by TNbourbon » Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:43 pm
I still have a few bottles of the gold-wax (second bottling) 16yo, and found it grew on me as the first bottle emptied. I have just a single example of the blue-wax first bottling which I won't open anytime soon, but knew, at last look, where there were still some gold-wax bottles still on the shelf in my area at around $75 a bottle. I might just go back for one more.
I also lucked across a mini-stash of 6 bottles of Hirsch 20 in Indiana at a great price just before Christmas, which disappeared to acquaintances almost as soon as I got home. I still have one bottle, to which someone else has a greater claim, so I won't wind up with any. I just think of it as 'catch-and-release'.
But, I find the plain old Michter's whiskey to be the best of what I've tasted. A decanter I took to the Festival last September seemed to turn heads. The decanter was from 1978, so the whiskey -- presumably 4 years old -- would have been distilled about the same time, and alongside, the Hirsch whiskey. The absence of the heavy wood left as pleasant a plain rye flavor as I believe I have ever had.