Last Night's Tipple

Another pour of Old Fitzgerald Bottled In Bond last night, and it wasn't particularly enjoyable this time around. It seemed hot and rough, and the Wheat Thin graininess on the finish was annoying. I guess it goes to show that one's impressions of spirits can differ dramatically depending on when one drinks it.

A bit of trivia that I learned this week that may interest nobody other than me: as you may or may not know, all Bourbon currently produced is sour mash, meaning that some of the liquid remaining at the end of the distillation process (called backset) is added to new mash in the fermenters. The standard reasons given for doing this include the desire to ensure consistency and continuity between batches of distiller's beer and to prevent bacterial contamination of the new mash (since the backset is acidic and is consequently inhospitable to bacteria). Anyway, Maker's Mark, like every other Bourbon currently sold, is a sour mash whiskey. They periodically shut down the distillery for cleaning or other reasons, which presents a problem for the first batch of distiller's beer fermented after restarting the distillery after a shut down. Where do they get their backset for these first batches? Why, from Heaven Hill! Which means that your Maker's Mark may have just a little bit of Old Fitzgerald in it.

Last Night's Tipple

As I have previously discussed, Old Fitzgerald is currently distilled by the Heaven Hill Distillery at their Bernheim plant in Louisville. The brand is a venerable one, rising to glory and renown with the Stitzel-Weller Distillery and Pappy Van Winkle after Prohibition. It doesn't have nearly the reputation that it once did; instead, it's in Heaven Hill's stable of middle-shelf orphan brands with only a regional following. But it is still true to its wheated Bourbon roots. Heaven Hill had never distilled a wheated Bourbon when they acquired the Old Fitz brand in the early '90s, but instead of turning it into a regular old ryed Bourbon, they kept the mashbill and began to make their own wheated whiskey. Some of this whiskey is currently in the some of the Van Winkle bottlings (used while the Buffalo Trace wheated Bourbon was coming up to age), and Heaven Hill's experience with wheat led them to their experiment with Bernheim straight wheat whiskey, which is a one-of-a-kind offering. I'm not taken with Bernheim wheat, especially at the price; but I love the innovation and I have hope that the whiskey will improve with some more age on it.

But I was talking about Old Fitzgerald Bottled In Bond. It's not that hard to tell that it's a wheater -- the sweetness and the Wheat Thin grainy nose are both dead giveaways. It's not bad, but it's no Van Winkle. Heck, it's not even an Old Weller. It's just too hot, too rough. Two or three years more time in the barrel could do this whiskey good. That statement seems to be a recurring theme with Heaven Hill whiskeys.

Last Night's Tipple

Bourbon distilleries are notorious for bottling products under the name of all-but-fictional distillery names. Knob Creek is not distilled by the Knob Creek Distillery; it's distilled by Jim Beam. Old Grand-Dad is not distilled by the Old Grand-Dad Distillery; it's also distilled by Jim Beam. And Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond is not distilled by the Old Fitzgerald Distillery. It has been distilled by many different companies, most recently by Heaven Hill. One nice thing about Bourbon that's bottled in bond, though, is that the law requires that the Distilled Spirits Producer (DSP) number of the producing and bottling distillery to be printed on the label. A company can invent whatever half-assed DBA name they want for their whiskey, but the DSP number is definitive. In the case of my bottle of Old Fitz BIB, the label says that it was distilled at DSP-KY-1 and bottled at DSP-KY-31. With a little research, I found that DSP-KY-1 is the Bernheim Distillery (owned by Heaven Hill) in Louisville and that DSP-KY-31 is the Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown. The Bardstown distillery burned in 1996, but Heaven Hill still has bonded warehouses and bottling facilities there. If you ever happen to see a bottle of Old Fitz or anything else with DSP-KY-16 on the label, buy it: that means that it was produced at the old Stitzel-Weller Distillery, which is renowned for its quality but which closed in 1992.

It's amazing how much Old Fitz BIB smells like Crown Royal: light vanilla and toffee aromas that are very appetizing. It has a lot more body than Crown Royal, though, and it has a lot more flavor, mostly something grainy and yeasty, but with some orange peel. It's also a good bit rough around the edges, which makes since because it's young and 100 proof. Not the best Bourbon in the world, but pretty good for $14 a fifth.