Old Bushmills Distillery, продана Proximo Spirits в 2014 году.
Miracle Machine hoax shows many media organization.
World's 100 Best Types of Wine: Group G.
Orphan Barrel removes the limits from limited prod.
World's 100 Best Types of Wine: Group H.
Weekend in Carmel: Eat local pork, taste clones an.
World's 100 Best Types of Wine: Group I.
With my praise of Barterhouse, I need to add two warnings, one to consumers, and one to Diageo:ġ) Consumers, your bottle of Barterhouse might not taste anything like mine. I chatted with a friend last week who has nine cats, Krazy Kat Lady territory, and I warned her to get them spayed and neutered, or soon she'd have 19, and then 90. 'Cause, you know, these historic old warehouses just have nooks and crannies that a giant worldwide corporation that makes its money on whiskey has never bothered to look into or put into central accounting. But we were told that there might actually be MORE of the Barterhouse if the first batch sells well. That's the impression Diageo is trying to give. This question wouldn't matter if it was about Bulleit: I don't care if they make a million bottles or a billion, if it tastes good and is good value (it is).īut I'm romantic and naive enough to want an Orphan Barrel to be just that, a barrel. But Diageo PR experts are paid more to evade my questions than I'm paid to ask them. "The Blenheim distillery blah blah blah corn mash blah blah blah and it's great to be here in San Francisco, which is the Bourbon-drinking capital of the world! Give yourselves a big round of applause!" "Can you tell me how many bottles were made?" "Blah blah blah a few barrels blah blah old warehouse blah blah historic blah blah Bourbon aficionados blah blah blah." Now, here's an edited transcript of my conversation trying to find out exactly what "limited production" means, abetted by Brian Kropf of Mutineer magazine: If this were a wine story, you wouldn't expect Barterhouse to be the elegant, delightful one. The whiskey in Barterhouse must have been made in the new, machine-operated and presumably soulless Bernheim facility, where they care less about the cut of a man's gib and more about the pH level of the mash, and that sort of thing. Minnick says because of the age, the whiskey in Old Blowhard must have been made in the old Bernheim distillery, with traditional equipment operated by hand. Let's get back to "no science" for a moment. I'm not sure I've ever wanted to apply the word "pretty" to Bourbon before, but this one merits it. The Old Blowhard ($150, 45.3% ABV) is potent, rich and spicy, and would be great in a very expensive Manhattan, but for my taste it's a little too oak-driven to sip.īarterhouse ($75, 45.1% ABV) is a surprisingly elegant, floral Bourbon, perfect for sipping. The company has released two "Orphan Barrel" whiskies: 26-year-old Old Blowhard and 20-year-old Barterhouse. Nonetheless, Diageo sees an opening for a limited production Bourbon with a great backstory. They are "orphans."īourbon is trendy, although it must be noted that much of the sales growth is driven by flavored Bourbons. Barrels of whiskey get put in there that don't end up making it into the blend of Old Fitzgerald or Bulleit, and they just sit there getting older. Stitzel-Weller was closed in 1991 for distilling, but is still used for warehousing, which is a big deal in Bourbon country because the heat and humidity of the warehouse have a strong influence on the flavor. In theory it was distilled during the Clinton administration, which is appropriate because I had a discussion about it with three Diageo employees (two live, one online) that felt like asking Bill Clinton if he had sex with that woman.įirst, the whiskey: Barterhouse is allegedly a 20-year old spirit that had been sitting in a former distillery, Stitzel-Weller, where in 1961 (says Bourbon expert Fred Minnick) the owner bragged that no chemist had worked on the whiskey. Recently I tasted a delicious new whiskey from Diageo's new Orphan Barrel program. Would you think "Orphan Barrel" means limited production? Guess again