Here is something I have not reviewed in a while: a bourbon. My last bourbon review was posted all the way back in November 2022. That was a single barrel of 1792 bottled for Total Wine. Today I have for you something older, something in the genre that bourbon people refer to as “dusties”: bottles of older bourbon that sat around in stores for decades, gathering dust. This particular dusty is the 1985 release of Old Taylor. Rather than pretending that I know very much about the brand I am going to send you to the source of my sample to find out more about what may be in this bourbon. That source is Michael K. of the excellent Diving for Pearls blog (on the short list of the very best full-time whisky blogs still on the go). He has a head-to-head-to-head review of Old Taylor releases from 1985, 1987 and 1996 that goes into some detail into the history of the brand and the likely provenance of this whiskey and if you’re interested you should check it out. All I can tell you is what I think of it. Speaking of which… Continue reading
Tag Archives: American
Sazerac 18, 2011 Release
This Sazerac 18 from the 2011 release of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection may be the oldest rye I’ve tasted, but then again it may not; there are rumours that the Van Winkle Rye 13 may in fact be a lot older than 13. But this is certainly the oldest rye I’ve tasted by stated age. Why the American whiskey business can’t be more transparent, I don’t know. Anyway, I managed to get my hands on the entire BTAC release for 2011 when I was first trying to develop a sense of bourbon–back then it was possible to actually find and buy them all. I split the collection 50/50 with my friends Jessica and Nate–they kept the bottles, I took my half in mason jars because I’m hillbilly that way.
Last year I made an attempt to score some of the BTAC and failed. This year I don’t think I’m going to try very hard. It’s not that I don’t think the whiskeys are worth it; I think they are–despite the price increases they still present very good price/quality ratios compared to Scotch of similar quality. It’s just that my ability to truly appreciate this stuff is not very well developed and so the gigantic hassle of trying to score a bottle makes the entire experience not worth it. Continue reading