Michter's 10 Year Single Barrel 2014 vs. 2017 Reviews

I've covered a 2014 version of Michter's 10 Year Single Barrel a couple of times before which you can here and here. The TL;DR is that they are surprisingly good bourbons. I've been skeptical how long the quality would hold up because at some point Michter's has to exhaust their supply of primo sourced bourbon. Here today we will put that question to the test.

2014 Michter's 10 year Single Barrel

Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey; Barrel No. 14A21; Aged 10 years; 47.2% ABV; $75 (2014)

Nose: Rich and mature with lots of compacted sweet notes. It has a bit of a condensed bourbon character that I typically only get in dusty bourbons with a lot more intensity than you'd expect for the proof.

Taste: More of the same from the nose. It's very lush and heavy on dessert type flavors like honey, caramel, and pie crust. The oak is noticeable and provides a lot of wood depth but it's not overly bitter or dry. There are faint hints of a dusty type flavor that I usually get in bourbons from 20 or more years ago. The finish is a touch short and has a bit of an earthy old wood note but it's faint.

Thoughts: A fantastic dram. From memory it's not the best 2014 single barrel I've had but it's very good. If not for that touch of earthy bitterness in the finish this would be an A-. Either these 2014s are some primo honey 10 year barrels or there is older whiskey in the mix.

Rating: B+

2017 Michter's 10 year Single Barrel

Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey; Barrel No. 17B314; Aged 10 years; 47.2% ABV; $120 (2017)

Nose: Smells younger and more green than the 2014. This is much closer to a typical 10 year profile as a similarity to Henry McKenna 10 year comes to mind. Also a rye profile is more noticeable here as there are some mint / eucalyptus spice notes.

Taste: No surprises here, tastes like it smells. Its a bit sweet but after tasting the 2014, it's not nearly as lush and almost tastes young/green. There are more fruit and mash type sweet notes than dark caramel / burnt sugar. In the finish a bit of dark chocolate comes out but you have to reach for it.

Thoughts: It's a perfectly fine bourbon but it's nothing special and not really any better than an ordinary bottle like modern Henry McKenna which it actually tastes like in a lot of ways.

Rating: B-

Overall Thoughts: When the 2016 came out was able to try samples from several different single barrels. It was immediately evident none of them tasted anything like the earlier versions and the experience here today echoes that. For comparisons perspective, the differences in profile between these two is similar to the differences I observed in dusty vs. modern Henry McKenna.

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.

Michter’s Single Barrel Rye (2016) Review

Before bourbon and rye popularity surged in the last few years, Michter’s had a decent reputation for releasing quality sourced products that were often rumored to contain much older whiskey than stated and come from coveted stocks like Stitzel Weller. Just how much of that old stock they have remaining is a mystery though and each time they put out a new limited edition release everyone wonders how much it will taste like the previous stuff.

So here we have a 2016 release which they say is a Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey that comes with a $150 MSRP and some marketing fluff that aludes to it being older than stated on the bottle. The high price, dodgy provenance claims, and marketing poop conjure up feelings I’ve had before so let’s revisit that format…

So what is this? It’s a 10 year old Kentucky Straight Rye. Well why doesn’t it say Kentucky anywhere on the label? We’re America’s first whiskey company and we can say whatever we want, fuck you. Okay well who made this? Not us but it’s distilled in small batches according to pre-revolutionary war quality standards dating back to seventeen fifty fuck. Well how much does it cost? A lot, fuck you. Alright then why should I buy it? Because some old dude who says no all the time says it’s great, fuck you, you’ll buy it anyway.

Aged 10 years; 46.4% ABV; Barrel No. 16A112; $120

Nose: Pretty standard of what you would expect for a 10 year old barely legal rye - wood, vanilla, brown sugar, and some menthol spice tingle.

Taste: Very sweet and not nearly as much spice as I expected. In addition to the typical wood sweets mentioned on the nose there is a very predominant honey flavor. On the spice side there is some cinnamon and nutmeg but it’s reaching to pick those out. Tastes more like a high rye bourbon than a rye.

Thoughts: This is a perfectly okay whiskey though I wouldn’t say it’s a very good rye. It’s heavy on the sweet side and the spicy notes are way toned down which makes it exceptionally boring. I’ve had this bottle open since March and never really found myself craving another pour.

Rating: C+ / B-

Value: I don’t factor price into my ratings. Even though the $120 I paid was below MSRP, I wouldn’t buy a bottle of this again. In fact, I think I am done with these age stated Michter’s bottles as the price to value ratio is beyond what I care to pay anymore.

Michter's Toasted Barrel Finish Bourbon (2014 Release) Review

Michter’s Toasted Barrel finish is a “limited release” Bourbon that hit the shelves last Fall and is set to have a second release coming again this year. This product starts out the same as their standard US*1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon with aging as normal in fresh charred oak barrels. Once that aging is complete it is dumped into fresh oak barrels that have been toasted rather than charred. The whole process sounds rather expensive and frankly I’m surprised Michter’s isn’t charging more for this product. Barrel finishing can have fantastic results as can be seen with releases like High West’s Midwinter Night’s Dram but it requires a high degree of finesse to improve upon the original whiskey without ruining the underlying character. Let’s see if Michter’s is up to the challenging task.

No Age Statement; 45.7% ABV; Batch 14I542; $50

Nose: Pretty standard vanilla, caramel, and honey sweets with some burnt ripe fruits like pears. Not getting much extra wood or smoke influence in the nose but overall it’s pretty nice.

Taste: Upfront it is very soft and mostly all the same sweets from the nose. Nothing memorable in the mouthfeel department as it is somewhere between thin and medium viscosity. Towards the back of the palate there is some light spicy zip and a bitter smokiness dominates. You can really taste the toasted oak influence on the finish as it tastes like dry, smoked oak. Not charred oak mind you but oak that’s been heavily dried out. Overall the taste has a lot of young influence to it. Even though the toasting process covers up some of those notes, the new-make flavors of fresh corn mash are still noticeable as if they haven’t been smoothed out by enough time in the original charred barrel.

Thoughts: This bottle has been open for almost a year now and there is reason it’s taken me this long to go through it. I just don’t think it’s that good. It’s not really bad either but the young notes and bitter dryness on the finish leave this one unbalanced for me. I can understand the price given the amount of work that went into making this but at $50 or under there are much better options out there like Henry McKenna, Four Roses Single Barrel, or Knob Creek Single Barrel that are easy to find on the shelf all year round.

Rating: C

Michter’s Barrel Strength Rye Review

Michter’s Barrel Strength Rye is a new product that started popping up about a month ago. Currently Michter’s is still a Non-Distiller-Producer (NDP) which means their products are sourced from other distilleries. According toChuck Cowdery, for Michter’s younger products like this one they are likely using sources under contract which gives them some control over production. Unlike many of the other cask strength ryes you will find on the shelves these days, the interesting thing to note about this product are the words “Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey” on the label. That means it is not from MGP in Indiana which is the first place that comes up in a discussion of sourced rye whiskey. Having been produced in Kentucky narrows down the source for this to a handful of options - Wild Turkey, Barton, Buffalo Trace, Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, or Brown Forman are the main ones that come to mind. I like to jest it is probably a cask strength version of Brown-Forman’s Woodford Rye so a better name would have been “Old Woodford Antique Rye”. That’s nothing more than a joke though because according to Michter’s website the barrel entry proof for this product is 103 proof which would put it at the bottom of entry proofs in the industry making it unlike any other rye of which I am aware. Another thing that makes this product somewhat unique is that as far as I recall the only other cask strength Kentucky Rye you can currently buy is Thomas H. Handy. That product is such a limited release and so hard to get it’s almost not even worth mentioning as “available”. In that regard, Michter’s is filling a nice void in the market with this release.

Michter’s Barrel Strength Rye

54.6% ABV; Batch 15C220; $70

Notes: The nose is very sweet with only a hint of spice. There is molasses, brown sugar, and only a light amount of heat. The taste is surprisingly even more sweet than the nose with more molasses, brown sugar, and a nice gingerbread cookie flavor. Towards the end of the palate a cinnamon rye spice finally starts to come in. The finish is mostly all the same sweets and spice from the taste along with some woody dark cherries. With the molasses and gingerbread flavors it really reminds me quite a bit of Angel’s Envy Rye only without the heavy rum taste. If I had to guess I would say it’s about 5-6 years old and a barely legal rye somewhere in the 51-53% category.

Thoughts: It’s pretty sweet, doesn’t have a lot of age complexity, and while you can tell it is a rye the spice is pretty tame. A few times visiting this I thought the sweetness was a bit over the top but my overall impression is that the neither the sweetness, oak, spice, nor proof completely dominates which leaves behind a balanced albeit slightly boring profile. The worst thing I can say about this is that the price is on the high side for a no age statement NDP whiskey. That almost goes without saying these days though as very few limited release whiskeys are reasonably priced anymore. I like sweet flavors and I don’t particularly care for older aged whiskeys so I like this quite a bit. If you are looking for wood complexity, more rye spice bite, or something not on the sweet side you probably won’t like it as much as me.

Rating: B

Michter’s 20 Year, Jefferson’s Presidential Select 30 Year, Hillrock Solera Aged Reviews

This past weekend I took a long overdue trip to New York City. The impetus was mostly cocktail and food driven as I didn’t really expect to find a lot of interesting whiskey in the city. Sure enough even at the best whiskey bars NYC supposedly had to offer the unique bourbon pickings were slim. I did get a chance to checkout a few interesting bottles though so I thought I would share my notes. In general I don’t usually like to review a whiskey until I am at least 50% through a bottle so these are more first impressions than anything.

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Michter’s 20 Year Single Barrel Bourbon 

57.1% ABV, $60 1oz (Maysville)

Based on the nose alone I would have guessed this is a Bernheim wheater. It’s got that classic bold wheater profile I’ve had in really old Willett cask strength wheated bourbons. The taste is a complete change up though and tastes like a funky old Stitzel Weller wheater. The oak is very, very drying but along with the bitter wood there is also some deep dark chocolate sweetness and hints of the cinnamon note that is very prominent in Old Weller Antique. This pour is super interesting and I’ve never had anything like it. The oak brings a lot of musty funkiness but the sweet and cinnamon notes play a big role as well. It is not my personal favorite but I could see how people would lose their shit for this because of the uniqueness.
Rating: A- / A

Jefferson’s Presidential Select 30 Year Bourbon 
45.2% ABV, $38 1oz (Norman’s Kil)

The nose would make you think it is much younger than the bottle says. There is some slight wood polish but it’s mostly oak and light vanilla / caramel. The taste is very dry and more bitter than sweet. Old funky wood is the major play here but even that is muted. The finish tasted like a flat diet cola soda with more funky wood and some citrus to round things out. All in all it’s not the most oaky bourbon I’ve ever had so these barrels were either on the bottom of a cool warehouse somewhere or the end product was heavily filtered to tone down the bitter oak. I had a chance to purchase a bottle of this at retail (~$250) last year and in hindsight I am glad I passed.
Rating: C+

Hillrock Solera Aged Bourbon 
46.3% ABV, Barrel 13, $22 2oz (Brandy Library)

I was told this particular bottle was high rye bourbon that was a mix of sourced whiskey and newer whiskey distilled by Hillrock which was then finished in sherry casks. Seeing as how the rest of the selection at the Brandy Library was remarkably boring in the bourbon category I didn’t have many other options.

The nose is pretty classic high rye bourbon - sweet and spicy with slight cherry. The front palate is very soft with lots of vanilla - you can tell the sherry butt finishing has really smoothed out the rye. The finish brings drying wood, rye spices, light brown sugar, and dark maraschino cherries. My biggest complaint is that it’s rather boring and just had a general lightness to it both in flavor and heat. I think the sherry finish and rye have basically canceled each other out leaving little behind. I wont be thinking about this one later.
Rating: C / C+

Michter’s 10 Year Single Barrel Barrel #14H501 Review

One of the better and more surprising bottles of bourbon I've owned this year was a Michter's Single Barrel 10 year. In my review I noted that it was a lot like the 2013 edition of Old Forester Birthday Bourbon except a welcome absence of the strong acetone notes I do not care for in that brand. I am in the minority of my dislike for the Birthday Bourbon line but based on the profile similarities my working theory is that Michter's is sourcing at least some of their 10 year single barrels from Brown Forman. Not long after I polished off that bottle my area got a small allocation of more. I knew that being a single barrel from a non-distiller producer I was taking a risk but I enjoyed the preceding bottle so much I was willing to take a chance. Will this barrel be from the same source? Even if it is from the same stock will it be a lesson in the large variance that can exist between two barrels? These are the unknowns that make the adventure of bourbon so much fun.

47.2% ABV; 10 years old; $80

One whiff of the nose and I knew we had another winner - crisp oak, honey, vanilla, and some spicy clove all come together for a wonderful bouquet of aromas. The nose is identical to my previous bottle and the 2013 Old Forester Birthday Bourbon which I will rate up there as one of the best I've ever experienced. The palate is also a reinforcement of my previous bottle - honeysuckle, gingerbread, orange rinds, clove spice, and light cinnamon. All this again without the heavy presence of acetone notes that ruin Birthday Bourbon for me. I find it incredibly unique in that it's sweet but not the typical wood sweetness of caramel or maple syrup - the sweetness is much more herbal and flowery. While the profile is a spot on match for what I had hoped, if I had to be critical I will say this barrel is lacking some of the gusto of the previous one I reviewed. The flavors are all there but they are a little muted in comparison to the earlier review.

Thoughts: There is no doubt in my mind this is again another Brown Forman sourced bourbon. It's a stellar whiskey with a unique profile unlike any other bourbons I've ever had. We are seeing some of the typical variation that can plague single barrels here though so while this one is good it isn't nearly the A/A+ grade of the bottle I reviewed earlier this year. The variance, high price, and lack of transparency from Michter's can make this one quite the gamble but based on my experienced so far I'm probably going to keep rolling the dice every time I see this one on the shelf.

Rating: B+ / A-

Michter's 10yr Single Barrel #14A19 Review

Up today I am reviewing the last remnants of a bottle from a non-distiller producer that doesn't have the best reputation. Michter's has been known for some shady antics lately and there is at least one bourbon nerd who hates them with a passion. Of course even he will tell you that as dodgy as they have been they have released some great bottles over the years. These days though the well has run dry on their previous legendary sources like Stitzel Weller and best guess is they are now sourcing from wherever they can like most NDPs.

I opened this bottle several months ago at a whiskey tasting and everyone immediately honed in that it smelled and tasted almost exactly like 2013 Old Forester Birthday Bourbon. We broke out an OFBB to taste/smell side by side and it was obvious that while it was slightly different they were definitely from the same source. I've since had several conversations on Twitter with the aforementioned bourbon nerd and he confirmed we are most likely correct in our assumption of Brown-Forman as their current source. Given all that, here is a review from someone who is generally not a Brown-Forman fan and doesn't care for OFBB.

47.2% ABV; Aged 10 Years; $95

Nose: The nose is incredible. It is identical to OFBB '13 which I think has the best nose of any bourbon I've tried. The scents are full, intricate, and complex. It's wonderfully sweet with loads of honey and vanilla but there are also lots of intermingled clove spices. I also get some fruits like peaches and even some nuts like pecans or walnuts. It is very unique and unlike any other bourbon (except the OFBB line) that I've ever smelled.

Taste: Again spot on with the OFBB '13 except one drastic difference for me. The astringent acetone that kills OFBB for me just isn't there. It's like all the beauty of the nose compacted onto your taste buds. There is an elegant bouquet of honeysuckle, gingerbread, orange rinds, clove spice, and light cinnamon. That may sound super busy but really it's not. It's wonderfully balanced and nuanced.

Thoughts: I really did not expect to like this given my distaste for OFBB but I became infatuated with this bottle. It's incredibly unique, sweet, and has lots of delicate spices. I've been around the whiskey block long enough to know that I probably just got lucky with a super honey barrel though. As much as I loved this, given the high cost, I don't know that I would take a chance on buying another one given their lack of transparency.

Rating: A