Gin-u-wine Gillmanized Whiskey

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Gin-u-wine Gillmanized Whiskey

Unread postby bourbonv » Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:25 pm

The first time I met Gary in person was at the Bourbon Festival several years ago. He gave me a bottle of one of his personal blends at that time (this was in exchange for some Clark and Lewis, if I recall correctly). Today while looking in the cabinet ofr some scotch blends I came across a bottle of Black Velvet Canadian and did not think anything about it until I went to put the bottles away and realized this open bottle, about 2/3 full was that bottle Gary had given me a couple of years ago. I thought I would do some tasting notes here for your enjoyment.

Color: Orange-Yellow. Very light for bourbon, but darlk for a modern blend.

Nose: Very interesting. You can tell Gary has blended some bourbon and rye. There is a caramel sweetness with a little corn and the grassy aroma I associate with rye whiskey. There is a little cognac type fruitiness with just a little apricot? or very ripe peach? and I detect just a little smoke that indicates to me that there may be just a little Tennessee whiskey in here.

Taste: Very Fruity with a little fine tobacco and leather. Caramel and vanilla sweetness with a little cinnamon spice and a hint of liquorice.

Finish: Very clean and sweet. Not much wood in this whiskey but what little there is comes out in the finish with a touch of tannins just before the finish dissappears.

Notes: This is a very interesting blend made by Gary. I am not sure what he put in the whiskey. It seems like to me he was not sure at the time, but he may have decided simply not to tell because he thought it needed work. This is a very good blend or maybe more of a vatting since I detect no GNS in the flavor. If Gary makes whiskey like this on a regular basis, it has to be a great pleasure to visit his home and to share in his successes.
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Unread postby gillmang » Sun Aug 13, 2006 11:36 am

Thanks Mike, and let me say, you have an excellent palate.

At the time, I made those blends by combining bourbons and straight ryes, some Southern Comfort or rock and rye (for the apricot-like taste and slight sweetness), some maple syrup probably for the caramel for ditto, and some Jack Daniels.

If there was some Canadian whisky added and there probably was, it was relatively little, say, 10-20% which would contribute to the lightness but not really change the basic flavours.

I did not use vodka for such blends.

Most of the whiskeys in there were not expensive but one or two probably were.

I enjoy making these still, for the complexity of flavors. Really they are a kind of cocktail but not a full-blown one. Recently I was reading a series of cocktail recipes. So many combined things I have or have thought of doing. Say, bourbon and port wine. Or rye whiskey and Southern Comfort or rye whiskey and Curacao, and so on. Many such recipes combine whiskies of different kinds. One combines gin and rye whiskey, which may sound odd until one remembers that traditional Dutch genever (the low-proof element called moutwijn) is essentially juniper-flavoured rye whiskey. Not to say all these will work of course. I try to get a palate I can drink neat with enjoyment although some times I "build" a little further on it to create a true cocktail.

Last night I used a bottle based on Beam Black which combined about 15 bourbons and straight ryes (including Lot 40 and a little Hostaling whiskey). No other Canadian whiskies. Two ounces went into a rocks glass but no rocks. :) Bitters went in (Angostura). Half teaspoon brown sugar. Then a light dash of Charbay blood orange vodka. I wanted, not to lighten the whiskeys, but add a touch of orange flavour which in effect made the bitters like orange bitters. If I had had Curacao I'd have used that, or just orange juice. Two cherries. The rye element of the whiskey blend dominated (the grassy notes you recognised) and it was a fine Old-Fashioned.

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Unread postby bourbonv » Sun Aug 13, 2006 12:40 pm

Gary,
The whiskey has some Southern Comfort or rock and rye in it, you say. I do believe it might have both - the southern comfort would explain the fruitiness of apricots, but there is a sugar sweetness that I do associate with rock and and rye. Youare right in that it would make a very good old fashioned cocktail or maybe a extra sweet manhattan.
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Unread postby bourbonv » Sun Aug 20, 2006 4:11 pm

Gary,
I shared this product with Chuckmick and Gayle Hack yesterday. They both enjoyed it, but it inspired us to experimentation. The Gillmanized whiskey with a little Sazerac 17yo rye gave it the finish it needed. Mixed with a little Jack Daniel, Weller 107, Wild Turkey rye and I W Harper 12yo we were ready to bottle it and sell it. Great stuff.
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Unread postby gillmang » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:13 am

That's interesting, thanks. You can't go wrong adding older whiskeys as long as they don't dominate, and sometimes adding a high proof whiskey brings a certain clarity or "focus" to a blend. I think the whole point of this kind of drink is its complexity. There is a certain quality a great bonded or single barrel has, its singular character and force; a blend works at the other end of the spectrum.

Both are valid expressions of the whiskey idea. I think too Mike that in the 1800's when those heavy glass decanters sat on the back bars, even if they bore the name of a distiller or a merchant's brand, they would have contained vattings of whiskeys and maybe (depending on supply or the probity of the saloonkeeper) not always straight whiskeys. There would have been a variety of tastes, always changing. We don't know at this far remove, but maybe that was regarded as positive or as a typical feature of decanter whiskey. Maybe each saloon, or some of them, had a house approach to it, or relied on a merchant who did the vattings for them: probably that was more common and merchants would have needed to do that to create an interesting, consistent product.

I know too "barrelhouses" sold direct from the barrel as many grocers and saloons did too: there would have been a variety of practices.

Just recently I was reading about the history of rum in Trinidad recounted at http://www.triniview.com/sugarcane1.htm. Like everywhere the distilleries have declined in number but a few survive and are well-established. The account states that before WW I, each sugar refining factory had a still. (Originally these were pot stills, and later, wooden column stills). Around WW 1, merchants bought aging stocks of rum from the dozen pr so distilleries and combined them to sell at wholesale. It was common for the retailers to sell the rum in a type of carafe called a "petit quart". Probably they dipped them in the barrels containing the combined rums. The account said sometimes the retailers did the blending and that some unique blends were produced by the "haphazard" combining of the rums. However I also believe this practice encouraged the development of systematic blending (highly advanced today in the rum-producing countries).

I wonder if that 1920's blending was really haphazard. It surely was in some cases. But in others I think people would have said, um, this is a young fiery blend, add some of that older treacle-like rum. Or, put some cane syrup in that barrel, don't make it sweet but just to soften it. That other barrel there has a strong rank taste, mix it with that sweet dark rum there to tone it down, etc.

Probably Scotch whisky blends developed methodically from similar practices by grocers in Scotland who were obtaining supply, often intermittently, from different sources. Johnnie Walker was a grocer, so were many of the people whose names adorn today the well-known blends. I think the first vatted whisky (all-malts), Vat 69, was created by Jonathan Usher, an 1800's Scots merchant.

This doesn't mean a blended or vatted whiskey or rum is superior to a fine bonded or single barrel whiskey or batched straight bourbon or their rum equivalents. Each type is different and valid on its own terms. The blended and vatted ends of the spectrum can be appreciated for the complex, unique flavours that result.

Gary
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Unread postby cowdery » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:49 am

We really should get our terms-of-art settled and only use "blending" when we mean the combination of flavoring whiskies with nearly-neutral base whiskey, and "vatting" when we mean the combination of all straight whiskies. What Gary does is most properly characterized as "vatting," although the term "gillmanizing" is acceptable as well.

Although some of the people involved in creating the first blended scotches were Scots, many were English and the product was created primarily for the English market and other markets outside of Scotland. It was made possible by the invention of the column still, which was used for making the nearly-neutral base whiskey, and resulted in a huge expansion of the Scottish distilling industry.

Also, I prefer the term "merchant" to "grocer" as grocer suggests a retailer, while most of the creators of the first blended scotches were primarily wholesalers, although in some cases they were both.
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Unread postby gillmang » Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:50 am

I appreciate the nod when some use the term Gillmanize but I'd like to ask that it not be used because, first, it is imprecise (Chuck is being generous) and second, I am not trying to create any kind of movement or associated vocabulary.

While I agree with Chuck's use of the terms blended and vatted, I'd like to say I make both types within his definitions. Blended whiskey I make is whiskey that combines straight whiskey, vodka or (I would argue) Canadian whisky because Canadian whisky is not straight whiskey, with or without adding flavoring.

Some might say combining straight and Canadian whiskies is vatting because both are "whisky" in their respective lands.

But to me vatting connotes a combination of all-straight whiskeys (or all-single malts in Scotland), i.e., it is all, traditional, aged low-proof whiskey. I make those too. You can lightly flavor these but then to my mind it crosses the boundary into blending.


Let's stick to the terms vatted and blended and I think there will be more clarity in the discussions.

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Unread postby gillmang » Mon Aug 21, 2006 9:09 am

For the link I mentioned to the Trinidad rum history account, see http://www.triniview.com/sugarcane1.htm

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Unread postby cowdery » Mon Aug 21, 2006 9:57 am

I can agree to your further refinement of the terms. The nearly-neutral base whiskey in both the Canadian and Scottish practice is technically whiskey. Only American blended whiskey contains true neutral spirits, i.e., vodka, and also contains "white dog," but there is in the American practice nothing that is the direct equivalent of the Canadian, Scottish and, for that matter, Irish and Japanese base whiskey.
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Unread postby gillmang » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:14 am

This is something I have been wondering about.

Why did the U.S. not emulate, or originate independently, something parallel to the Scots and Canadian practices? Aged GNS would have been more costly to add than new, but that would have been true elsewhere...

Fleischman in 1885 in his blending manual speaks in a deprecating way of a practice of aging "spirits" to give a "barrel taste". So this kind of product was available to the U.S. market in the 1880's and as Fleischman made clear sometimes genuine whiskey was mixed with such aged spirits, probably often by subterfuge. Maybe the U.S. market decided ultimately to draw the line. Mixing straight whiskey and GNS was okay, it was selling diluted whiskey for less money which (as the law later required) had to be called a blend on the label. But mixing straight whiskey with aged GNS was, in contrast, a blurring even at the trade level of what was understood as something quite different: all-straight (or rather low-proof) bourbon or rye whiskey. These were valued, acknowledged articles of commerce by 1885 as other parts of his book make clear.

In fact, Fleischman if you read him carefully questions why "spirits" are aged. He says spirits don't improve with aging which is true I think although some improvement from aging seems to attend near-neutral grain whisky. If the U.S. looked with suspicion though at aged GNS one can see why it never became an article of commerce. In one sense, the U.S. was arguably more honest than what happened in Scotland where in the end both grain and malt whisky were entitled to be called whisky. Does a bottle of say Bells to this day state it is a blend? Maybe it does but did the law require this in the 1920's, say? Whereas by then (just before Prohibition I mean) U.S. law required a bottle containing non-straight whiskey to say so. As in Scotland, high proof spirits made from cereals could in the U.S. under the circa 1910 what is whiskey outcome be called whiskey. But, again, where different types of whisky were being combined the label had to say so. (No one would sell 100% aged GNS as whisky, even in Canada that was never done).

In Canada, as Chuck suggested, straight or real whiskey did not have as clear a definition in the market as rye and bourbon did in the U.S. There was, pre-column still in Canada, malt whisky, rye whisky, maize whisky and probablly other kinds, some aged, some not. There was heterogeneity in the market, but no identity for straight whiskey as developed in the U.S. from the mid-1800's. The "heritage" of straight whiskey wasn't as clear or evident in the Canadian market and therefore it was easier to blur the accepted understanding of whisky or putting it another way, the definition of whisky was still in flux in Canada. Ditto in Scotland.

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Unread postby cowdery » Tue Aug 22, 2006 4:38 pm

My recent reading of Canadian Whisky history shows me that the Canadians, understandably, were much more conscious of and responsive to developments in the Mother Country than were their ungrateful brothers to the south. The Canadians duplicated the Scottish practice as nearly as possible, excepting that they had a tradition of making both straight rye and straight malt in Canada, which followed into their experience with blends.

In the USA, the issue of blends v. straights was politically supercharged in a way that it never was in Canada. Up north, when blends looked like the way to go they stopped making straights and that was that.

One difference appears to have been the two-tier v. three-tier system. By the mid-19th century, Canada had a dozen or so fairly large distilleries who were selling their own branded product, while in the United States at that same time, there were hundreds of distilleries and most were selling in bulk to distributors, who created and owned most of the brands. The distributors made everything from compound whiskey, that contained little or no straight whiskey, up to and including very fine vattings of all straight whiskey.

Although the ultimate outcome of the Whiskey War was a compromise, I would argue that it favored the distillers. It, at least, gave those distillers who wanted it an opening to create a product of their own and bypass the middle men. Although post-Prohibition legislation required a three-tier distribution system, it also gave the distillers primary control over packaging and, therefore, primary brand creation, and they chose to emphasize straights.

After prohibition there were a great many blends, due to the need to stretch available supplies of straight whiskey as far as possible. Brown-Forman had a very successful blend called King which it discontinued, despite good sales, in the 1960s in order to emphasize its straight whiskeys, i.e., Old Forester, Early Times and Jack Daniel's.

In the United States, the distillers have always regarded blends as a sub-species and inherently inferior, so they never considered making a "quality," all-whiskey blend. Blends, if they had to be made at all, were to be made as cheaply as possible. The only company that ever committed seriously to American blends was Seagrams, a Canadian company.
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Unread postby EllenJ » Wed Aug 23, 2006 5:08 am

cowdery wrote:In the United States, the distillers have always regarded blends as a sub-species and inherently inferior, so they never considered making a "quality," all-whiskey blend. Blends, if they had to be made at all, were to be made as cheaply as possible. The only company that ever committed seriously to American

According to Billy Taft (who happened to be President of the United States) in 1906, that wasn't really the case. It was his contention (and in reading his treatise, I feel he was at LEAST as well-informed about whiskey as any of us) that, at least up to that (pre-prohibition) time, MOST of the whiskey Americans drank was blended, and most Americans preferred it that way. As recently as the 1990's (and perhaps today) that was still the case.
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Unread postby gillmang » Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:27 am

But straight whiskey always had the cachet until Prohibition. It was always more expensive than any other whiskey (Fleischman's 1885 blending manual makes this clear). I partly agree with you though John as regards the period starting from the 1930's, when Seagram introduced its scientific-based (with their precise percentages and balance) 5 and 7 Crowns. These were studied carefully in terms of their development and expected market impact (see Cecil's book on this). They were sedulously promoted and no question Seagram and the other big companies convinced a good part of America that blends were superior to straights (think of the circa-1946 ads for Mount Vernon's blended version lauding its supposed superior "mildness"). Before 1919 though, while blends were very popular, the sense I have from the reading I've done is they were not regarded as a true substitute for straight whiskey.

Whereas in Scotland, until the renaissance some years ago of single malts, the reverse was the case. In Canada, the straights and singles disappeared completely in terms of the national whisky understanding.

Even since the 1930's U.S. blended whiskey (American whiskey) never really usurped straight whiskey philosophically as it were. And today the straight whiskeys have never been held in higher repute. American whiskey (the blended article) seems less popular today than it was 30 years ago. The position I think is coming around to what it was before 1919 with even more emphasis placed on the tradition of straight whiskey and its quality.

To the extent that non-straight, non-British whisky has substituted for true bourbon and rye, Canadian whisky seems today to occupy that niche (in quality if not also in sales). It is well-established as a quality import in the U.S. and not likely to wither. Whereas America blended whiskey, albeit without figures to support this, seems less popular and distinct as a product category. So in other words, maybe U.S. distillers did miss an opportunity by not introducing a Canadian-type whisky with American livery and imagery.

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Unread postby EllenJ » Wed Aug 23, 2006 2:27 pm

gillmang wrote:American whiskey (the blended article) seems less popular today than it was 30 years ago.. ..Canadian whisky seems today to occupy that niche

That's very true, although I still think it's only to the extent that whiskey's popularity in America has generally been in decline. What makes the curve appear more significant is that marketers are now focusing their advertising dollars on a much smaller segment to encourage them to pay much higher prices. As for real popularity, up until it's recent untimely demise Four Roses (the American one; not the obscure - in this country - bourbon by that name) was arguably America's favorite whiskey. And in my own experience, Canadian whisky was always considered a step up from American blends. Even today, Crown Royal is considered by many to be worthy of saving for special occasions or when trying to impress someone. And if you find yourself in a Pennsylvania taproom don't bother asking for rye, but you'll never go wrong ordering a Windsor.
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Unread postby cowdery » Wed Aug 23, 2006 2:47 pm

Please note that I wrote "In the United States, the distillers have always regarded blends as a sub-species and inherently inferior." Emphasis on "the distillers."

Yes, American drinkers preferred blends and still prefer them, to the extent that they buy Canadian, Scottish and Irish blends along with the relatively small amount of American blends sold, but once distillers got their hands on the tiller, they pushed everything in the direction of straights. Not because they really even cared what the customers wanted, but because of their own prejudices.
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