Bourbon Round-Up 2019
Dec 27, 2019 · 2 minute readLast year, I talked about my bourbon habit and how I wasn’t going too crazy with it. Checking back in at the end of this year…well, okay, things got a touch out of hand.
Highlights of the past twelve months include:
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Obtaining private selection picks of every single combination of Four Roses’s two mashbills and five yeast strains (ten bottles overall).
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Finding not one, but two bottles of the MGP-sourced O.K.I. releases.
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Getting hold of every special release that New Riff put out, including the Balboa Rye that sold out within hours. (You should find a New Riff Single Barrel Rye as quick as you can, by the way)
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My first taste of ‘pre-fire’ Heaven Hill bourbon.
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I now have a bottle of ‘Cheesy Gold Foil’ Wild Turkey to be opened on a very special occasion.
And in a last-minute addition to round out 2019, I also got my first-ever limited edition Four Roses edition, which I amazingly managed to find at retail in the UK. So yes, things got a little out of hand. On the bright side, I now have all the ‘unicorn’ bottles I’ve been looking for, so 2020 should be a much lighter year (I completely ignore anything from the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection; it’s good bourbon, but I’m not paying $1000 a bottle (at least) for any of it). In fact, I’m only looking forward so far to three releases next year:
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Wild Turkey Rye Rare Breed — should be fairly common in shops and on the basis of their single barrel ryes and Cornerstone, it’ll be something special.
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New Riff 6-Year — This is still only a rumour at the moment, but as their first barrels will be six years old in 2020, we’re hoping for an older bottling as their stocks come into their prime.
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Wild Turkey Master’s Keep TBA — there’s talk that there’s going to be a final showing of the company’s remaining old bourbon barrels in 2020. While the other two are likely to be released widely, this will be rather hard to come by, given how popular ‘dusty’ Wild Turkey has become.
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Oh, and I’ll probably pick up a bottle or two while visiting Japan next year as well!
It’ll be a calmer year. Mainly because I don’t want to buy another set of shelves for the bar…