Vatting Saves The Day
Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 3:30 amRecently I bought a Buffalo Trace that disappointed greatly. It had a noticeable dank earth taste. IMO, a faint taste of this is a house characteristic of a lot of bourbon from BT (the distillery) but sometimes it is stronger than other times. I cannot drink this on its own and normally would blend it with other whiskeys into my permanent Sazerac Cocktail or Manhattan jug (living jug so to speak). However, I have some Weller 107 which has none of this taste but is a bit thin and hot. I blended them about 2.5 Weller 107 to the BT bourbon. It is remarkable how good this 4-grain is. The "humid" smell and taste of the BT is almost gone and the result is a complex, pleasing and high proof (over 100) bourbon. I much prefer the vatting to each on its own. I am not sure why it has the effect it has in this case, but it does. Perhaps the high proof 107 "absorbs" in some fashion the excess of the flavour I do not like, but also the blandness of the 107 (irrespective of proof) simply dilutes that flavour, puts it in its proper place so to speak.
Gary
Gary