William Larue Weller Bourbon bottled 2010

And: J.Murray's 2011 "Third Finest Whiskey in the World".

Similar question as with Evan Williams...for Weller, would you go with the Old Weller Antique Original 107, Old Weller Special Reserve, or Weller 12 y.o.? The highly enjoyed (and reviewed) 2010 does not appear to be available in the store that I will next be visiting.

@Pudge72, I have bottles of the Antique Original 107 and the Weller 12 yo. I haven't tried the Old Weller Special Reserve (7 yo). Of these I prefer the Weller Antique Original 107. It has very robust flavours for a wheated bourbon, just one or two steps removed from William Larue Weller.

@Victor - I happen to come across 2 bottles at a random liquor store I have never visted and as Dellnolla suggested - I saw it so I bought it. (I had been wanting to try this for a while after really enjoying the Van Winkle's in my collection and Maker's Mark 46.)

I have read many of your reviews and though we have different taste profiles, you seem to know alot about mashbills, etc.

Do you happen to know if this is the same mashbill as the Van Winkle's? Like, I know its a wheater like the others i have mentioned, but it seems really really similar to the Van Winkles. Sure its younger, and it is at a much higher proof, but it seems really familiar to me.

I also know that Buffalo trace now owns the Pappy recipe, and that Pappy (one of them anyways)worked for William Larue Weller as a salesman or something.

So after putting all those pieces together I have this hunch that maybe they are the same mashbill/recipe as they build their stock of the Buffalo Trace produced Van Winkle's and the name is a clue to the history. Do you think there is anything to that?

Thanks, and by the way, I appreciate all of your contributions. I only cussed you once when I tried the Buffalo Trace White Dog Mash you gave an 85. That ruined my day.

Cheers!

@Bigt, not to stand in for @Victor and his fantastic whisky expertise—which I've witnessed firsthand—but I think I can answer your questions.

To begin, it depends on which Van Winkles you're referring to. Pappy Van Winkle bourbon is neither owned nor made by Buffalo Trace. Rather, the whisky is from the legendary, now mothballed, Stitzel-Weller distillery. This is the same "juice" bottled in the new Jefferson's Presidential Select expressions. Once it runs out, we won't say Pappy's face on the Van Winkle bottles any longer.

The other Van Winkle bourbons (i.e. the Old Rip and Special Reserve brands) are produced by Buffalo Trace, and they do use the same mash bill as the Weller brand, but this is almost certainly not the same mash bill as the Pappy brand. Again, however, Buffalo Trace does not own the Van Winkle brand, though they do produce and bottle it. Whether the new stuff is from the same mash bill as the original or not, I can say that it's liquid gold.

@DBK - Thank you very much for your response.

To be honest, after I posted the comment I thought about going back and clarifying. I have had the Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve 15 and 20 year makes. I understand that these won't be made anymore, but I was under the impression that Buffalo Trace would continue the line under the Van Winkle name but not "Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve". (I have a couple 15yr and 20yr saved for later of those guys.)

However, I currently have an open bottle of the Van Winkle Special Reserve 12 year "Lot B" and tried the William Larue Weller and thought, this tastes like a barrel proof version of that. It tasted a bit younger maybe, and definitely much more punch to it. Where it has that Thomas Handy and George T Stagg kick to it at 126 proof. But underneath it tasted a lot like the Van Winkle. More so than other wheat blends that I have tried.

Thank you for verifying what I thought to be the case. And I want to add that I enjoyed your review of the Forty Creek Confederation Oak Reserve. I was able to find a bottle of that and thoroughly enjoyed it based on your recommendation.

Cheers!

You're indeed right about the Weller-Van Winkle Lot B connection, @Bigt. They are based on the same mash bill, though it is likely that they are selected for different taste profiles (as different as two identical wheated bourbon mashes aged under similar conditions can be), or that some barrels are designated as destined for the Van Winkle line. As for age, it depends on which vintage of William Larue Weller you tasted. Some vintages are younger than the Lot B (e.g., 2007-2009), some are older (e.g., 2006), and some are the same age (2005 and 2010).

I'm glad to hear you got your mitts on some Forty Creek Confederation Oak and, more to the point, enjoyed it! Many Canadians still haven't had the pleasure. ; )

@Bigt, thank for you your comments and interest in the wheated bourbons. @dbk has done a great job of pointing out the commonality of the mashbills of the Van Winkle 12 yo Lot B and the William Larue Weller bourbons. Thank you, @dbk! I tried to respond to this post 3 days ago while I was traveling in Canada, but had some technical problems with my laptop on the road.

As to White Dog, Mash #1, well, unaged spirits are not everyone's cup of tea. I am sure that there is a small fudge factor in the back of my mind that I use in my numerical ratings of a whisky, based on type--in other words, a rating partially compared to all whiskies and to a lesser extent compared "for the type of whisky that it is."

@BigT and @dbk, what I would like to know about the post-Stitzel-Weller Buffalo Trace Van Winkle bourbons vis-a-vis the Buffalo Trace Weller line of bourbons is: are they using the same yeast strain?

I really do believe that yeast effects are the big mysterious factor in whisk(e)y flavour profiles that no one even has a language to begin to describe or quantify. Chuck Cowdery in his blog reports that American whiskey distillers tell him that flavours come 50% from the barrel, 25% from the grain, and 25% from the yeast. That seems pretty accurate to me.

Identical mashbills only take one so far in commonality of flavour profile. Four Roses has proven that by showing how different five identical mashbill bourbons, times two separate mashbills, can be, using five different yeasts, for each of the two mashbills.

Is the Buffalo Trace Van Winkle yeast the same as the W. L. Weller yeast? I am not sure, myself, but there are certainly similarities.

@Victor, I believe that the Weller mash bill—which includes the Van Winkle products produced at Buffalo Trace—is very similar, if not identical, to the original Old Fitzgerald (i.e. Stitzel-Weller) mash bill. However, I don't think there's any evidence that they use the same yeast.

Yeast will undoubtedly have effects on the taste profile, as you rightly point out. The best example (again, as you note) is the Four Roses Single Barrel line, where there are noticeable differences among the five different yeast strains; nevertheless, there is also a clear "family" resemblance among them, even between the two different mash bills. Buffalo Trace may not only use a different yeast, they also do not use the same equipment, or age their whiskey in the same rickhouses, as Stitzel-Weller once did. Perhaps their barrel char levels differ, too, or the origins of their grains. It is certainly reasonable to suppose that one or all of these differences make it impossible for BT to convincingly replicate the Stitzel-Weller profile. However, it's also possible that blending the right barrels together might produce a good Pappy replica yet, yeast or no yeast. It's an empirical question in the end.

Interestingly, Maker's Mark was given both the mash bill and the yeast by Pappy himself. Here's an interesting study, then: compare Maker's Mark, Maker's 46, the Weller line, and the younger Van Winkles (e.g. Old Rip and Lot "B") to one another and then to the Stitzel-Weller bourbons of yore and see for yourself what differences you can detect. Obviously, the oldest Maker's is younger than even the youngest Van Winkles, so the comparison is not exactly fair, but it can be instructive nonetheless.

Also, a follow-up on a previous comment of mine, above. It seems that Buffalo Trace is now producing some or all of the whiskey that makes it into the Pappy Van Winkle 15 year-old, and Pappy's image remains on the bottle. Some are unhappy about this, but those who have tasted it blind (or are less swayed by marketing) seem to think it continues to be top-notch stuff, even if the profile is somewhat changed.

@dbk, I think that you are completely correct, that, despite multiple variables about which we are never likely to have complete and accurate information affecting the flavours of a whisk(e)y, that it is entirely possible that some future greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts whole may be fabricated from entirely new ingredients and industrial processes, that may succeed in doing a fair approximation of a previously produced, no longer available whiskey, such as the Stitzel-Weller Pappy Van Winkle 15.

Nowadays I buy bottles of the Buffalo Trace-distilled 'new 15' largely to see whether the flavour profile of the new product is moving in the direction of Stitzel-Weller Pappy Van Winkle 15. New 15 very good bourbon in its own right, of course, but the Stitzel-Weller Pappy Van Winkle 15 is still by far my favourite wheater.

William Larue Weller remains excellent, of course, as does Parkers Heritage Collection Wheated, but they are for me for very different moods than the Pappy Van Winkle 15. For me, a glass of Stitzel-Weller Pappy Van Winkle 15 is the American whiskey equivalent of popping a bottle of Champagne. Light, celebratory, intoxicating before taking a sip.