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Bourbon Thread

SilentThreat

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Who drinks it? Whats your go to? It does not have to be exotic or impossible to find, just love good bourbon recommendations, especially when they don't break the bank.

Lately I've been on a Four Roses small batch kick, same with Elijah Craig. Both very reasonable in price and readily available.

I have a bottle of Buffalo Trace and a bottle of Eagle Rare at home but they are not regularly consumed.

*** full disclosure - I DO NOT BUY THE EXPENSIVE STUFF lol ***
 
Perhaps my new favorite thread.

I came to bourbon relatively late ... mostly I think because my experience with it earlier was always with your standard mixer-quality brands. It just never spoke to me. A few years back though, a good friend was going to have some one night and offered it up. When I hemmed and hawed, he asked why, and I had to admit I wasn't really a "bourbon guy." He looked at me like I was a bug for a minute, then went to his bar and produced a bottle. "You just haven't had any good bourbon, I'm guessing."

My life has not been the same since.

For the record, what he turned me on to that night wasn't even a bourbon, it was a Japanese whiskey ... the Yamazaki. No, not the 2013 single malt that won best whiskey in the world that you only find from private dealers in Europe, but still a really nice top-shelf iteration that just melted me.

Since then I've been regularly shopping said top shelf and making up for all those lost years.

I have some regulars in the rotation ... Woodford, Knob Creek, Bowman's, Four Roses, some of the many Jefferson blends, etc.

Had this one for the first time the other day, courtesy of the same friend, and it was choice.

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If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
 
Om and I have shared a lot of bourbon together in recent years (sometimes to our detriment!).

My go to is probably Eagle Rare. I also like Bulleit quite a bit. Not as big a fan of bourbons with a big oak background. My daughter (because she knows me so well) took my wife and I and her husband on the bourbon trail on Kentucky a couple years ago. We probably hit 6 or 7 distilleries. You have to do that at some point if you love bourbon. It was especially meaningful for me because I was born in bourbon country (Lexington Kentucky) and got to visit some beloved relatives I hadn’t seen in decades.

As a side note, I’m a ‘neat’ guy all the way. Can’t stand ice or water in my bourbon. Just room temperature out of the bottle for me.
 
Drank my fair share of Bulleit last night... not bad at all.

If anyone is looking for a GOOD 'Budget' Bourbon, I personally like Henry McKenna, just the standard. I can sip that pretty well.

and Boone, I could not agree more... 'neat' is the way to go.
 
Angel's Envy is another one that is very smooth and not super expensive (at least not top tier if memory serves)
 
Angel's Envy is another one that is very smooth and not super expensive (at least not top tier if memory serves)


No it's not TOO bad. Picked up a bottle when I was in South Carolina a while back for $50 which is cheaper than it is here in Virginia. It's just hard to find. It's some damn tasty hooch though.
 
I'm a Maker's man and really love the 46. I did the Bourbon Trail with a bunch of college buddies about 10 years ago and discovered a lot of bourbons I love. Angel's envy and Buffalo Trace headed that pack. Before Blantons became so hard to find I was able to collect all the tops.
 

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I'm a Maker's man and really love the 46. I did the Bourbon Trail with a bunch of college buddies about 10 years ago and discovered a lot of bourbons I love. Angel's envy and Buffalo Trace headed that pack. Before Blantons became so hard to find I was able to collect all the tops.


that's some elite level bouron-ing right there.

Buffalo Trace is REALLY good, just darn near impossible to find if you have a full time job lol.
 
This thread is all win. Mrs. Skinsfan and I are big-time bourbon drinkers. It's the libation of choice for us. I'm a certified geek about it.

We've done the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, twice, private distillery tours, the whole nine-yards.
I also like scotch, mainly single-malt Islay peat bombs, but bourbon is what we love to drink. Off the top of my head, we probably have at least 50-60 bottles, most of them open, in our bunker**. We have plenty of top-shelf, barrel picks and some pricey bottles but our "go-to" juice* is good, cheap, whiskey. We are in the midst of a bourbon boom, with a lot of inexpensive, flavorful whiskey, at great prices. Stuff like Evan Williams bottled-in-bond, Old Granddad bottled-in-bond, OGD 114, Wild Turkey.

I'm also a rye whore. I love 'em and there's a lot of really good ones out there, that are very reasonably priced, Wild Turkey 101 rye, Dickel Rye, Rittenhouse, etc.

What's my favorite bourbon? That's like asking, "Who is your favorite child?" I love them both, but differently.

With the occasional exception of the occasional Old-Fashioned, bourbon slush, or with ginger ale, (Blenheim's red-cap only), we take it neat.

Folks, if I can suggest just one, kinda pricey, (~$60.00 - $70.00 range), run, don't walk, to your nearest liquor store, and pick up a bottle of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel, Barrel proof whiskey. Yeah, it's JD, but it's nothing like the stuff that we drank when we were younger. It's hands-down one of the biggest bargains in barrel proof whiskey, and it's unbelievably good. A few drops of water, or over an ice ball, really opens it up. Compared to other barrel proofs, (Booker's, Stagg Jr., etc), it's only a matter of time before the bean-counters at Brown-Forman jack up the price.

*just using the term "juice" when referring to bourbon is a sure sign that you're dealing with a bourbon geek.
** another bourbon geek term
 
that's some elite level bouron-ing right there.

Buffalo Trace is REALLY good, just darn near impossible to find if you have a full time job lol.
I'm telling you.....every ABC store person I ask tells me they get one case a month..tops.... and it's gone in a day. I've been told you can sometimes find it in smaller towns off the beaten path where you might not have a bunch of bournites.
 
I'm telling you.....every ABC store person I ask tells me they get one case a month..tops.... and it's gone in a day. I've been told you can sometimes find it in smaller towns off the beaten path where you might not have a bunch of bournites.


Yeah up here there are people who are so tuned in they know the deliveries coming in on truck day.

i luck boxed my way into a bottle of Buffalo Trace a few months ago and i only drink it on very special occasions (like Sunday Night if we can pull this off). I was able to find a bottle of Eagle Rare over the summer so i treat that with the same level.
 
Wow....it's crazy reading how hard it is to find Buffalo Trace. I see it around here,(Baltimore metro area), occasionally but quit buying it, years ago, when the price eclipsed $30.00. IMO, there are a lot of better whiskey's out there in that price range.
The exception is when goes on sale at the package store, (on the Navy base in Little Creek), for $19.99 a bottle. It seems to do that a couple times a year, regardless of the availability elsewhere. I'm guessing that the military has a better distribution system, or that they're guaranteed a certain allocation. When it does, my Mom picks me up a case, and I gift it to friends. Package stores on military bases always have great sales. If you have a friend, or family, in the service, get them to check it out for you. I've gotten Knob Creek, Maker's Mark, Buffalo Trace & Woodford Reserve for $19.99 per bottle. I've snagged 1.75l bottles of Maker's and Buffalo Trace for $36.00 too.

I know people who will skip right over great whiskey, (stuff like Old Grand Dad BIB and WT101), because that's what their Dad's drank. Just because it's ubiquitous, doesn't mean it's not good. There's a reason those brands have been around forever. Once you've cracked open a bottle of Old Forester 100, Old Grand Dad 114, Wild Turkey 101, Four Roses Yellow label, you'll know what I'm talking about.
 
I typically use Maker's Mark in homebrews featuring bourbon. Really, really nice. When I first got into bourbon, I had a good friend on this site hook me up with some Stagg and William Weller. The Weller specifically was meaningful because the 'Wellers' are a big Pineville Kentucky family, and my Dad was born and raised there. Somehow, that just made it taste sweeter.
 
I typically use Maker's Mark in homebrews featuring bourbon. Really, really nice. When I first got into bourbon, I had a good friend on this site hook me up with some Stagg and William Weller. The Weller specifically was meaningful because the 'Wellers' are a big Pineville Kentucky family, and my Dad was born and raised there. Somehow, that just made it taste sweeter.
Man....your friend hooked you up with some really good bourbon.
Didn't you brew the beer with a ghost pepper in it, and bring it to the BGO tailgate, years ago?
If memory serves, it was a porter, or stout? I was kind of banged up, having hit the bourbon pretty hard at the ES tailgate earlier. I remember it being really good and it had a nice kick.
 
Yep. That was a chocolate porter with ghost pepper. Pretty good :)
 
Ha!
My memory isn't as bad as I thought!
 

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