Most Underrated Wheated Bourbon

Bottle purchased at retail by EZdrinking.

AT A GLANCE

• Spirit: Florida Straight Bourbon Whiskey

• Owned, Distilled and Bottled by: St. Augustine Distillery, St. Augustine, FL

• Spirit Type: Bourbon

• Mash Bill: 60% Florida Corn, 22% Malted Barley, 18% Florida Wheat

• Still Type: Pot Still

• Aged: Aged 3 Years

• Strength: 44% ABV

• Price: $50

This summer I got to visit St. Augustine Distillery, right before they were name the 2024 Distillery of the Year by the American Distilling Institute. Philip McDaniel and Mike Diaz opened the distillery in 2014 and released Florida’s first bourbon in 2016. McDaniel and Diaz solicited the help of Master Distiller Dave Pickerell who helped them develop their wheated mash bill using local grains and a maturation plan for how to age their bourbon in the hot and humid Florida climate.

Over the last eight years, the age statement on their bourbon has only crept up from two to three years. And while many whiskey fans have been conditioned to only think older is better, St. Augustine’s Florida Straight Bourbon is a good example of how hotter climates can, in the right hands, produce a more mature tasting whiskey in less time. With over 175,000 annual visitors, I believe the results speak for themselves. Their Florida Straight Bourbon is perfectly crafted for their unique location and they are making what I believe to be the most underrated wheated bourbon in the country.

Tasting Notes

Nose: The bourbon opens with an inviting aroma of vanilla caramel and a touch of green apple. Underneath that are warm smells of baked bread and toasted wood with just a hint of sweet cherries and cloves.

Palate: At first sip the whiskey has a slight bight of cinnamon that then softens on the tongue. There is a pronounced grain and oak character followed by notes tobacco, vanilla, and a hint of candied orange peel.

Finish: The finish has a light sweetness with lingering notes of oak, tobacco and leather.

Conclusion: Yes St. Augustine's Florida Straight Bourbon is a touch young but the whiskey is a testament to the skill and ingenuity of the team to craft a very good wheated bourbon in their hot and humid environment. For those who like their bourbons a little lighter and with less oak, this is a good fit. I have enjoyed drinking this neat, on the rocks, with water and in an Old Fashioned. I have also observed that having a pour half way through the bottle is a more enjoyable experience than when you first crack it open, which tells me that a little aeration won’t hurt. If you are a fan of Maker's Mark and have been looking for something new to scratch that wheated bourbon itch, I cannot recommend this more. I am also confident that as they are able to gradually push the age of their whiskey some of the young grain quality will fall away and you will see that St. Augustine's is making one of the most underrated wheated bourbons outside of Kentucky.

Review: Wilderness Trail Yellow Label Single Barrel Bourbon Bottled in Bond

Bottle purchased at retail by EZdrinking.

AT A GLANCE

• Owned by: Campari Group

• Distilled and Bottled by: Wilderness Trail Distillery, Danville, KY

• Spirit Type: Bourbon

• Mash Bill: 64% Corn, 24% Wheat, 12% Malted Barley

• Still Type: Column

• Age: Bottled in Bond (minimum 4 years)

• Strength: 50% ABV

• Price: $55

In 2012 after a decade of working as fermentation consultants for other distilleries and alcohol produces, Shane Baker and Pat Heist founded Wilderness Trail Distillery. As with other start-up distilleries, Wilderness Trail began by selling their vodka and an aged spirit distilled from sorghum molasses while their bourbon aged. And rather than developing just one whiskey, Baker and Heist, make three, a wheated bourbon, and a high-rye bourbon and a rye whiskey made from a mash of 56% rye, 33% corn, and 11% malted barley. Wilderness Trail has slowly built a steady following and grew their distribution across the country. Then, in November 2022, Campari Group purchased a 70% stake in Wilderness Trail for $600 million.

TASTING NOTES

Nose: The whiskey has a lovely aroma of dark caramel, with softer notes of vanilla and sweet cinnamon.

Palate: On the palate the bourbon is velvety, umptious, and tick with rich caramel, vanilla, toffee, sweet cherry, and ripe nectarine, balanced with warm notes oak and baking spices.

Finish: On the finish, more of the vanilla and oak flavors come forward with bright notes of hot cinnamon mingled with the alcohol.

Conclusion: Wilderness trail is hands down one of the best new bourbons to hit store shelves in a long time. Despite its 50% ABV bottling strength the whiskey is not overly hot and leans toward the sweeter side of the bourbon flavor spectrum. If it is available in your area, do yourself a favor and buy a bottle.

No you should not expect to pay $10 per year of age for a bottle of Bourbon or Rye Whiskey

Recently I have been spending more time lurking on the r/bourbon subreddit and watching a variety of Whiskey Tube channels to get a sense of how engaged consumers are talking about American whiskey and what they think is worth spending their money on. One of the more common axioms in these spaces is the idea that a fair retail price for a bottle of bourbon or rye whiskey is around $10 for each year it aged in a barrel. At first glance I can understand where this idea might have come from but if we interrogate the idea, it quickly breaks down.

Most whiskey fans are well aware of angel’s share, the fact that spirits stored in oak barrels slowly evaporates so the volume of liquid that went in is not how much that comes out after four, eight or twelve years. Because of angel’s share, there is a real cost for distillers to age a whiskey longer because there will be less of it each extra year they wait before bottling. So, in real terms older whiskey costs a distiller more to bottle than younger whiskey. However, as the production capacity of a distillery grows, they are able to produce the same whiskey with greater economies of scale because buying grain by the truck loads or rail cars costs less per pound than by 2000lb totes. The same is also true for any other hard goods like bottles, labels, or closures. Large distilleries are also more efficient with their time since there is less down time for their stills and fermenters compared to small distillers that can only run one or two production shifts with significant down time for their equipment. So generally smaller distilleries have higher fixed cost per bottle because they are less “efficient” with their capital. This is why a blanket price metric doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Many craft bourbons and rye whiskeys are priced higher than $10 per year of age because of these higher fixed costs and a more constrained supply. Garrison Brothers Small Batch Bourbon and Old Crow Bourbon are both aged for three years but the former retails for $80 a bottle and the later sits on the bottom shelf at about $12 for 750ml. Garrison Brothers is pot distilled using a more expensive locally grown corn, and the intense climate in the Texas Hill Country means they have a much higher angel’s share than most Kentucky Bourbons. Despite having the same age statement these are two very different bourbons and even if you don’t know all the exact production details, on taste alone, $30 for Old Crow would be highway robbery and an incredible deal for Garrison Brothers.

Conversely, many great bourbons from the heritage distillers in Kentucky and Tennessee are priced below $10 per year. Russel’s Reserve 10 Year Old Bourbon retails for about $44 and George Dickel Bottled in Bond which ranges between 11 and 13 years old has a suggested retail price of $40! Now I would be willing to pay a little more for these because the quality is there, I also have no interest in paying $100 or more for these whiskeys just because of their age. In reality the price for these whiskeys is not just about age. Weller 12 Year Old has an SRP around $43 but you’d be lucky to find it most places below $150 because of its limited availability and the all the hype around it and Pappy Van Winkle.

Now whether it is worth it to you to pay $200 for Weller 12, $40 for George Dickel BIB at 13 years or less than $20 for the four year old Evan Williams Bottled in Bond is a completely subjective decision informed by your income and what you value. But the idea that it is “fair” to pay $10 per year of age for American whiskey is a silly metric that doesn’t reflect the whiskey market. In reality, this just sounds like a made up “fact” that some salesman came up with as a way to convince people that its ok for them to spend $80 on an otherwise mid 8 year old whiskey.

Buy what you like and spend what you feel comfortable with but I’m sorry to say that setting a fair price for bourbon and rye whiskey is more complicated than simply how long it was aged.

The Best Alternative to Buffalo Trace Bourbon

Bottle purchased at retail by EZdrinking.

AT A GLANCE

• Spirit: Benchmark Bonded Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

• Owned by: Sazerac Company

• Distilled and Bottled by: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY

• Spirit Type: Bourbon

• Mash Bill: Buffalo Trace Mashbill #1 (10% or less Rye)

• Still Type: Column Still

• Aged: NAS (minimum 4 years)

• Strength: 50% ABV

• Price: $20

If you cannot find Buffalo Trace Bourbon in your area, it sells out as soon as it hits liquor store shelves, or you are tired of paying over $30 for this once entry level bourbon, Benchmark Bonded Bourbon is the best alternative out in the market.

Ten years ago, Buffalo Trace Bourbon was easy to find and usually under $20 a bottle. At that time it came in second in a blind tasting I organized for so friends of mine. But, as the craze for Pappy and other older whiskeys from Buffalo Trace Distillery grew, it became harder to find a bottle and more expensive when you did. So, if you are a fan Buffalo Trace but cannot get your hands on it, you need to look for Benchmark Bonded.

Today, Benchmark is named after the survey markers placed by the McAfee brothers who were some of the earliest colonial settlers in Kentucky. When they reached the region north of where Frankfort would be founded, they discovered large numbers of elk, deer and buffalos. The area became known as buffalo trace, a migration route used by the buffalo as they moved through Kentucky. The brand was originally distilled in Louisville, and created by Seagram's in the 1960 as a premium bourbon sold in decanters. The association with the McAfee brothers was added sometime after 1989, when Seagram's sold the brand to Sazerac Company. For many years Benchmark held on as a value brand, sold primarily as McAfee's Benchmark Old No. 8. But in 2019, Sazerac decided to expand the Benchmark line to include five new expressions: the Small Batch (45% ABV), Top Floor (43% ABV), Single Barrel (47.5% ABV), Bonded (50% ABV), and Full Proof (62.5% ABV). I suspect that this expansion was a way for Sazerac to maintain the quality and particular barrel selection process they had for Buffalo Trance while also increasing the supply of a more affordable version of their bourbon.

TASTING NOTEs

Nose: On the nose there are light notes of oak, cream corn, and a hint of vanilla.

Palate: On the palate the bourbon begins sweet with notes of vanilla and then transitions to a more complex flavor of sweetened ice tea and peaches.

Finish: On the finish the whiskey is relatively long with flavors of ripe plum, canned peaches (without the syrup) vanilla and oak.

Conclusion: Benchmark Bonded is a solid bourbon that is great as an everyday whiskey for when you want something enjoyable while your attention is focused doing something else like cooking or spending time with friends or family. It is not the most complex whiskey but at 4 years old and 100 proof this a perfect budget pour for drinking neat, on the rocks, with water, with mixers, or as a cocktail. As Buffalo Trace has crept up in price and gotten more difficult to find on a regular basis, Benchmark Bonded is the best alternative you can find.

Review: New Riff Kentucky Straight Bourbon Bottled in Bond

Sample bottle provided by New Riff Distilling

AT A GLANCE

• Owned, Distilled and Bottled by: New Riff Distilling

• Spirit Type: Bourbon

• Mash Bill: non-GMO- 65% Corn,30% Rye, 5% Malted Barley

• Still Type: Column Still

• Aged: 4 years in 53-gallon toasted and charred new oak barrels

• Strength: 50% ABV

• Price: $42

Ken Lewis, a Kentucky liquor retailer founded New Riff Distilling in 2014, to create a new expression of sour mashed, bottled in bond Kentucky straight bourbon and rye with out chill filtration. Because New Riff is family run it allows them the flexibility to place the pursuit of excellent whiskey over pure commercial success.

Their bourbon is distilled from a high-rye bourbon mash, which is aged for a minimum of four years and bottled in bond.

TASTING NOTES

Nose: The whiskey has as nice aroma of oak, vanilla, cinnamon, followed by light fruit notes like pomegranate and sweet cherries.

Palate: On the palate the whiskey is light on the tongue and has a wonderful flavor of caramel, red apple, oak and a touch of spice both from the rye and from the barrel.

Finish: On the finish there is a slight bitterness from the oak tannins, that fades into a soft and sweet sensation of baking spice and vanilla.

Conclusion: New Riff is an excellent whiskey with a classic bourbon profile that is sure to make any fan of the spirit happy to add it to their liquor cabinet. If you do not mind a little heat, drink neat, otherwise it will work well on the rocks or in a number of cocktails such as an old fashioned or manhattan.