The Great American Saloon Series: The Bourbon Beat
Babbin, Jed
"The Great American Saloon Series: The Bourbon Beat" Jed Babbin on the Bourbon Beat The Blessing of Elijah Craig Scotch drinkers approach bourbon with caution. Not with disdain, but unease. You can no more measure...
...Then Wlady asked me to review the premier bourbons for the SPECTATOR...
...39 buys a one-year subscription to America's best magazine...
...In 1984, Blanton's (93 proof, undated) was the first single-barrel bourbon to reach the market...
...Mary had done her home-work, and arrayed before us were nine bourbons...
...mong the low rolling hills of Loudoun County, Virginia, is the Lansdowne Conference Center and Resort...
...Then face Kentucky and raise a toast to of Elijah Craig—God bless you and keep you, even if you didn't invent bourbon...
...They ranged in age and strength from Basil Hay-den (80 proof, 8 years old) to Booker's (126 America's whiskey has matured to be as fine as scotch, as beautiful as cognac...
...That cigar, like several others PG makes, has such a large, superb taste that Knob Creek was nearly lost in the process...
...No one went away ratingit as number one, and two said they'd probably never drink it again...
...In trips to Scotland, I have visited several of the distilleries and have found some treats fit for the gods...
...A relatively short finish leaves more a memory of maple and spice than a distinctive taste...
...Each is art in its own right and has earned a special place in our world and our tastes...
...Lansdowne happens to be the home of the Lansdowne Grill, probably the best steakhouse in Northern Virginia...
...It is very much worth buying...
...But not all we tasted were so good...
...I didn't pay enough attention to Knob Creek because, by that time, we had all lit our Paul Garmirian Grand Panatelas...
...Knob Creek (100 proof, 9 years old) is another, like Blanton's, that ought to be in your cabinet...
...It has an extraordinary smoothness and a very long finish...
...Jerry and Ron said they could gladly stay with Basil Hayden's whiskey through dinner...
...She shoulda known...
...A couple of years later, when the barrels were opened, a delicious but unfamiliar product poured out, which we now call bourbon...
...You can no more measure one against the other than you could a Porsche 911 and a Paul Garmirian cigar...
...My father lured me from it during my law school days when he mailed me Teacher's Highland Cream scotch, wrapped carefully in copies of the New York Daily News...
...74 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 proof, 7 years, 1 month old), and included two that may yet convert this old scotch drinker to America's whiskey...
...Your legend makes it taste just a wee bit better, and America just a wee bit richer...
...Some modern distillers create artificial "seasons" by raising and lowering the temperature in the storage warehouse...
...The suitably outraged Rev...
...It needs about another decade in the barrel...
...It had almost no taste...
...Research, both liquid and library, was obviously required, as was expert advice...
...Before we got to the Black Maple Hill, we tasted Booker's (126 proof, 7 years, 1 month old...
...After completing his research for this article, he slept it off at Lansdowne...
...A faint, sweet taste of oatmeal was overpowered by the burn of the alcohol...
...Maker's Mark (90 proof, undated) is the only wheated bourbon we tasted...
...It is the charring—done to four different degrees, and which results in varying flavor and color—that makes corn whiskey into bourbon...
...This is one that will go in my whiskey cabinet, even if I have to make room by dispensing with one scotch...
...He scorched the barrels' insides, then proceeded to store a fresh batch of corn whiskey in the charred wood...
...I could only think of the gal at Starbucks who calls decaf coffee "why bother...
...Some distillers use rye or bar-ley to make up the rest, and some use wheat...
...I remembered bourbon from college days as some-thing sweet that went down smoothly, usually mixed with ginger ale...
...I plan to give Knob Creek another try...
...Spending years in the aging barrels, bourbon leaches flavor from the char and wood, their substances seeping into the whiskey...
...And so, on October 24, Jerry and I, together with my friends Bruce and Ron, convened there for some research and dinner...
...Basil Hayden had a long finish similar to a sherrycasked scotch...
...Though it has a higher alcohol content than Baker's, it's vastly smoother...
...However it was invented, we all should be grateful for bourbon because America's whiskey has matured to be as fine as scotch, as beautiful as cognac...
...I had asked for some hometown newspapers and for a while that was all my mother thought I was getting...
...We began with Basil Hayden, which is a good way to begin any evening...
...That is, unless I can find another bottle of Black Maple Hill...
...In colonial times, Scottish immigrants came to Kentucky to find not much barley but easyto-grow corn...
...One reviewer called Booker's a "runaway train...
...THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES Jed Babbin on the Bourbon Beat The Blessing of Elijah Craig Scotch drinkers approach bourbon with caution...
...In scotch, I look for a long-lasting aftertaste, which the pros call "finish...
...I have been a scotch drinker ever since, an eager convert to single malts more than a decade ago...
...Black Maple Hill (94.8 proof, 16 years old) is a single-barrel bourbon that won't be found in most stores...
...In a small brandy snifter, Baker's smell was almost overwhelming...
...Craig's leg-end, like all American legends, is certainly the truth, give or take a lie or two...
...But getting tons of grain to market was nearly impossible...
...Jerry Dumont is the general manager of the resort, and when I mentioned the liquid research I needed to do, he immediately insisted on hosting it...
...Good Mr...
...It is as delicious a whiskey as Blanton's, but slightly sweeter...
...To legally be bourbon, the whiskey must be at least 51 percent corn...
...My notes say "liquid relaxation...
...One of our guys came into the evening with Maker's Mark as his longtime favorite...
...Some were "single-barrel" bourbons, which are literally that—from a single cask unmixed with other whiskeys...
...Drink Up...
...In a straight-necked scotch glass, the burn and the smell were reduced, but not enough to make this one enjoyable...
...Now that you're back with your bottle of Black Maple Hill (or Blanton's, or whatever you chose), wait for sunset...
...It's worth finding...
...Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration, and is The American Prowler's "Loose Canons" columnist...
...No designated driver should come closer than to enjoy Booker's great aroma...
...For a demonstration of this you need only ask my friend, Jerry Dumont...
...It's that good...
...One of our guys thought it was slightly peppery, with all tasting a faint caramel flavor...
...Elijah Craig, was making corn whiskey in a manner quite unlike that his ancestors had used to turn barley into "usquebaugh"—a Scottish-Gaelic term that means "the water of life...
...A little spice, a little oak, and a little vanilla all appear somewhere on the palate with this whiskey...
...Search for it...
...Though Maker's Mark is soft, smooth, and a little smoky, it can't stand next to the others we tasted...
...Kentucky's corn whiskey kegs were emblazoned with their origin, "Bourbon County," as they went west to the Mississippi River, and bourbon was soon headed all over the world...
...Bourbon is made by aging corn whiskey in fire-charred barrels...
...It's the muscle car of the group, full-bodied with a slight vanilla-caramel flavor...
...For all its alcohol content, Booker's is as smooth as they come (which made me wonder again why Baker's is so rough...
...At Mary's direction, we tried Baker's out of two different glasses...
...Any one could be the best...
...But who was the American Dom Perignon who invented bourbon...
...Instead of "malting" partially germinated grain over a cool peat fire, corn is fermented and distilled, sometimes twice, to produce what some of our citizens of the Lower Latitudes still call "white lightnin...
...It's very light, almost flowery, with a minty taste...
...Like scotches, truly extraordinary bourbons sometimes appear from the smaller distillers...
...Most were "small batch" bourbons, which are a mix of several barrels of different ages...
...Legend has it that a gent of Scottish descent, one Rev...
...But don't spend another dime on bourbon until you find it...
...One of our guys compared it to armagnac, which is about right...
...Wild Turkey Rare Breed (108.6 proof, a blend of 6-, 8-, and 12-year-old whiskies) brought us back to the sublime...
...Presiding over the research was Lansdowne's sommelier and bourbon expert, Mary Watson...
...This causes more leaching, and more flavoring, by opening and closing the pores of the wood, more frequently than nature herself...
...But Booker's is not something to sip at the start of the evening...
...Aeration doesn't help this whiskey...
...It's for after dinner, with the last cigar, to be savored in a wee dram...
...Its aroma is sharp, but the taste is light and smooth...
...Buy it...
...Craig had been aging his whiskey in oak barrels when some lout—finding them empty one day—used them to store dead fish...
...It's a real sippin' whiskey...
...Leave your house now...
...I thought it was the smoothest of all we tasted...
...Three out of four of us rated Black Maple Hill as at least tied for first place, if not the clear favorite...
...A daunting task: more than a hundred bourbons are sold, a great many either single barrel or small batch...
...Call 1-800-524-3469 PECTATOR K1:NTUCKY STRAIGHT BOU RBON WHISKEY Q N/lICCeE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 75...
...Craig—a Baptist minister of the fire-and-brimstone variety—did what he could in 1780s Kentucky...
...Sever-al states make "sour mash" and other whiskies that look and taste like bourbon, but only Kentucky makes bourbon...
...It's a graceful whiskey, to be sipped slowly...
...Its flavor is oaky, with a long finish...
...Bourbon is America's native whiskey...
...Pour a little into a glass, and maybe add one ice cube or a few drops of water to open up the taste...
...As one of our guys said, "this one will take you out of the game...
...Our gang of four gave a unanimous "thumbs down" to Baker's...
...It has a refined, rich bouquet reminiscent of a cognac...
...Baker's is a small-batch bourbon, 107 proof and 7 years old...
...Farmers—almost every one with a still—soon discovered that making corn into whiskey solved the transportation problem and was muchmore profitable than farming...
Vol. 35 • November 2002 • No. 6
