Sommelier Tries 10 Bourbons From $20-$200 | World Of Wine | Bon Appétit

Hey, I'm sommelier Andre Houston Mack, and today I'm gonna be tasting 10 bottles of bourbon ranging from $20 all the way up to about $200. Bourbon comes in many different styles, different terminology, and a wide price range, but what does it all mean? Today, I'm gonna help you figure out the perfect bottle for you. Woo! I think over the last five or six years, bourbon has seen an incredible boom, but what's really great about this is that you can actually go out and buy something for $15, and something of consequence, something of good quality. What we have here today is 10 different bottles of bourbon, and we're gonna kind of walk you through all the styles and try to figure out which ones are the best or which ones are worth the effort. So first up, we have Jim Beam. This is Kentucky straight bourbon, and this comes in around $20. So I would consider this kind of like the baseline when we talk about bourbon. This is a brand that everybody knows and is somewhat familiar with. The world of whiskey is wide and vast, so the overarching category is whiskey, and then a subcategory of whiskey is bourbon. Whiskey is actually basically a distillant of grain, so we're making alcohol from grain, wheat, corn, barley, and rye. That's the distillant base. For bourbon, it actually has to have at least 51% corn, and it has to be aged in new charred oak barrels. So here it actually says straight Kentucky bourbon. There is a legal requirement in order to be able to put that on the bottle. It has to be made in Kentucky, and the straight part means that it needs to be aged at least two years in barrel in Kentucky. Also, the requirement is there's no additives, no coloring, or any kind of adulterating of the spirit. Basically, you make the spirit, and then you age it in the barrel. Bourbon can be made anywhere in the United States, but there's something special about Kentucky. Having a great water source there that's enriched with lime imparts the minerality that you get in the spirit, but also a sense of purity to it, as well. So we're gonna go ahead and open this now. This is one of my favorite tasting glasses. It comes with a little hollow stem here, so it's kind of the perfect portion. But what's really great is that you can turn the glass on its side, and then basically you're rolling the glass back and forth like this. And what this is doing is basically coating the sides of the glass. So it's opening up the air mats so you can really get a great sniff. Wow, this smells like my dorm room. A little bit of honey. I would say a little bit of sandalwood, a lightly scented wood, a little bit of dried apricot, stone fruit. Sorry, I was reminiscing there, sorry. Just bringing me back to car keys missing, and all kind of wallet missing, and... Obviously, there's some heat that you get, but it's not, like, overpowering. It kind of dissipates. A little bit of, like, cherry, apricot. Like, the smell of oak, but, like, taste, it's expressing itself in vanilla, right? So there's lots of vanilla, maybe a tad bit of cinnamon, but somewhat fruit forward. Straight Kentucky bourbon. It has to be aged in new charred oak barrels. This is where the flavoring is coming from. This is where the color comes from, and it's a big part of the aging process. You can't add any flavoring agents or anything like that, and so oak barrels are imperative to what bourbon is. Cinnamon, vanilla, those all come from the oils within the oak barrel. When we talk about bourbon, it has to be at least 51% corn, and most whiskeys in this category are probably somewhere between 70% to 80% corn. So to me, corn gives it kind of this richness and this roundness to it, and a sweetness to it. This was a sip of nostalgia for me. I think this is great. Are there better whiskeys out there? Yes, but I think at this price point, for anybody who wants to taste American bourbon, I think this is apropos. All right, so we have Buffalo Trace. This is White Dog Mash number one, and this is at $16. Technically, this is not bourbon, but I think this is an interesting way to be able to understand what bourbon become, and so this is not bourbon. This is the raw distillant. This is what the whiskey or the bourbon would look like once it comes out of the still. See, it's clear. It looks like water. In order for it to be Kentucky straight bourbon, it has to spend at least two years in oak, and so that time in oak or any extended time in oak is gonna impart color, but also know that it is imparting some type of flavor, and this is a great exercise and a cool way to kind of explain or experience what aging in oak imparts on the whiskey. This is at 125 proof. After it goes into barrel and ages, there'll be some type of dilution process that goes in, and by adding water and diluting it, it changes the nuances and the structure and the experience that you have with the whiskey. Okay, I've smelled that smell before. You know, someone says, oh, it smells neutral. The only way that I can explain is that it smells like Everclear. Like, that's kind of my thing. It smells like moonshine or what you would say, but it's none of those things that really define bourbon. It smells buttery, right? There's like movie popcorn butter. Oh, God. Oh. Woo. Yeah, on entry, that's definitely acquired taste. You get like the viscosity and some of the texture that you would get in bourbon, but you don't get, there's no spice. There's no, you know, it's like unseasoned chicken, right? You know what I'm saying? Folks, you got to season your chicken. There's no char or toastiness or anything that comes with that. There's fruit, but really on the back end, there's no spice. There's no cinnamon. It's really missing vanilla. It's missing the toastiness that you get from that. Can you taste more of the mashable? Can you taste more of the grain? And you can, and there's a sweetness to it, a slight thing. That is from the corn. The spiciness you get from the rye, and then that kind of like that saltiness and salinity you get from the barley. This is not something that I would want to drink on an everyday basis. I can't imagine that this is something that people sip on, but it could be. But I think for educational purposes, you know, this is the right fit to understand bourbon better is to understand all of his different processes. So next up we have Evan Williams' Bottled and Bond. This is Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, and this comes in at about $21. I think it started in somewhere like 1897, and it is a set of regulations in order to be called bottled and bonds. So bottled and bond has to be produced, so made within the calendar year. It has to be from one distillery, and it has to be bottled at 100 proof. I guess the biggest stipulation that it has to be aged at least four years in a bonded government warehouse. So hence the term bottled and bond. There's the number on the front here that identifies the government bonded warehouse that it's in. And I think this law came about just like, I think it was somewhat of the wild, wild west. And this was the kind of reign a lot of this stuff in to make sure that the consumer actually was getting a consistent product. 1897, that was a very, very long time ago. Then it meant more than it does kind of now. I smell lots of caramel, honey, vanilla extract. It's just not hints of it floating around. It's pretty strong. It definitely smells sweeter. Like it smells confectionary. Less fruit, it's more kind of woodsy and less spice. So it's just kind of caramel and wood. It almost kind of has like a slight, like nutty taste to it. So citrus, nutty. Something happened now, I smell celery. You know, the nuttiness can also come from, you know, barrel is porous, right? And so it allows oxygen to come in. There's evaporation. And I think sometimes you get a little bit of nuttiness from that. Look at this versus the Jim Beam. This has like deeper, rich flavors. You can see it in the color. There is a little bit of a wallop with this. You know, this is at a hundred proof, but it's kind of evenly balanced with the texture of the whiskey, but it is definitely a step up and you can taste it right away. At this price point, I think this is like pretty amazing. So next up we have Redemption and this is called High Rye Bourbon. And this comes in around $31. On the label, it has a mash bill. So mash bill is basically like your recipe, the ingredients. It's the ingredients list and it breaks down the percentages of what type of grains that you're using. And why it's called High Rye Bourbon is that there's a higher percentage of rye than most, right? 36% rye is quite a bit. And I would probably say anywhere from, you know, 10 to 20% is what you would normally see. And that might be a little bit on the high side. Rye is gonna impart a lot of spiciness and kind of textures and layers to this bourbon. And not to be confused with the other category of whiskey, there's a category of whiskey called rye. And then that, it has to be at least 51% rye in order for it to be called rye whiskey. This is not quite that. This is still considered bourbon because it's over 51% corn. And this is from Indiana. Like I said, bourbon can be from anywhere in America, not just Kentucky. It just smells a lot more mellow. It's not as strong jumping out of the glass as other bourbons. It feels integrated. It's not just like a lot of oak jumping out of the glass. Oddly enough, it kind of smells like bananas and then has like a peach kind of undertone to it. You can definitely taste the rye. It's so prevalent. It makes the bourbon taste different. It slightly tastes a little bit more medicinal in a way. There's not a lot of fruit flavors here. It's like a really woodsy. So less fruit, more wood, more spice. You can see why this is a style because it's totally different than other bourbons. But this is really fun to drink. Why wouldn't you just get a rye whiskey? But if you look at 36% rye, to add another 20% changes this whole composition of what this tastes like and drinks like. And I think it's just another style of bourbon that's just not kind of like in your face and has a little bit more nuance to it with the spiciness. All right, so next up we have Maker's Mark. This is cast strength, Kentucky straight bourbon, and it comes in around $47. Cast strength is also referred to as barrel proof. Whatever the proof of straight from the cast is straight into the bottle. What you don't hear a lot of is dilution. In its simplest terms, when we talk about dilution, it's very simple. We're just adding water. Straight whiskey is a lot to handle. It's powerful. It's very alcoholic. So when it's time to bottle the whiskey, we take it straight from the barrel and we go through adding water to it and diluting it from cast strength to whatever your desired strength is. And then it's bottled. Just even if you look at the bottle here, this comes in at 110. This is just the proof that it was straight from the cast, straight to the bottle. This is so funny. It's like this business is pretty litigious. They have a trademark on this wax. You know, even at a higher proof, it seems really mellow. It's not jumping out of the glass. It's just not over a medicinal or alcohol doesn't seem to burn. Lots of caramel, minerality, and kind of dried fruit. So in the back in there, you're getting like sandalwood. There's a little bit of heat. And then there's just vanilla, peaches, stone fruit. So when I say heat, we're just talking about alcohol. Can you really taste it and how alcohol at a higher level is how it's expressed is kind of the hotness. Like you feel like a fire breathing dragon. There's like so much heat in your mouth that you're gonna go, you know, kind of thing like that. That's kind of the experience that I'm getting. You can definitely taste that it's much more alcohol in it, but it's not really expressed on the nose. And it's really not on entry. It's on the back palate. That is a desired thing. That's something that I like. If we were taking like this and put it in ice cube or putting drops of water, you're technically diluting it to your taste. And some people like might think that's improper or whatever, you know, it's kind of like, hey, like I want to have it the way that the chef intended it to be. I think it's great and serves its purpose. At this price point, I think that there's probably a lot more interesting things out there than this. But I think a great example of cash strength is this. So what we have here is four roses. This is small batch Kentucky straight bourbon. And this comes in around $39. So how big is a batch? And that really depends on a distillery. There's no technical or legal definition of small batch and what it might mean. Small batch is kind of really a marketing term. It's not a single barrel. It might be three or four barrels. It might be a couple of hundred barrels. It might be several hundred barrels. Small batch equates to craftsmanship. Small batch means that a smaller group of people can actually touch it within something like a big distillery. To call something small batch inside of there, it gives a little bit more creativity. It gives them the chance to make something different and uniquely different than what they produce every day. But anybody can put that on their label. And so you really have to distill it down to the producer and what it means to them. I want to dive into this sucker. I haven't had this in a while. Color looks crazy. Feels really bright, not dark. Caramel, salted caramel in a way. Tastes pretty bright and fresh. Dried fruit. Berries, it's almost like a red berry, like a blackberry kind of taste to it. There's a bit of spiciness to it. Not like in rye, but kind of like an allspice kind of flavor to it. There's caramel, tastes salty, starting to salivate a little bit. A little bit more fragrant too. It's like they can put it in the soap or something like that. So when we say bright, I use it in a term of like, you might hear me say jumping out of the glass, but if there's a freshness to it, a liveliness to it. Some people say acid could be bright. I guess the big question is, does it taste small batch? And that's a very hard question to ask when I talk about the brightness of some of the ripe red berry fruit. Those things seem to be a little bit more nuanced. Those weren't qualities and things that I found in other ones. Small batch doesn't equate to quality, but I think there's quality in this bottle. Next up, we have Basil Hayden. This is red wine cast finished, Kentucky street bourbon. This is also known as small batch. And this is $65. So you're probably thinking, what is finishing? And it's basically how you finish aging your whiskey. What kind of oak barrels you're putting it in? Does it have any flavor? And what you see as a prime example here is taking barrels that have been used in a different industry and using those to finish your whiskey in. And so here, they're using red wine barrels. Red wine's been stored in the barrel for a year, five years, whatever it is. The barrel has picked up some of the flavoring from that. So if you see the inside of a red wine barrel, it's red. The thought is that that imparts flavoring and nuance to the spirit. It says that they're using California red wine barrels. When you think about California wine, because of the heat, it is right. It's really robust and I think imparts quite a bit of flavor that's absorbed by the oak. It's so funny, I'm always amazed by all the packaging that you find in the spirits industry. But what really matters is what's inside here. You look at the color and it's kind of a color that we kind of hadn't really seen. This comes from the coloring inside of the barrels. Wow. I mean, you're not joking. Like right off the bat, there's fruit. Cherries, vanilla. I know this sounds weird, but it actually smells like the Juergens lotion. I haven't tasted anything like this. In some weird way, it tastes old. There's a component and something, an angle here that's different than any of the whiskeys that we've had today. Finishing matters. That's a way to be distinctive and to stand out in the crowd. There's a lot to offer just within the bourbon category and try to figure out your style. Like this may not be the style for somebody who's a purist. I'm a fan of this. This is interesting. I didn't think that I would be, and I'm sure there's a lot of people out there like you guys who think, of course the wine guy would like that. But like, no, it just offered a different expression. I want to taste different things at different times and I want to be able to switch it up every now and then. All right, so next up we have Weller. This is weeded bourbon and this comes in at $90. So this is called a weeded bourbon. We talked about that it had to be at least 51% corn in the grain, in the mash bill, in order for it to be called bourbon. And then the highest percentage after that is wheat. They state that they replaced the rye with wheat. What does wheat add? To me, it always made it a little sweeter. It made it smell like fermentation. It felt like bread, kind of bready in a way. You look at this and you're like, wow, this is $90. Last time I checked, wheat was cheap. Weller comes with cult status. You know, very hard to find. This is a real commodity here in New York. I was in Indiana and I bought a double-sized bottle of this for $55. Somewhere closer to Kentucky where it's made, you get it at a more digestible price. There is kind of a bready, kind of like a brioche thing, like champagne thing that I'm picking up on the nose. There's hay. There's a fruity element to it. There's a floral element to it. Yeah, that's distinct. It's actually softer and more palatable. It is much smoother and softer than other bourbons that are corn-heavy or rye-heavy. When I say soft, it's another way to say palatable and maybe even say smooth. It's not harsh. There's definitely a distinction between this and non-wheated bourbons, right? It brings this elegance to it that you really don't get in bourbon at the lower end levels. You have to go higher end and age longer. You're getting this kind of great quality to it. It's something special. All right, so we have Widow Jane Lucky 13 straight bourbon whiskey, and it's $129. This is aged for 13 years. So I would say this is extra age, extra long age. Whiskey and spirits don't age in the bottle. When you put wine into a bottle, it still ages and still matures in the bottle. This is not 13 years that it was in the bottle. It was 13 years that it was in cask, and then they bottled. Kind of bright, kind of overly-oaked kind of thing. That kind of dissipates, and the caramel seems to be less. There is a transformation of kind of bright and fresh to this kind of well-polished, nuanced, layered and layered, layered spirit. This is actually from Brooklyn. I guess the running joke is everything in Brooklyn is expensive. What makes it distinct? And it's water source, and they talk a lot about where they get their water source that is high content in lime. Kentucky is one thing, but Brooklyn is a different thing, and that also adds a different dimension into the whiskey that you're tasting. Anytime that anybody's talking about hand-assemble, handmade, them touching it, that's definitely a level of craftsmanship and quality, but also it means a little cha-ching as well. At least there's artists, and there's still people making it in Brooklyn. I get that part of it. Wow, there's a minerality to it. There's kind of a wet stone. It's a fruit element. I'd say cherries, maybe rainier cherries. Wow. You know, it's interesting. It definitely isn't Kentucky bourbon. Those had like a thread, an underlying thread that kind of ran through all of them. This is really mineral-driven. And as a whiskey ages, they kind of transition into like being more dried and being more oxidative in some ways. And you heard that term, the angel share. There's evaporation that's constantly going on. Also, there's oxygen circulating in those barrels. And for 13 years, the fresh fruit flavors turned to more like kind of nutty, oxidative kind of flavors. $129, is it worth it? You know, to each his own. What I would say is that like, I know the business, and so you respect the business. It's 13 years old. Somebody has to pay for that. It sat there. Like this is kind of par for the course for something aged this long. And it kind of takes you through the pendulum of what whiskey can be. The world is willing to pay for it. Sorry. So moving along, we have Elijah Craig. This is the 18-year-old single barreled, and this is Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. And this comes in at a whopping $199. $199. That's a pair of Jordans, right? Can we get a pair of Jordans for $200 now? Single barrel actually means single barrel. This actually comes from one single barrel in their Rick house. Most whiskey is a blended whiskey. In order to make your favorite whiskey that's out there, there's thousands of barrels, hundreds of barrels, all in a room. The key and the process of all of that is blending it all together. But within that, each barrel is different depending on its positioning in the Rick house. So if it's high or low, second floor, third floor, it's all affected by the elements. Each barrel has its own characteristic. This actually really comes from one single barrel. This is 18 years, and so there's value in that. Readily available in things that you can find. This kind of maybe tips the scale right at like 18. I mean, just off the nose, the fruit is very expressive, stewed fruit. Stone fruit, peaches, cherries, apricot. There's vanilla, there's spice. Lots of vanilla, caramel. Odor that it gets, there's less like fresh fruit components and like vanilla. All these things seem to be integrated. This is what old whiskey tastes like. Lots of kind of secondary notes that aren't fruit, like that are wood, that are grass, that are hay. And there is fruit, but like almost like just more on the dry side. Over the 18 year aging process, like there's things that are lost. They evolved into something else. Talking about citrus, talking about all those things that are fresh. And here, like over that time, it just evolves. We don't lose it, it morphs into something else. And Elijah Craig has always been known for over-delivering. At 18 years and $199, that's a fair price, if not undervalued. The things that you're getting from this whiskey, some people would pay three times the amount. And half, and half. There's so much more whiskey offerings north of this that it would make your head spin. And that's why I say at $199, I think that's a fair price for this. The word bourbon is a category that we know, but within that, there are subcategories and styles and many different things that I think that will really help you becoming more of an expert in your own taste. I went to college in Oklahoma, in Oklahoma City. I worked at Red Lobster and I had a friend of mine who was a waiter, who was moonlighting as a waiter, but was a bookie. And all he would drink was Weller. Monday nights were payout nights, right? And we would go out. I should have taken that game. It was like Indiana, the Pacers versus the Bulls. Game six, Bulls favored by one. And my rent was due and I didn't take the game. I have nothing.