April 2020 Archives

This beer has emerged as one of those fabled barleywines that nonetheless remains somewhat accessible (at least, if you live in Chicago). It's clearly a staple of the DDB all-barleywine diet, and he's been talking this thing up since it first hit shelves (it won his pretty stacked blind BBA Barleywine tasting challenge too, though that was a while ago at this point and some of the competition has stepped up their game for sure). Its popularity has begotten numerous variants, including the inimitable VSOJ (Very Special Old Jacket, a blend of barleywines aged 2-3 years in bourbon barrels), which is decidedly less accessible, though you'll still find members of the Barleywine is Life group shotgunning cans of the stuff on a semi-regular basis because they're demented.

What we have here today is the regular old Straight Jacket, a barleywine aged around a year in bourbon barrels and packaged in 12 ounce cans (not a typical treatment for this sort of offering, but I suppose that's changing thanks to the market for people wanting to chug/shotgun barleywines, which is surprisingly high (I mean, more than one or two is surprisingly high but still)). So let's dislocate our shoulders in order to gain the slack necessary to escape our... oh, wait, sorry, that's the other straight jacket. Let's, uh, just drink this one:

Revolution Straight Jacket - Pours a bright, clear brownish amber color with a finger of off-white head. Smells nice, crystal malt, dark fruit, toffee, caramel, oak, vanilla. Taste is sweet, dark fruit, toffee, you know what I said about the smell? That's how it tastes. Barrel character is well integrated and doesn't overwhelm at all. Mouthfeel is rich and full bodied, well carbed, good balance. Overall, yup, fantastic little barleywine. Years of hype have perhaps taken a toll, but it's totally something I'd stock up on if it were feasible. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 13.1% ABV canned (12 ounce). Drank out of a snifter on 1/3/20. Canned: 01-04-19.

Certainly a worthy member of the barleywine canon, one that I think I'll need to track down again. And again. And maybe some of the variants. And compare to stuff like Arctic Devil, Object Permanence, etc... Only time will tell. Stay tuned, for we've actually got a couple other barlewines in the review pipeline #BiL.

I'm sure there's a large contingent of oenophiles that would consider this concept nothing short of blasphemous, but as a guy who enjoys the occasional dram of bourbon and thinks that aging beer in bourbon barrels can result in something magical, I have to admit that I was curious.

To be fair, the concept does seem to be at odds with the typical wine playbook. The use of bourbon barrels would introduce intense flavors that would surely overwhelm any sense of subtlety, fruit, or terroir that most wine geeks seem to appreciate so much. Before I had tried any of these, I suspected that this sort of treatment would surely mellow out the acids and tannins while broadening the rich, jammy sweetness and adding body. I was kinda right, though the effect is not as extreme as expected.

There's a movie called Somm which follows a bunch of people on the quest to becoming a Master Sommolier, and it depicts a lot of people doing formal tasting where they attempt to narrow the wine down via various attributes: grapes, regions, sub-regions, type of terrain, weather influence, whatever. I suspect bourbon barrel-aging would irrevocably foil this process.

Naturally, there is a debate in the wine nerd community about this sort of stuff. Just because you can age wine in bourbon barrels doesn't mean you should! BBA Wine isn't "Real" Wine! And it does surely seem like a gimmick. But it appears to be popular with consumers, and thus will probably stick around. Some producers probably like it because bourbon barrels are cheaper than new barrels, and hey, if you have some inconsistency in your wine stores, this could help even things out a bit (while saving your best stock for more prestigious releases). In the increasingly competitive booze market, any chance for wine to make inroads with the bourbon and whiskey crowd is probably a boon to marketers (witness, for example, The Federalist's hand-crafted glassware that's meant to appeal to whiskey drinkers, having a tumbler-like appearance).

I'm a big tent guy, so I figured I'd take a flyer on a few bottles to see how they fared with this beer-drinker's palate. We can talk hypotheticals and speculate on business aspects all we want, but it's what's in the bottle that counts, so lets fire up a few bottles and see how it goes.

Cooper & Thief Red Wine Blend - A blend of red wine varietals aged in bourbon barrels for 3 months, this one certainly leans into the bourbon marketing aspects, especially when it comes to the label and even the bottle shape. I didn't take detailed notes for all of these wines, but I did for this one because it seemed the most distinctive. It's the most expensive of the wines in this post (around $25/bottle), but I did see a more noticeable difference here, so there is that. For the record, the composition of varietals breaks down as such: 38% Merlot. 37% Syrah. 11% Zinfandel. 7% Petite Sirah. 4% Cabernet Sauvignon. 3% Other Red Blenders.

Pours a very dark, inky maroon/purple color, much darker than your typical red wine, maybe thicker and more opaque than your typical red wine too. Smells of jammy fruit with that bourbon barrel character coming through well, lots of vanilla and oak, slight note of caramelized fruit, maybe even a hint of earthy leather and spice. Taste hits those caramelized jammy fruit notes pretty hard, a little bourbon, oak, and vanilla, very light on the dry tannins, plenty of booze. Mouthfeel is full bodied and rich, but silky and mildly dry. Overall, this is definitely the best of the bourbon barrel aged wines I've had, or at least, it's the wine that's taken on the most bourbon barrel character. This has, of course, completely wrecked the more delicate wine characteristics, but it does still read as "wine" and in many ways it's added complexity, even if it's detracting from the subtlety of some other characteristics. The reckless beer-drinker in me is enjoying this quite a bit...

Wine Nerd Details: 16% ABV bottled (750 ml corked). Drank out of a wine glass on 3/19/20. Vintage: 2017.

Robert Mondavi Private Selection Cabernet Sauvignon Aged in Bourbon Barrels - As the name implies, this is all Cabernet Sauvignon and it's also aged in bourbon barrels for 3 months. I didn't take detailed notes, but the bourbon barrel treatment here was noticeable, but not as much as the Cooper & Thief. It contributed lighter bourbon notes and the base wine stood out a little more here. The barrel character is not as overwhelming, but it makes a nice contribution. Again, the more subtle wine characteristics are a bit muted here, but it's still a tasty glass. This is also the cheapest of the BBA wines in this post but probably represents the best value in terms of BBA character.

Wine Nerd Details: 14.5% ABV bottled (750 ml corked). Drank out of a wine glass on 3/7/20. Vintage: 2017.

The Federalist Zinfandel Bourbon Barrel Aged - Despite the name, this is a blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, and Merlot that has been aged in bourbon barrels for 6 months. So this was aged longer, but for whatever reason, it feels a bit lighter than the other wines in this post. Not bad at all, but something feels a bit out of whack here. I didn't take any notes on this one, but I remember it being solid, if not as remarkable as the first two wines mentioned in this post. It costs more than the Mondavi, but not as much as the Cooper, but I liked both of those better than this one.

Wine Nerd Details: 14.5% ABV Bottled (750 ml corked). Drank out of a wine glass on 3/15/20. Vintage 2016.

Gnarly Head 1924 Double Black Bourbon Barrel Aged Limited Edition Cabernet Sauvignon - I gotta be honest here, I didn't think I'd be writing about this, so I didn't take notes and this one left the least impression of any of the wines in this post, which probably says something. I will say that I think it was about on par with The Federalist, but it was a tad cheaper (about the same as the Mondavi), so it has that going for it... Weirdly, details for this wine are sparse on the internets and I recycled the bottle a while ago, so the nerd details below are kinda estimated.

Wine Nerd Details: 15% ABV bottled (750 ml corked). Drank out of a wine glass on 3/14/20. Vintage 2017.

So I drank a bunch. The verdict? I think the BBA treatment can be done well, but even the best can't quite stack up to the big difference that bourbon barrels can make with beer. Speaking of which:

Beer Nerd Musings: While I love beer aged in bourbon barrels and think the results can be magical, there's actually a fair amount of folks in the beer world who aren't big fans. There are plenty of debates about unbalanced monstrosities and people say things like "What ever happened to beer flavored beer?" and whatnot. These sorts of complaints seem to be more common with folks across the pond who tend to appreciate the sessionable character of lower abv beers, but I suspect you see the same pattern here as with wine. The traditionalists bemoan changes to their beloved styles, just like the wine folks aren't that into Bourbon Barrels. To be sure, they've got a point. For whatever reason, the craft beer community (especially in the U.S.) tends to thumb its nose at things like tradition, hence we're always adding weird ingredients and treatments to the process. Not always, but often enough. It's all in good fun, but I'm definitely of the mind that a lot of the more out-there treatments are unnecessary and sometimes exhausting. That being said, some of these non-standard additions are well matched. Stouts and barleywines make good companions with bourbon barrels and present complementary flavors. Vanilla and coffee can also work wonders. It's when you get to some of the more goofy additions that things start to go off the rails for me. I'm all for experimentation though, and it seems like the wine world is much more focused on tradition than pushing boundaries. I remain a massive fan of bourbon barrel aged beer though, and while I can see the traditionalists' point (and to be fair, have been partaking in more traditional offerings of late), I will always look forward to the Bourbon Barrel Aged treatment...

That just about covers it for the non-beer drinking portion of the year here at Kaedrin. Stay tuned for our triumphant return to beer reviews. Naturally, it will be a bourbon barrel-aged barleywine, so stay tuned.

There's a whiskey nerd concept that's been popularized over the last decade or so called the "Infinity Bottle" (also known as "Solera Bottle" or perhaps "Living Bottle"). The idea is that instead of finishing off the last couple of pours from a whiskey bottle, you pour several different whiskeys together into your own Voltron-esque proprietary blend. It thus becomes something like a document of your whiskey drinking history. It's unique to your tastes and purchases and most importantly, it never ends. Plus, as you add new components, it's always changing... but only fractionally. Some of the people who've been starting these bottles envision it as becoming a family heirloom, passed down across generations. In thousands of years, mechanocyte-based metahuman successor life forms will probably still be aging distilled hooch in oak barrels on Omicron Persei 8 and blending the remnants into the same infinity bottles their puny, flesh-based ancestors started.

Um, anyway, as a puny, flesh-based beer nerd whose eyes are bigger than his liver, I tend to amass whiskey bottles because it basically takes forever to drink through one. I like whiskey, but I don't drink it every day or even every week, so those bottles tend to linger on my shelves for a while. As such, when this concept appeared on my radar a few years ago, I thought it was a neat opportunity to clear out my booze shelf and put together my first iteration of an infinity bottle.

Naturally, I made a spreadsheet of all the components (it's on Google Sheets and publicly viewable if you're interested). The first iteration was pretty heavy on barrel strength bruisers and Four Roses single barrel picks (no slouches themselves on the ABV front). There were 5 components to that first blend, and 4 were bottles I finished off completely (the only remaining bottle was the TalkBeer Four Roses pick, which I finished not long after that first blending session). This was back in 2017, and since then I've drank a little less than half of the bottle (as I said, I tend to go through whiskey slowly).

Not to give it away, but that first batch was a little on the "hot" side and while age is often overemphasized, I think it could have used some more age. Last week, I added 5 more components to the blend and... only managed to make small improvements to the ABV and age. The new components were once again pretty heavy on the barrel strength picks, including moar Four Roses, a couple of Barrell bourbons, Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, and High West American Prairie Bourbon (the age of which is vaguely mysterious, though it sez it's a "blend of whiskeys aged 2-13 years", so I just entered it as 5 years old in my spreadsheet. So that didn't help with my age issue, but on the other hand, it was the lowest ABV component ever added, by far, so while there's not a lot of this in the mix, it's a welcome addition).

This has obviously been an interesting experience and will only get moreso over time. Some additional, assorted thoughts in no particular order:

• One interesting thing about this most recent addition is that it had the effect of really livening up the blend. The additions really stood out and I could even pick out the Barrell bourbons impact. After a week, this specific influence isn't as noticeable, but spoiler alert: it's still better than the original blend. I do wonder if this "livening" effect had to do with the quality of the additions or if anything decent would have a similar impact. Aged alcohol sometimes goes in waves and the notion of reviving old stock with something fresh is a pretty well established practice (though not usually in whiskey, I guess).
• As you might be able to tell from the above pictures, I didn't actually finish off any of the bottles in this session (the only goner was the High West). This is probably not ideal, but I did it for the sake of this post. The things I do for my (3) readers!
• Every whiskey in this blend (10 different varieties at this point) is a bourbon. I'm not ruling out other spirits, but there are some things that I definitely won't be adding, notably peated Scotch. The smokey peat character tends to dominate everything it touches, so I'm not playing with that fire here. That being said, I could see myself adding some rye, scotch, brandy, or maybe even rum to this bottle at some point. If, uh, I had any of those things to add (which, at the moment, I do not). The notion of a separate peated scotch infinity bottle is intriguing, but I don't drink nearly enough to really do that.
• The bottle I'm using for this formerly held one of my favorite whiskies of all time: Balvenie 15. Mildly ironic that I'm using a Scotch bottle to blend bourbons, but as mentioned above, I'm sure some Scotch will make its way into the blend at some point (and come to think of it, Balvenie would make a nice addition!)
• Some people recommend not to "hoard your darlings", by which they mean that just because you're in love with a particular bottle doesn't mean you shouldn't add the final portion to your infinity bottle. It's probably solid advice, and that Barrell #9 that I added in this current iteration has emerged as one of my favorite drams, but I added some anyway. That said, who knows what I'll do when I get towards the end of my Pappy 23 bottle. The argument is that I'll get to drink it anyway, it'll probably make the blend better, and it's only sacrificing a small amount in the grand scheme of things. But the puny, flesh-based lifeform I current exist as is vulnerable to certain romantic notions about specific bottles. I'm not immune to hype, much as I might pretend to be.
• Given my level of consumption, I don't think I'll manage to graduate to the vaunted Infinity Barrel. Josh Peters of The Whiskey Jug has been playing around with the concept for a while, but then, he's got quite the collection of whiskey over there (downright comprehensive compared to my meager digs). The one thing that might tip me in this direction, though, is the notion of using the barrel to age some homebrewed beer. (He says, as if he's brewed recently.)

Alrighty, let's get into these suckers. Thoughts on both batches below:

Infinity Bottle V1 - Pours your standard golden orange bourbon color. Smells nice, some spice, oak, caramel, and boozy af, maybe a hint of fusel character, singing nose hairs a bit, y'know. Taste follows the nose, pretty standard high-test bourbon, a dusting of spice, oak, caramel, and tons of alcohol. As I drink, it opens up a bit more, and that Four Roses bubblegum character peeks through, as well as a very nice cinnamon note. Mouthfeel is hot and boozy, not great to my baby beer palate, but not as bruising as some of the components by themselves. Adding water helps open it up a bit, tamps down the hot booze, and some of the other flavors present themselves.

Overall, this is pretty good stuff, actually, but it's a little too boozy and "hot" (and maybe some higher aged components could help with this). What this needs is a heaping helping of Orphan Barrel juice, which, alas we no longer have at Kaedrin HQ (and more recent releases are priced pretty rough). In theory, the Pappy 23 would work wonders here, but I suspect we'll only be putting minimal Pappy juice in this here infinity bottle (now, the Lot "B" on the other hand...).

Bourbon Nerd Details: 122.7 proof, 61.35% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a glencairn glass on 3/28/20. Estimated Average Age: 9.14 years

Infinity Bottle V2 - Minor improvements to age and ABV, but not quite enough of what this bottle actually needs. We're certainly moving in the right direction, and we can try to gear future purchases towards high age/low abv offerings, I guess. That being said, this V2 represents a notable improvement over V1. Not sure if that's just the "livening up" effect of adding new components, or if the composition of the components really did bring about significant change (probably both!) As mentioned above, I feel like I can definitely detect the impact of the Barrell bourbons, which have a distinct, dusty, minerally character (apparently old Dickel) and plenty of oak. Speaking of which, the Elijah Craig may also contribute to that oakiness. It's still a little hot, but not as rough as the first batch, so we're definitely making progress. I can't wait to see how this will progress.

Bourbon Nerd Details: 118.68 proof, 59.34% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a glencairn glass on 4/2/20. Estimated Average Age: 9.59 years

Beer Nerd Musings: So beer rather famously doesn't age well and once you've opened a bottle, forget about it. The concept of an "infinity beer bottle", as practiced here, would never work. That being said, blending of barrel aged beers is most certainly a thing. Gueuzes are blends of 3, 2, and 1 year old lambic. The Bruery's Anniversary Beers actually utilize a Solera-like process, blending some of each batch into the next batch (and they're going on a dozen years of doing so). That's kinda infinity-like, though who knows how long they'll manage. Blending a bunch of different beers/barrels can have mixed results. Firestone Walker's Anniversary series has been pretty fantastic over the years. A recent blend of a wide variety of Medianoche barrel aged variants was fine, but nowhere near as good as much simpler treatments of their base beer. But I'm mostly digressing at this point. Brewers can do some interesting stuff with blending different offerings, but consumers who buy too much beer have limited options. During a share a while back, some friends and I created a sublime blend of 4 different sour beers, which we dubbed the Thirsty Camel Cuvée. It was one of those revelatory more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts experiences that, sadly, will probably never exist again. At least two of the components were one-off brews, and the very nature of barrel-aged sour ales doesn't generally lend itself to consistency, so... yeah, that's a blend that existed for about 20 minutes and probably couldn't be made again if we tried.

We're in the homestretch of the annual quasi-hiatus from beer, so maybe one more non-beer post, then we return to beer (which, to be sure, I still have a backlog of reviews for).

Update: Forgot to mention which bottle I was using for this little project, so I added that above...