown operation that they have painstakingly improved upon over the course of their existence.

At the inception of operations at Tuthilltown the most obvious way to acquire grains—rye, wheat, and corn—was to have it delivered from the distributor who bought it from local farms.  Eventually, Mr. Erenzo and his partner, Brian Lee, discovered that they could buy the grain from the nearby farms directly, thereby reducing costs and creating a more dynamic and self-sustaning local economy.

Walking up the creaky stillhouse stairs we passed the framed document that had legalized the sale and sampling of liquour at “farm distilleries” in New York State, a feat accomplished through consistent lobbying from Erenzo and Lee.  This enables the distillery to provide tastings and sell both bottles and casks (more on that in another post) directly to the customer.  The restriction, though, is that all products offered on site must be entirely locally sourced (i.e. from New York), eliminating the possibility of selling or sampling the very popular Hudson Single Malt Whiskey since they have to import the malted barley from Canada.  That’s right—there’s not much barley production in the US.  This could change in the near future, however, given the rise in popularity of American single malt whiskeys…

And then prominently featured on the upper floor of the former granary barn are the stills used for their double distillation: one combination pot-and-column wash still and a smaller spirit still, both in beautifully smithed copper.  After storytelling the process by which they hoisted the massive, $80,000 instruments up into the second storey of the barn, Mr. Erenzo explained, quite clearly, the process of making the still cuts—and how to “smell” the difference between the usable distillate, the foreshot, and the feints. Apparently, they take a fairly wide cut of the non-ethanol alcohols, giving Tuthilltown spirits their robust flavour and character.

To age most of their whiskey Tuthilltown uses smaller-sized barrels, thereby increasing the wood-to-whiskey ratio and reducing the amount of time necessary to age the spirit (much akin to the concept behind Laphroaig Quatercask).  Another innovation that these folks employ is “sonic aging,” whereby bass vibrations from speakers excite both the spirit and the wood.  This essentially replicates the natural “breathing” process of the barrel, upon which distilleries normally rely for absorption by the whiskey of elements in the wood and external environment.

The entire post-distillation process seems rather rudimentary; from capturing the spirit in the cask to bottling and sealing the final product, almost everything is done by the hands of their small team.  And distillation at Tuthilltown is quite environmentally friendly, too.  At the moment they are working on a system by which excess heat from the stills can be recyled to provide energy to run the operation.  One curiosity of the still room is a small series of shelves holding about a dozen different bottles of whiskey, including Glenmorangie, Pappy Van Winkle, and a few others of interest.

After explaining the aging and packaging processes, Mr. Erenzo graciously entertained all kinds of ludicrous questions (e.g., can bourbon me made outside of Kentucky?  …but of course), and then invited us back to the farmhouse/shop for a tasting session.  There they offer the majority of their products for sampling (for a small fee), providing you with a complimentary Hudson Whiskey-engraved Glencairn nosing glass.

The delicious, 100% corn Baby Bourbon was one of the favorites, although I was particularly impressed with the unaged variant that they call Hudson Corn Whiskey (it’s like a prequel to the Baby Bourbon).  Other remarkable expressions were the tasty Four Grain and the excellent Manhattan Rye.  They typically have a rare release available under the moniker New York Whiskey, although that particular batch didn’t suit my tastes as much as the standards.

Behind the tasting counter, Ms. Luz Reid not only provided friendly conversation and healthy pours, but also very kindly offered to take this photo for me.  And with that, we closed down the tasting session and headed out into the Hudson Valley night to find that cask of Single Malt whiskey that they had been aging for us…

-DodgyDrammer