Wakey Whiskey: Glenfiddich 14-Year Single Malt Scotch Whisky

By Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone, and welcome to a special International Whisk(e)y Day edition of #WakeyWhiskey!  International Whisk(e)y Day is celebrated every year on March 27th, which happens to be the birthday of Michael Jackson.  No, not that Michael Jackson, but the famous whiskey writer and beer hunter.  The day is celebrated in his honor in support of Parkinson's disease, so if you are feeling generous, maybe offer up a donation with your toast?  

To celebrate this year I figured I'd go international so I broke out a sample of Glenfiddich 14, which a little research tells me is a bourbon barrel reserve, aged 14 years in used bourbon barrels and then finished off in new charred American oak barrels.  It's not unusual at all for scotch to be aged in used bourbon barrels, but the finishing barrel is less common.  

The 14-year expression is bottled at 86 proof and available in 750ml bottles for usually around $50 if you can find it.  The scotch pours a deep golden hue, certainly not as dark as a bourbon that would have been aged 14 years, but darker than a typical Speyside scotch.  

Glenfiddich 14-Year Single Malt Scotch Whisky

The nose has a lot of honey, vanilla, and molasses, but not overly sweet.  The taste is smooth, with the oak coming through stronger then on the nose and a good char on the finish.  This scotch goes down easy, extremely pleasing, and I think a bourbon drinker looking to get into scotch would really enjoy this offering.  

Cheers! And happy International Whisk(e)y Day! 

Wakey Whiskey: Blade And Bow Kentucky Straight Bourbon

By Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone, it's already the last home game of LSU's season, which has seemed to fly by.  I know this space is primarily for whiskey talk, but I've been really surprised by the success this season.  Obviously losing to Florida and Alabama hurts, but assuming nothing insane happens this weekend LSU football will be a 9 win team with a shot at 10-2 and a new year's day bowl game.  That's far better than I expected going into this season. 

Enough football talk though, how about the whiskey?  Today's selection is the Blade And Bow Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey produced by the legendary Stitzel-Weller distillery.  It's created using a unique "solera" aging process where older whiskey is bottled without draining each barrel, and then the barrels are topped off with the next oldest, which are then topped off with the next oldest, etc., until freshly distilled whiskey is put into oak barrels at the top of the pyramid.  Blade And Bow is released as both a "straight" bourbon and as a 22-year old vintage.  The Bite and Booze crew was sent a sample of the straight bourbon, so... time to give it a try.  

Blade And Bow Straight Kentucky Bourbon

The whiskey pours an amber to brown color, "straight" means it has been aged for at least two years but the solera process means that a lot of the whiskey in the sample could be years older, apparently the oldest barrels in the solera go back to 1992!  The aroma is ripe with oak and vanilla, a hint of plum sweetness, and a bit of spice that makes me think about rye although I'm pretty confident this is a more heavily wheated bourbon.  The burn is minimal, and the aroma is overall very pleasant and inviting.  The taste is an excellent follow through on the pleasant aroma, with notes of fruit, oak, vanilla, honey, and some cinnamon spice as well.  The finish is smooth, and makes this Blade And Bow an excellent neat sip.  

I'd never heard of this brand before, but after giving it a try and learning more about their story, I'd be confident picking up a bottle if I see one out in stores.  And if I ever saw the 22-year, it would be headed straight into my cart.  Cheers!  

Wakey Whisky: Nomad Outland Whisky

By Eric Ducote

Good morning to all you Tiger fans on this beautiful gameday as the Tigers take on the hated team from Alabama.  Last season I tried to get a little superstitious for the Alabama game and try for a whisky that I went into with low expectations, and yeah, LSU lost.  This year I don't have low expectations for this game.  I don't necessarily have high expectations either though, I have no idea how this is going to play out!  (I know that's always true to some degree, but sometimes you just get a feeling...)  So I picked out a whisky (without the 'e' in this case) that I had never tried before and, just like tonight's game, went into it without any expectations.  

Nomad Outland Whisky

For this task, I found a bottle of Nomad Outland Whisky.  It's not technically a scotch, but it's born in Scotland, so they spell whiskey without the 'e' in the Scottish style.  It's a collaboration between master scotch distiller from The Dalmore Richard Paterson (nicknamed "The Nose") and master distiller Antonio Flores of Gonzalez Byass sherry producers in Jerez, Spain.  The whisky starts as a blend of 5 to 8 year old scotch whiskies before being aged for another 3 years in sherry casks, then transferred to Spain for another year of aging in Pedro Ximenez casks.  So this is a minimum of 9 years in the barrel, but probably averaging at least 10.  It's bottled in Spain (hence it's labeled as 'Outland Whisky' rather than scotch) at 82.6 proof.  Now on to the spirit... 

The color is a clear amber, very appealing in the bottle and in the glass.  The nose is potent with oak, a little peat, and definite fruity sherry notes.  The taste is smooth and complex, with peat notes, sweet malt, vanilla from the oak, raisin and plum flavors, all blended together expertly.  The finish is more fruit notes and this one goes down easy.  I didn't have any expectations going into this pour, but it's honestly one of the best whiskies I've tried in a while.  It's a multi-faceted complex and delicious spirit, and if the Tigers can exceed expectations tonight the same way this "Outland Whisky" did, then we're in for a great game.

Geaux Tigers!  (And be sure to look for Jay and the Bite and Booze team on today's College Gameday on ESPN!) 

Wakey Whiskey: Jameson Caskmates Stout Edition Irish Whiskey

By Eric Ducote

Good morning Tiger fans!  If I was a superstitious fan I'd be going straight back to some JPS 21-Year Rye after LSU laid the smack down on #2 UGA last week, but I'm not superstitious and I don't really believe that my whiskey choices have any impact on a football game.  That said, it's always been a fun tradition that started in my tailgating days to start off a big day with a wakey whiskey.  That tradition has evolved past tailgating into all game days, and even birthdays, holidays, weddings, and other special events.  If it's a cause for celebration, it's a cause for some wakey whiskey!

With that noted, I'm of course going to feature a new whiskey today, as you're here to read about the beverage and it would be boring to write about the same one every time LSU wins, right? There's only so much I could have said about the Roaming Man Tennessee Straight Rye whiskey that I started off the season with, and you would have had 5 weeks of that one!  So this week, an Irish Whiskey with a twist, the Jameson Caskmates Stout Edition.  This one starts out as a standard batch of Jameson Irish Whiskey, and then is aged further in barrels that were used to age an Irish craft-brewed stout.  

Jameson Caskmates Stout Edition Irish Whiskey

The color is basically the same as regular Jameson, golden with hints of orange.   The nose is smooth, with hints of honeysuckle, mineral water, and a hint of fruit.  There's a minimal 'burn' on this whiskey, as it's triple distilled in the Irish tradition and bottled at 80 proof.  The result is an extremely smooth sipping whiskey, with a hint of chocolate malt notes on the taste combined with the fruit and honey flavors of the base whiskey.  It finishes easy with another little hint of chocolate.

Overall, I really enjoy this whiskey, although I don't know that I really get much 'stout' out of it.  I think it would have been even better with more time in those beer barrels, but I also feel like it's a lot harder to impart the beer flavors into a whiskey than it is to pull whiskey flavors into a beer.  I admire the creativity to mix up the process, and at a reasonable price around $30, it's not a bad buy.  I'm going to have to try the IPA edition next, as I feel like hop flavors might work even better.  Until then, cheers, and GEAUX TIGERS! 

Wakey Whiskey: Jefferson's Presidential Select 21-Year Rye

By Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone and welcome back to Wakey Whiskey here at Bite And Booze.  Last week I broke out one of my "bigger" whiskeys in anticipation of a big matchup with Florida, and this week is an even bigger matchup with Georgia even if the loss last week takes off a smidge of luster.  The truth is, LSU's still almost as in control of their own destiny as possible, just without any more margin for error.  Now, I'm not booking my hotel rooms for the championship just yet, but it's still in play, right?  

This week I'm sticking with the Jefferson's line of whiskey, but instead of the 21-year bourbon like I finished off last week, this is the 21-year rye.  There's something fun about drinking a whiskey that's old enough to drink, and I've always been a big fan of rye whiskeys in general, as I find that they tend to be a little more complex than one with a primarily corn grain bill.  

Jefferson's Presidential Select 21-Year Rye

The pour is a dark brown with hints of red, a similar color (as expected) to the 21-year bourbon.  The nose has strong notes of caramel and licorice, with a bit of cinnamon spice.  It's sweet, with a bit of a burn for the 90.4 proof whiskey but the licorice is a bit surprising to me.  The taste is strong with oak, cinnamon, caramel, with the licorice fading and a hint of vanilla coming out.  There's a bit of a burn on the back end, but as a whole it's a very smooth drink of rye, that I like a little more than last week's bourbon.  

Unfortunately this one, like last week's bourbon, is going to be almost impossible to find out in the wild, but the good news is that I still have some left, so if anyone wants to bring a few bottles over to share, I'll be happy to share some of this with you!

Cheers!  And GEAUX TIGERS! 

Wakey Whiskey: Jefferson's Presidential Select 21-Year Bourbon

By Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone, and happy GAMEDAY to you all!  This afternoon the Fighting Tigers of LSU are taking on the hated Florida Gators, so I figured that called for stepping up my whiskey game a bit.  I've had this bottle of Jefferson's Presidential Select 21-year for quite some time, as it officially released on April 1, 2013.  Unfortunately I'm getting down to the very end, so I had to make sure I gave it the full wakey whiskey honors before my bottle is dry.  

Jefferson's Presidential Select (named after Thomas Jefferson) is produced by Jefferson's Bourbon, which is owned by Castle Brands along with a few names you might recognize in the Irish Whiskey world like Knappogue Castle and Clontarf.  The first two editions of Presidential Select were the 17-year and the 18-year, but they were made from a wheated whiskey that was distilled at Stitzel-Weller of Pappy Van Winkle fame.  The Presidential Select 17-Year actually won the whiskeys of the world tournament that Jay and I hosted (along with James Lawson and Jeremy Spikes) back when we were producing the Raise A Glass radio show, and the 18-Year offering has been featured on Bite and Booze before in a Whiskey Wednesday post.  This 21-Year offering was not distilled by Stitzel-Weller though, and it has no wheat in the grain bill, so the flavor profile is definitely expected to be different.  

Jefferson's Presidential Select 21-Year Bourbon

The pour is dark as a 21-Year bourbon should be, the barrels selected for this batch ranged from 21 to 24 years old, and that's a lot of time for that liquor to soak in and out of the wood and absorb that char and the flavors.  The nose is strong with oak notes, again to be expected from a 21-Year bourbon, but there are also notes of leather and a hint of citrus.  Mostly though, the oak and associated char flavors stand out.  The taste is smooth, the oakiness is still bold, and vanilla comes through as well, the citrus is still there in a very small amount creating a well rounded profile.  

The finish is smooth as well, with minimal alcohol burn and a still dominant flavor of oak.  There's a subtle cinnamon spice throughout, perhaps some rye went into the grain bill in place of the wheat?  i don't think this is quite as impressive as the 17 and 18-Year batches, but it's still a magnificent bourbon.  

With that said, Cheers!  And Geaux Tigers! 

Wakey Whisky: Longrow Peated Campbeltown Single Malt Scotch

By Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone, and welcome to our first SEC gameday of 2018!  The LSU Tigers face a tough road test today against the War Eagles/Plainsmen/Tigers of Auburn.  I've pretty much always hated Auburn, although they've never been at the top of my SEC hate list, they've always been in contention, in my case back to the cigar smoking on the field days of 1999.  Dick move, Auburn.  Dick. Move.

Now, I have no Alabama whiskey in the collection, so I'm going to have to get a little exotic and break out a new bottle of scotch for this round of #wakeywhisky.  As I'm sure any regular reader knows by now, scotch drops the 'e' from whiskey in their spelling, so this is a bottle of whisky rather than whiskey.  This particular bottle is the Longrow Peated Campbeltown Single Malt, which is a double distilled and highly peated single malt variety. 

Campbeltown is one of the traditional five regions of scotch production, along with Highlands, Lowlands, Speyside, and Islay.  Campbeltown is the smallest of the regions with only 3 active distilleries, including the J. & A. Mitchell & Company which independently operates the Springbank distillery which produces the Longrow scotch that I'm drinking today.  This is the only distillery in Scotland that carries out the full process of malting, mashing, fermenting, distilling, aging, and bottling all under one roof.  Very few distilleries malt their own barley, and quite often they outsource the mashing process to brewing facilities.  

Longrow Peated Campbeltown Single Malt Scotch Whisky

Okay, so, on to the whisky, this one pours a very light color, which indicates to me that it's not a crazy long aging, or it's possibly a very light char on the barrels that they use. The smell is without a doubt peat heavy but it's not so powerful that it's all I can smell.  There are notes of honey, honeysuckle, smoke, and vanilla, all melded together into a delicious sip of whisky.  The smoke builds as I continue to sip with a bit of a bitter astringent note adding another layer of complexity.  The finish is smoky, peaty, with a definite hint of oak. 

This is really one of the more complex scotches that I can remember trying.  So many have a complexity to them, but they are usually still dominated by a distinct note, whereas this whisky really doesn't have a dominant note and instead is a mashup of flavors that compliment each other extremely well.  I wasn't sure what to expect from this new bottle to my collection, but I'm immediately a huge fan.

Here's hoping the LSU Tigers play as well as this scotch tastes, if so we might be seeing a big upset this afternoon.  Cheers, happy gameday, and GEAUX TIGERS! 

Wakey Whisk(e)y: Laphroaig 10-Year Single Malt Scotch

By Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone, and cheers to you all on the 7th annual World Whisky Day!  This actually makes my second #wakeywhisky post on World Whisky Day, which is celebrated on the third Saturday of May.  The first time around, I went with the Alberta Rye Whisky Dark Batch from Canada, and this year in the interest of keeping it whisky instead of whiskey I'm going to have some of one of my favorite scotches, Laphroaig's base expression, the 10-year single malt.  

Laphroaig is one of the handful of distilleries from the island of Islay off the West coast of Scotland that is unique enough to be considered its own scotch region.  All of the Islay scotches are known for being heavily peated, the flavor derived from smoking their malt over peat fires, which gives a medicinal phenolic flavor in addition to the smokiness.  Laphroaig was founded in 1815 and they do not go light on the peat, which produces a scotch that they claim "is the most richly flavoured of all scotch whiskies." Well, I'll be the judge of that.

Laphroaig 10-year single malt in appropriate glassware.

The scotch pours a typical dark golden color, and as soon as you catch a whiff it's obvious that there is certainly no shortage of flavor.  The smoky peat flavor hits like a campfire, but also with a strong iodine flavor and an ample aroma of honey sweetness.  Yes, it's certainly rich and complex, and the flavor of this 10-year expression holds on to that complexity with a balance of sweet malt flavors, robust smokiness, and unique peat smoke.  I think the best way to describe this one is a campfire in your mouth, and I mean that in the best way possible.  

I hope you are all enjoying a pour or two of your own on this World Whisky Day! 

Wakey Whiskey: Cane Land Distilling's Original Mississippi Floated Whisky

by Eric Ducote

Good morning everyone, and a fantastic Mardi Gras to you all!  My employer graciously gives us all the day off for Fat Tuesday, so what better way to celebrate the culmination of Carnival than a little wakey whiskey?  For this morning's selection I went over to the Bite and Booze HQ and found a local Louisiana whiskey from Cane Land Distilling in downtown Baton Rouge.  Cane Land is a relative newcomer to the Louisiana alcohol scene, having opened their doors on St. Phillip St. in 2017.  They produce their rum and vodka from their Louisiana sugar cane plantation and mill, making it a true "estate" product that is harvested, mashed, distilled, and bottled all by the same company.

Cane Land's whisky on the other hand is not grown locally but instead hails from the historic practice of floating barrels of American whiskey on barges down the rivers of Kentucky and Tennessee into the Mississippi and subsequently South to the ports of Louisiana. Cane Land recreated that process by sourcing Tennessee whiskey at a minimum of 5-years aged and transporting the filled oak barrels by barge all the way down to Louisiana, and then finishing the spirit in cognac vats before being bottled locally.  Harking on this process, Cane Land refers to their whiskey as Original Mississippi Floated Whisky. I reached out to Cane Land and their GM John Landry told me that so far they have brought down one barge full containing 150 53 gallon barrels, and they intend on doing it again. They bottle their whisky at 80 proof, or 40% alcohol and it's sold directly out of the tasting room, in local retail outlets, and can be found at several local bars.

Cane Land's OMFW - Original Mississippi Floated Whisky

Enough background, it's time to get into the whisky. The color is in the amber range, darker than straw but not quite getting into copper territory.  The aroma is extremely pleasing, a strong oak presence followed up by a fruity sweetness from the cognac finishing.   I feel like the cognac really improves the aroma by balancing out the candy corn sweetness typical from a corn mash whiskey.

The taste is more of the same, surprisingly smooth, with delicate fruity sweet notes playing well with the more bold oak char flavor of the barrel aging.  The alcohol sensation is minimal, and there is a lingering vanilla and cinnamon finish that adds an additional layer of complexity.  I think it was a smart move by Cane Land to source their whiskey rather than start out with a young and unpleasant offering.  I don't know for sure if they intend to produce their own whiskey mash in the future, but we can only hope that it turns out as tasty as this offering.

With that, I hope you all have a fantastic Fat Tuesday, enjoy yourself a #wakeywhiskey of your own, and cheers!

Wakey Whisky: Jura Single Malt Scotch

by Eric Ducote

Good morning Tiger fans, are you all as excited as I am for an 11 AM kickoff? And by that, I of course mean not excited at all... who's really excited about football at 11 AM? That's not enough time for decent tailgating, not enough time to get the smoker going for some good BBQ, not enough time to enjoy this hint of Fall weather and barely even enough time to wake up and get ready for some football.  It is enough time, though, for some #wakeywhisky! This morning I'm going to the Isle of Jura in Scotland for some Jura Single Malt Scotch.

The Isle of Jura lies between mainland Scotland and the Isle of Islay, but is sparsely populated (less than 200 inhabitants) and the only way to get there by car is to take a ferry from the mainland to Islay and then over to Jura. The island is home to a single eponymous distillery known as the Isle of Jura Distillery which produces several vintages, including the 10-year variety that I have this morning. Jura is technically a Highland-region scotch, as all the islands (other than Islay) are grouped together with the Highland malts, but it shares a lot of characteristics with the neighboring Islay region.  This scotch is bottled at 40% alcohol after primary aging on used bourbon barrels and finishing on sherry casks.

This scotch pours a deep gold, with a blend of peat, smoke and sugar on the nose. The sweetness is best described as a candied fruit, like a sweet dried up piece or apricot or peach, which works really well with the hint of peat and touch of smoke. I feel like the sweet notes come through the strongest, but it still blends together very well.  On the tongue the smokiness comes through more, and the peat a little less, with the sweeter notes giving way at first and reappearing on the back end of each sip.  Other flavors come through as well, a hint of leather and something that resembles a bit of burnt BBQ.  It's quite complex, extremely enjoyable and overall a very pleasant sip.

This is a fantastic scotch for a fall football morning, the smokiness fits right in and the price is very reasonable for a 750ml bottle of scotch, somewhere in the $30-40 range. I hope you are all enjoying some wakey whisky or #wakeywhiskey of your own this morning, and GEAUX TIGERS!