The River City Whisky Society met April 21st for their bi-monthly meeting. 19 were in attendance. There were two things special about this meeting: First we honored a member who recently got a very prominent position with a local police department, and second, we had a representative from Major Brands give a presentation on five from the Hudson Whiskey line, and three from The Balvenie line.
We first tried the Hudson Whiskies, which is a whiskey line from the Tuthilltown Spirits Distillery in New York State and sold in 375ml bottles. (Read more about Hudson Whiskey at http://www.tuthilltown.com/home.) We tried the following ( in order): New York Corn, Single Malt, Baby Bourbon, Manhattan Rye, and Four Grain. Our rating system is pretty simple, since we had 5 whiskies, we ranked them 1 through 5. The highest rating (worst) is 95, and the lowest (best) is 19. Pretty much like a golf game. Here are the results:
New York Corn: 95 points (ouch!!) Hoo Yah!, Bite on the back end, Holy Sh@#t, X,
Baby Bourbon: 60 points. Sharp (in a good way), very smooth, a very mild bourbon, very drinkable, little bit of bite on the back end, good nose, caramel nose, slight cream finish, smooth.
Manhattan Rye: 52 points. Very smooth, crisp bite with clean finish, spice on the palate, good but still needs a little work, dry finish, B-,
Single Malt: 49 points. B, bold taste, oily, good with a smooth nose, very good and smooth, cinnamon and spice, smooth with a white oak finish, pleasant nose with no bite.
Four Grain: 30 points. Smooth, sugary finish, sweet, good initial bite, finish is good and long with a spice on the back end, flavorful, smooth taste, nice finish, the best, good finish and after taste, B+.
Next we tried three from The Balvenie: 12 year old Signature, 14 year Caribbean Cask, and 15 year Single Barrel. I really don’t think that The Balvenie Distillery puts out a bad whisky, they are all great whiskies and most at a decent price. We used the same rankings with the worst score being 57 and the best being 19. Surprisingly, one came out way ahead and the other two were very close to each other. The results:
Balvenie 15 year old Single Barrel: 36 points. Good, smooth all the way through, nice finish, B-,
Balvenie 12 year old Signature: 30 points. Good and smooth, woody and leather finish, spicy, little bit of a short finish, B,
Balvenie 14 year old Caribbean Cask: 19 points. Smooth on the palate, sweet aftertaste, great!, B+,
We would like to thank Morgan Perry of Major Brands for presenting these whiskies. She did a fantastic job and knew all the products well. All of these whiskies can be found at most liquor stores…but if you are in St. Louis The Wine and Cheese Place is the only place to go. They sell all of these products and do so at the lowest price in St. Louis. If you haven’t been to The Wine and Cheese Place you need to. If you go to the Clayton location (there are four in the St. Louis area) ask for Paul, his knowledge is second to none.
Stayed tuned…in the next week or so I will be blogging about Red Breast 12 year old Cask Strength. Wow, this is a good whiskey. And, at our next meeting in June, we will be reviewing some higher dollar whiskies, including the Red Breast Cask strength.
Mark (Member #1)
One Response to April Tasting