I know that nobody feels sorry for the food and drink writer who gets the occasional delivery of booze to his house to review, but I thought I’d let you in on a little bit of the reality of the job. Often, these deliveries come unsolicited and unannounced. All I get is a notification that a Fed Ex or a UPS delivery is on the way from some company or address that I am unfamiliar with.
Guessing that these are probably bottles and I’ll have to sign for them, I rearrange my schedule to be home in the window that they are due to deliver. However, sometimes, trucks run late and it might be a day or two after the scheduled delivery. If it falls on a weekend or a day that I’m not home, I can miss out on being there to provide my 21+ signature. (Shh, don’t tell anybody, but my Fed Ex driver often lets that slide. UPS doesn’t.)
I don’t want a $100 bottle of whiskey sitting out on my front porch cooking or freezing and vulnerable to porch pirates, so sometimes I change the delivery to a UPS or Fed Ex store, which costs me about 10 bucks, plus the time to schlep out and back to retrieve the bottle for review. This is what happened to the sample of Five Nine Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey that was sent to me a couple of weeks ago. Ever dedicated, I waited in line at the UPS store to receive a small envelope with a 1.5-ounce sample bottle. Yeah, I lost money on that “free” whiskey for sure. But what is it and how is it? Read on.
There’s a lot of branding behind Five Nine, described as the “Tools-Down Whiskey” by the Troll Co. lifestyle brand that is behind it. Troll Co. was founded by a couple of oil refinery workers from Alberta who commented that they looked like a couple of trolls after finishing their dirty job. They have built the brand around blue-collar pride and mottos like “dirty hands, clean money,” They also support veteran causes, so good for them.
The Five Nine in the name is meant to suggest that this whiskey is for people who don’t work 9-to-5 jobs. (Or perhaps who are on the shorter side.) Thus, the “tools down” description. This is all to say that a lot of marketing work went into this product that has recently become available in Tennessee at an MSRP of $45.
The high rye content whiskey is manufactured by Green River Distilling Co. in Owensboro, Ky., an old brand that has been revived and has the reputation for putting out some good young whiskey. I’d say that’s what this is. Good, but not great, and young.
At 90 proof, this fits right in the cocktail ingredient zone, and that’s where I think it would shine, although I only had a small amount to sample. The 21 percent rye content in the mash bill added a good bit of spice, cherry and chocolate, and there was a nice brown sugar element to the sip. As part of an Old Fashioned or a bourbon Manhattan, I think this could be more of a standout than it is as a sipper. Heck, if whiskey and Coke is your thing, Five Nine damned near tastes like Coca-Cola on its own, so you’re halfway there. Of course, you could buy two handles of the excellent whiskey-and-Coke stalwart Evan Williams for the price of a 750 of Five Nine. You make the call.
The second whiskey that I’ve sampled recently is another offering from Barrell Craft Spirits, the Louisville-based company that has won much acclaim for its selection and blending of barrels from around the country. Their latest release is Barrell Bourbon Batch 34, and it’s another real winner from the team. It was created by blending a collection of barrels from Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee that ranged in age from 6 to 15 years. Of course, they didn’t just dump them all in one vat and call it a day. Barrel Spirits is known for their very intentional processes, and this complicated product is no exception.
First, they mingled 6-, 8-, 10- and 15-year-old bourbons together to create a base spirit. After a few months of allowing the high corn blend to draw out buttery notes, they added a little spice to the party by introducing high rye bourbon to the mix. Finally, older whiskeys were added to the vats toward the end of the process to contribute tannins and complexity without overpowering the younger, fruitier whiskeys with oak.
The result is a lovely, complex whiskey, bottled at cask strength of 114.62 proof. You’d never realize how high the alcohol level is, because the initial palate attack and long finish are both so smooth. Almost port-like in color, Batch 34 is quite floral on the nose. The first sip is all baking spices and orange blossoms. Quite lovely actually. Further sips reveal the more mature components of the blend with a long finish that offers a hint of the woody tannins, but not unpleasantly so. With a splash or after slight dilution from an ice cube, the flavors open up even more to uncover some loamy forest floor elements.
This is a pretty remarkable whiskey, and priced appropriately at $90 a bottle in my humble opinion. Now, this is a bottle I’d stand in line for!
