Wakey Whiskey: Rogue Spirits Dead Guy Whiskey

by Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone!  Today is a big day around Baton Rouge (if the weather doesn't screw us over) with a few of my favorite festivals taking place.  Kicking off downtown today (and continuing tomorrow) is the Baton Rouge Blues Festival, and over at LSU's Rural Life Museum you can find the Zapp's International Beer Festival.  I've been attending both events pretty regularly over the years, and it's a little (okay, a lot) disappointing that both are starting at roughly the same time, but the good news is that there is plenty of time this weekend to do both if you choose!  That's certainly my plan.  

With a beer festival on my minds, I figured it would be the perfect time to try out a whiskey created by a company primarily known as a brewery, the Rogue Spirits Dead Guy Whiskey. I'm sure most of you out there have heard of Rogue Ales, an Oregon-based brewery that has been around for years with beers like the Dead Guy Ale and Hazelnut Brown.  Well, they also have their very own distillery in Newport, Oregon where they create three different whiskeys and two types of gin.  

Rogue Dead Guy Whiskey

The Dead Guy Whiskey is made from the same malted barley combination that comprised the malt bill on their Dead Guy Ale, primarily 2-Row with some Munich, Crystal 15, and a couple of locally grown malts as well.  This might seem like a departure from American whiskeys which use primarily corn but also wheat and rye, but distilling from a mash of malted barley is extremely common in Scotland and Ireland.  Malted barley is used almost exclusively in the production of both Scotch whisky and Irish whiskey, so with that in mind, I expected some similarities with those spirits in this offering from Rogue.  The Dead Guy Whiskey is then aged in oak barrels for at least two years in barrels exposed to the ocean.  Their barrel aging facility in Newport is exposed to the saltwater in a similar manner to the Lagavulin aging warehouse in Islay, Scotland.  

I'll be honest before getting into the review... I'm not a huge fan of Rogue beers, and I've tried a rum from them in the past that I thought was outright awful, so my expectation going into this one were pretty low.  That said, I'm always willing to give a beverage a chance, and the idea behind this one had a lot of promise, so I poured pretty heavy anyway.  The color is excellent, which was apparent before the pour, a deep amber that appears more rich than the two years of aging... perhaps this was a second use barrel or smaller barrel?  The aroma is much more like a lighter Scotch to me, with a bit of honey, some citrus, some floral notes, and a very pleasant alcohol character.  The taste is more of the honey note, with some vanilla oak character from the barrel aging, with maybe a hint of saltiness, but I certainly don't get the "ocean aging" on this one like I do in a bottle of Lagavulin or Jefferson's Ocean.  I'd bet that a few more years could really change this one for the better with the ocean aging they are going for.  It's really smooth though, very easy to drink with some extremely pleasant Scotch notes that remind me of a good Speyside single malt.  

I was seriously impressed with this whiskey, complex refreshing flavors that kept my attention throughout the pour.  This is definitely worth a purchase if you see it out in the wild! 

Wakey Whiskey: Cooperstown Distillery Classic American Whiskey

by Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone on this most joyous of days!  What are we celebrating today you ask? A day that should be a national holiday.  A day that should be celebrated around the country and even in Canada.  A day that should see all kids home from school and all parents off of work to join them. 

It's the most American of all days, it's Major League Baseball's opening day!

This is a special one for me as it's the first time I'll be able to share in the glory with my son.  He might only be 5 weeks old, but it's still his first opening day, so this morning I'm breaking out my Astros championship shit, my little man is going to wear... some onesie I guess... and we're going to watch some baseball.

Cooperstown Distillery Classic American Whiskey

With that in mind, I had the perfect selection, the Classic American Whiskey from Cooperstown Distillery in Cooperstown, New York.  For those unaware Cooperstown is home to the National Baseball Hall Of Fame And Museum, a pilgrimage for any baseball fan that I have yet to make but hope to one day.  The good people at the Cooperstown Distillery were nice enough to send samples of their Classic American Whiskey and their Double Play Vodka to the Bite and Booze team, and although I'm not much for vodka, it's wakey whiskey time!

The first thing to notice is the packaging, as this sample is packaged in a miniature baseball-shaped bottle just like the actual full-size packaging only smaller. It's a very attractive design for a baseball fan even as a collector's item in addition to a whiskey storage vessel. According to their site, this whiskey is mashed and distilled in the traditional bourbon style with a predominantly corn grain bill in addition to some rye and barley.  It's then aged for 10 months in used American oak bourbon barrels, which means they can't call it a bourbon (has to be new charred American oak barrels) but that also could accelerate the aging process since there should be some characteristic bourbon flavors trapped in the wood of each barrel.

The sample I had appeared a little lighter in color than the website photo to the right, but I attribute that to the smaller volume. The aroma starts off with some corn sweetness and a fairly aggressive hit of alcohol. It's not bad, but it smells like a very young whiskey, not surprising for only being aged 10 months. The taste however is unexpectedly smooth with classic hints of vanilla and oak, and a smoothness completely surprising given the short aging and the rough notes of the aroma.

It would appear that their unorthodox (for a whiskey at least) method of aging in used bourbon barrels paid dividends on the flavor profile of this whiskey, and I think this might be an avenue for other distilleries to consider, so long as they don't mind not being able to label a product as bourbon.

I hope you all enjoy a glass of whiskey as well today, and Go 'Stros!