BTAC and Pappy


brschoppe

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  • 2 weeks later...

Where's my Weller 12!?  Has it all been given a Pappy label for rea$on$?????????  I haven't seen any in the wild for several years (plenty on secondary for $100 +/-)

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BTAC is a waste of money not worth the chase. Come down from the ledge.. ;) Buy russels reserve single barrel 10 year or any Barrel Strength Four Roses for better whiskey. They are generally available. Truth. Pappy is very good whiskey at best, not excellent. Marketing and whiskey are the only 2 things happening in whisky and the marketing is driving this high dollar crap wrapped in a smooth story laced with lore. 

 

I do love the BTAC bottles tho and have a bottle of Thomas Handy Rye. I’ve tried them all. Trust me. They are not the holy grail.

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  • 4 weeks later...

@Ethernut agreed BTAC and Pappies are not worth the chase,  BUT  glad to have some bottles in the bunker.   SAZ 18 and WmLarueWeller and George T Stagg are world class whiskies.  GT Stagg is the grandfather of bourbons,  and many years the alcohol % weighing in at hazmat levels of 140 proof or over.    

These are great whiskies,  which 8-10 years or so ago were readily available on the shelf.  No longer. 

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On 11/16/2017 at 6:52 AM, Smokin911 said:

@Ethernut agreed BTAC and Pappies are not worth the chase,  BUT  glad to have some bottles in the bunker.   SAZ 18 and WmLarueWeller and George T Stagg are world class whiskies.  GT Stagg is the grandfather of bourbons,  and many years the alcohol % weighing in at hazmat levels of 140 proof or over.    

These are great whiskies,  which 8-10 years or so ago were readily available on the shelf.  No longer. 

Absolutely no doubt about it on bunkering. I do have a few (that came to me without too much fight), the stuff is appreciating faster than my real estate investments. As a rule, my ethos isn't to sell. I drink the stuff and share it with my guests. I do though hate to see folks (dogged by the marketing) chase the marketing and not the whisky itself. Four Roses for example is producing 10 different bourbons, by that I mean 10 different mashbills different.. No one in the bourbon world is doing that. While there isn't as much variation in bourbon as scotch, Four Roses though is the bourbon equivalent of a Scotch distillery producing scotch from every area on the island. (simply as an example) but they are not the name on the tip of everyone's tongue. (and I'm glad - *wink*)

I recently had a 10 year bourbon that was bottled in 1967. I was excited about this one as I was VERY curious what has changed over the last 40 years. I was truly thinking I was going to experience something different, something lost on todays whiskey from all of the demand and corners cut during the hasty distilling process, something lost in the hustle and bustle of the 21st Century Bourbon Boom. What was the difference? Short answer? Nothing. All of the DNA of the bourbon we enjoy today was in that 40 year old bottle. If anything the quality of what we're getting now is higher. I can say that I've experienced the top 5% of what is technically possible in a charred new oak barrel, and can honestly say, I can buy that top 5% perpetually under $80/bottle and often under $50. Being in Central Kentucky, it's perhaps easier for me than many others but just want to keep getting the word out there that the mythological bourbons are not special. They are very good whiskeys, world class is a great word for them, but they don't stand alone, they're in fact in the minority. There are a great many others, generally available that meet and eclipse them.

One that really impressed me in the last few weeks is the latest Elijah Craig Small Batch Barrel Strength release (at 131 proof). The bottle says it's 12 years old, my palate says those wicked tannic oak barrel notes indicate much older whisky within like a secret. I was talking to Jimmy Russell the other day (Jimmy Russell is the 80 year old Master Distiller at Wild Turkey for those unfamiliar) about that release (amongst other things) and he comes right out and says (nearly a direct quote), "..theres old whisky in that release. Most people don't know it, but most of the Bourbon on the market is much younger than people think. 4-8 years is very common [Thus the removal of many age statements]. I like mine between 8 and 12 years, if it goes too long the barrel gets too strong for most people."

I just like to keep reminding folks that there is only two things happening in Bourbon (and Whiskey). 

1. Marketing

2. Whiskey (the stuff inside the bottle)

That's it.

It's hard for folks to separate the old compelling lore, the story wrapped around the bottle, the beautiful bottle and gorgeous embossed detailed labels calling one back to a simpler time, to a history nearly forgotten with names of great men and pioneers from the contents of the bottle. That small space, measured at the atomic level, where the bottle's glass ends and the whiskey begins is where the marketing stops and bourbon starts. It's art. We don't just get to look at it, we get to drink it.

“We do not want merely to see beauty... we want something else which can hardly be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it." - CS Lewis

 

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