Last Night's Tipple

Another pour of Bulleit Bourbon (distilled for Diageo by Four Roses Distillery and the only Four Roses product available nationwide), and I continue to think that it's very tasty -- raisin bread pudding with caramel sauce is what comes to mind. But here's the kicker: those attributes only come out when th Bourbon has had a chance to breathe in the glass. If it doesn't have a chance to breathe, it comes off as spirity and harsh. It's like that for a lot of whiskeys that I drink: they don't show themselves to their best advantage until they've been sitting in the glass for a while. I don't recall ever reading anywhere about the benefits of breathing for whiskey, so maybe my experience is unique. But I can tell you that it frequently makes a world of difference.

Bulleit comes in an old-timey-looking flask-shaped bottle. Somebody must have done some marketing research indicating that the whiskey-buying public likes flask-shaped bottles because they seem ubiquitous here in the past few years. In the world of Bourbon, Bulleit, Knob Creek, and Woodford Reserve all have flask-shaped bottles; in the world of Scotch, there is Highland Park and Macallan, both of which recently underwent a bottle and label redesign to the current shape and typography. I personally like the shape -- it's attractive, and it's easier to store than standard round bottles.