I made it out to Forty Creek last week and picked up a couple of bottles of this year's limited release, Three Grain Harmony. Tried a couple of previous limited releases, Double Barrel and Confederation Oak (which were pretty well reviewed) and thought they were OK, but this one I *really* like.
All of the limited releases seem to be "unusual in different directions", ie not necessarily mainstream. Three Grain Harmony had mixed reviews, mostly criticized for being unbalanced due to a slug of young corn whisky mixed in with the older rye & barley whiskeys, but to me the "unbalance" was fantastic. It gets a real kick from the corn whiskey, which I don't normally like, but there's enough "rich and smooth" behind it that the result is a strong, delicious taste. Maybe the first thing I've tasted in ~20 years that has the same impact as the first time I tasted really good cognac (after which VSOP always tasted watery).
Anyways, new favorite whiskey, at least while it lasts.
I used to really like Wisers Deluxe back when it had a 10 year label and was pretty spicy. At some point they reformulated it and dropped the 10 year label - I can live with losing the 10-year but seems that they took out some of the younger rye whiskey as well because the new blend is "smooth" in a not good way except that everyone buys "smooth" I guess.
Go-to replacements these days are Forty Creek Barrel Select and Canadian Club 100% Rye... neither is "just right" but they're wrong in different directions so guess I should try blending them next time.
From michael_d's list I much preferred Lot 40 over Pike Creek, probably because it had more of a rye taste that I really enjoy. From Forty Creek I found I generally preferred Barrel Select over Copper Pot Reserve (surprise) because the Copper Pot seemed to sometimes have too much corn whiskey taste. Yeah I know that's hard to reconcile with (a) really liking Three Grain Harmony and (b) liking Jim Beam, but Jim Beam seems like a "lighter" kind of sweet and neither of them have the moonshine-y taste that sometimes popped up in bottles of Copper Pot Reserve.
That said, recently I haven't detected the moonshine taste in Copper Pot Reserve so these days I'm preferring it over Barrel Select. Never sure if the blending varies between batches or my taste buds are changing randomly.
Last edited by bridgman; 10/27/15 11:41 PM.
