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🄃Review #76: Chattanooga Whiskey 91 - Tennessee High Malt

Chattanooga Whiskey 91 is the signature offering of its namesake distillery and showcases their signature "high malt" style, requiring at least 25% of the mash bill to be specialty malted grains. Chattanooga Whiskey is the first producer within city limits since before prohibition and its founders were heavily involved in getting Tennessee State and local laws changed to allow for distillation outside of the traditional three distilling counties, "Vote Whiskey". While they originally sourced whiskey from MGP, they have been producing whiskey at their downtown location since 2016 and the larger riverfront facility since 2017. The Tennessee High Malt style is a bread baker's approach to whiskey, showcasing the character of the grains, often from bespoke varieties and sources. This results in less of a focus on wood flavors with the upshot that Chattanooga bottlings tend to be younger, dumped before the barrel character can drown out the mash.  It is basically imp...
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🄃Review #75: Early Times Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon

Produced by Sazerac's Barton 1792 distillery, Early Times Bottled-in-Bond (commonly referred to as "ET") is an enthusiast cult favorite that has morphed substantially over the last decade. A brand originally created in 1860 by John Henry "Jack Beam" (yes the uncle of Jim Beam), Early Times was acquired by Born-Foreman during Prohibition when it was sold as "medicinal whiskey", surviving the drought to become the best selling bourbon in the U.S. by 1953. Under pressure from the Vodka Boom, Brown-Foreman shifted to using refill cooperage in the 1980s to save cost, resulting in the brand losing its regulatory status as bourbon. BF re-introduced the bottled-in-bond edition in 2017 as a 75th-anniversary tribute to its peak, hoping to capitalize on the burgeoning bourbon boom. In 2020, Sazerac purchased the brand and production moved from DSP-KY-354 (Shively/Brown-Forman) to DSP-KY-12 (Barton 1792 in Bardstown Kentucky). You may see Early Times split betwe...

🄃Whiskey Frankenstein: Kirkland Bottled-in-Bond (2024) + Wolcott Rickhouse Reserve = Barton White Label

I've been meaning to kill off my oldest bottle Costco's  Kirkland BiB  Bourbon for a bit now. The 2024 iteration was a good bit better than the 2025 for whatever reason, but this bottle had gotten pushed to the back of the cabinet. Unfortunately a good amount of headspace in that 1L bottle has resulted in a bit of over oxidation; most of the interested fruited notes are gone. With a few sips of a prior pour left in the glass, I absentmindedly tossed in a few glugs of Total Wine's Wolcott Rickhouse Reserve , also a Barton-1792 product, hoping that a little bit of fresh juice would liven up the Kirkland. The Wolcott impressed me for being relatively easy drinking at 120 proof and around $35, especially given how hard to find 1792 Full Proof had been over the past few years. Results of this impromptu mix were favorable, so I have set out to better document the ratios involved and recreate my accidental success. VĆ”monos! For the uninitiated, Whiskey Frankenstein is the practi...

šŸ”ŒReview - Monster Energy - Ultra Strawberry Dreams

Introduced in the first half of 2023, Ultra Strawberry Dreams is Monster Energy's take on a sweet and tart red berry beverage, crisp and lacking the overly syrupy feel of many other strawberry beverages. After release, it became the best selling Monster Flavor in both the US and UK, toping the charts for low sugar energy drinks. The embossed can art features a dreamscape of abstract strawberries, lips, skulls, and rainbows etched into the bright pink outer covering. Is strawberry and aphrodisiac? Monster seems to think so.   šŸ›’ Price:  $2.99  - I got it for around $1.30 a can on Amazon. Monster runs 30% off coupons for setting up subscribe and save fairly often which brings the cost of a 15-pack under $20. ✨Calories:  10 ,  16oz. can šŸµ Caffeine:  150mg, slightly less than a cup of coffee šŸ‘… Flavor: The strawberry is evident from the get-go but is not overly sweet, more of a berry tingle with a subtle tart element. There is some "creaminess" which I pe...

🄃Review #74: Basil Hayden Bourbon

Produced by Jim Beam, Basil Hayden  Bourbon is the brainchild of Booker Noe, spawning this easy-drinking offering in 1992 as part of the "Small Batch" collection. Inspired and named for Meredith Basil Hayden Sr, a rye farmer in Maryland who was one of the pioneers in "high-rye" bourbon. Originally bearing an 8-year age statement, this bottle like many others lost its age stamp while stocks were under pressure during the bourbon boom of the late 2010s. With Jim Beam Black getting a 7-year mark back, have hopes that this bottle will regain its as well. Under the Basil Hayden label, Beam continues to release an expansive lineup of variations, most of them playing around with various parts of the mash or finish, including Toasted, 10YR, Dark Rye, Rye malt, Red Wine Cask Finish, and Subtle Smoke. The original Basil Hayden was specifically designed by Noe to be very light bodied and easy drinking, an inviting bridge into the world of bourbon at a semi-premium price point....