It’s almost inevitable that on your bourbon journey you will go through the “squirrel hoarding nuts” phase of bourbon. Now by that, I don’t mean that you are going to scurry rapidly after all the nut forward bourbon recipes like those from Beam or Dickel, but rather, you will enter that phase where you must have “one of everything” in your collection. Why does it happen, and why does it generally happen so soon into the bourbon journey for most?

Well, I think a lot of it depends on the reason many people get into bourbon in the first place - it certainly did factor into why it happened to me. Many of us get into bourbon because it represents excellent value compared to most other types of whiskey. Certainly back when I got into bourbon in a serious way, you could still find your Pappy and BTAC on the shelf and if you were keen, you would almost certainly be able to amass the full collection each year. It wasn’t because they weren’t good whiskies - it was simply because bourbon was an overlooked category of whiskey synonymous with “coke” and a brawl outside the bar at the end of the night. People weren’t looking for high-end bourbon and they certainly weren’t willing to pay what was then the princely sum of almost £100 for a bottle of it. This meant that those of us who knew how different high-quality bourbon was could pick it up for next to nothing. It wasn’t that long ago that you could buy Elijah Craig 12yo at M&S for £23 a bottle. It was (and still is) an accessible and affordable way to get into drinking some excellent distilled beverages.

However, with the boom in bourbon over the last few years, it meant that there was ever-increasing competition for bottles and this desire for bourbon meant that more and more producers were entering into the market launching new products every day. We all know that not everything makes it to the UK, but certainly, over the last few years, more new products have been hitting the shelves through the various importers. At the same time, the huge increase in premium bourbon buyers in the UK means that many new releases get snapped up almost instantly. This isn’t always because they are actually any good or highly sought after, it's sometimes simply because the importer is testing the market and only brings a small number of bottles in on the first run.

The problem this creates for the new bourbon aficionado is that it can be very hard to tell the difference between legitimately good new products and those that are just another release of that same sourced or contract distilled stuff as the last “new” label that came out - particularly when the copy on the main whiskey sellers online might just be a “cut and paste” of the marketing from the brand - meaning you don’t often learn all that much from the retailers’ websites. However, new bourbon drinkers can at least be grateful that the practices of 5 or 6 years ago where the stories behind most new brands - including some we know and love today - were to use a technical term “complete bullshit”. At least today there is much more transparency on the labels around things like sourcing.... but it's certainly not universal and there are still a lot of misleading websites and labels...which apparently is passed off as “marketing”.

However it's the combination of an ever-increasing number of premium bourbon drinkers, a limited supply and a lack of good information on new bottles, that leads to what the kids call

“FOMO” or fear of missing out for us older people. Believe me, it's a very real thing that can often cause buying decisions that aren’t based in logic or level-headedness. I certainly succumbed to it early in my whiskey career. It basically occurs when a new release appears on the websites and you saw the number of people “looking” at the website and you remember how quickly the last release became “sold out” and you don’t want to miss out on what could be (and certainly as marketed like) it's the “next Pappy”. So you add it to your basket and you buy it because you are sure you will get around to drinking it one day...and if not...at least you got in on the ground floor of “the next big thing”.

Except, you didn’t - you just bought another bottle from another new producer that may or may not have been sourced and probably cost you two to three times as much as a well-aged bottle from Buffalo Trace or Four Roses. The reality is that most shiny new things stay shiny until the next new thing comes along and in the bourbon world, that’s about two to three weeks. Just take a look at the bourbon release calendar on Breaking Bourbon - every year there is literally a huge number of new releases of both regular and limited edition products. You simply cannot buy them all and if you don’t buy one...so what? What did you actually miss out on? The reality is within a few weeks, a few months, or the worst case, a year, the next new release will be out.

So my advice, and believe me it comes after spending a lot of money on shiny new whiskies because of FOMO, is to stop buying new things and just to buy good things. If you really have to buy that new thing, if you just can’t face the thought of missing out, consider going in with two or three people into a bottle split rather than buying the whole bottle. The reality is that most of the time, that shiny new bottle you brought won’t bring you as much drinking satisfaction as the bottles you know and love. It may well bring you cache on BBS when you are the first to post the picture of the bottle and some tasting notes or the secret pleasure of having it “in the bunker” (for those that buy but don’t open). But stop and think for a second how many of these bottles are in your bunker or open on your shelf that are not getting drunk at the same rate as the bottles you actually buy multiples of?

So what do I do now? Well, whenever I see a new bottle posted on a website (or indeed BBS), the first thing I do is start googling - I want to learn about the bottle and more importantly the liquid inside. Is it distilled by the producer or is it sourced or contract distilled? If the latter, is it from a producer that I actually enjoy and is it priced in accordance with other products sourced from the same place. If it's distilled by the producer, how old is it? How was it aged? Did they use small barrels to “speed up” the oak-flavour? All of these things are worth looking into and it’s only once I am satisfied that I would actually enjoy drinking the whiskey that the “FOMO” will kick in.

Looking at this another way, I have stopped getting “FOMO” because:

•  I don’t have FOMO for whiskies that I know I wouldn’t enjoy drinking - I do my research before hitting “buy” and decide whether I actually think this might be a whiskey that I would enjoy based on an understanding of my own preferences;

•  there will always be another shiny new whiskey released that will be just as good (if not better) than the whiskey that was just released; and

• if you have more than one or two bottles in reserve that you actually want to drink, the chances of you needing and getting through that shiny new bottle before the next shiny new thing comes out is pretty low and this means you will have an ever-increasing bunker of whiskies that you may, or may not, actually want to drink.

So my advice is: don’t pull the trigger just because there is a new bottle of bourbon released - do your research and work out if it's right for you and spend your money wisely; and don’t worry about FOMO, buy good whiskey that you will enjoy drinking because you know you enjoy it - not because you want to have it or to show it off on BBS.

Words by Mark Latimour

Is this Whiskey getting better...?

By Alex Gillham

A topic much debated amongst Whiskey forums is the apparent aroma and taste changes that occur the longer a particular bottle has been open. Many stating that bottles tend to “open up” up to a point, and then oxidise or “flatten” out but no real explanation has ever been provided. Could it be that our palates become familiar with a particular whiskey, desensitised almost so that going back to it time after time reveals small nuances we’d not noticed previously? Or are there chemical changes occurring which are altering the profile? As a Bourbon lover with an Analytical Chemistry background, this is something I’ve long wanted to investigate on a molecular level, to see if any Chemistry is happening within the bottle that can account for the perceived changes over time.

Given all the comments on the British Bourbon Society Group page, the BBS Whistlepig 10-year-old Rye private barrel pick was a prime example of a Whiskey that seemed to open up and improve the longer the bottle was open. It was also the first Whiskey I was lucky enough to own 2 identical bottles of so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dabble in a little science…

My mission was 2-fold; determine by blind tasting panel whether the contents of the two bottles had a noticeable difference. Secondly, using analytical methods, compare the aroma profiles of the two bottles to see if any differences can be detected.

I first had to make sure the first bottle had been open long enough, and was empty enough, for any differences to become noticeable. Drinking the Whiskey was hardly a chore, it’s a great pick and I’ve always been a fan of Whistlepig. The hardest part was drinking it slowly enough and ensuring there would be enough left to fulfil the panel sampling requirements. I waited until the bottle had been open for 6 months, a predicted sweet-spot where any anticipated “opening up” should have become apparent. The storage of the open and unopened bottles was identical; they sat next to each other on my living room shelf.

The experiment I devised would form 2 parts;

i)               Blind olfactive assessments by an expert panel consisting of 6 BBS members.

ii)              Analytical comparison of the aroma profiles the two bottles.

To ascertain if there was indeed a consumer-noticeable difference between a fresh bottle and one that had been open for 6 months, a blind panel would be presented with three 15mL samples in a triangle test format; two samples from one bottle and one from the other labelled A, B and C. All sample sets were configured randomly. It should be noted that the open bottle was approximately half full when the samples were taken and the samples taken from the fresh bottle were immediately after it the seal was broken.

An expert panel consisting of 6 (including myself) experienced Bourbon drinkers was selected to carry out the assessments. The panel were asked to assess each of the three samples and select which they believed to be the odd one out. They were also asked to provide any tasting notes and comment on the differences they perceived. No other information was provided to the panelists at this time. None of them had a clue what I was up to but I was providing them with some [pretty good] free Whiskey so all were compliant and willing to participate. My blind tasting set was administered by my wife.

Results:

1.     Dave: Did not select the odd one out

2.     Nev: Correctly identified the odd one out. Tasting notes stating that the older bottle had more kick and zing to it whereas the fresh bottle was duller tasting.

3.     Chris C: Did not select the odd one out

4.     Tommy: Did not select the odd one out

5.     Clayton: Correctly identified the odd one out. Chris preferred the open bottle and found it spicier, sweeter and “excellent”. The fresh bottle was “dull and lacked depth and punch”.

6.     Me: Did not select the odd one out

Analytical Methodology: (Slightly boring bit)

I adopted an analytical technique called Headspace (HS) Solid Phase Microextraction (SPME) for this analysis. It’s a technique commonly used to profile volatile organic compounds in many different matrices across many industries. For this analysis a 1cm SPME fiber coated with a mixture of phases (in this case PDMS/Carboxen/DVB) was selected for its broad selectivity. A 50mg aliquot of each sample was weighed into a septum-capped headspace vial. The fiber is exposed to the headspace of a sample for 10 minutes after an initial sample equilibration period of 10 minutes at 70˚C. The volatile compounds from the sample headspace are adsorbed onto the fiber phase and then are thermally desorbed into the inlet of a Gas Chromatograph (GC) in pulsed splitless mode for 2 minutes. The inlet is set to 250˚C which ensures all compounds are transferred from the fiber to the GC inlet. The pulsed splitless injection ensures all volatile materials are focussed onto the column providing good peak shape. Within the GC is a 30m analytical column which separates the mixture into individual compounds (the chromatography bit) which are then detected by the Mass Spectrometer (MS). Blanks were run before each sample to eliminate any carry-over.

Analytical Results:

The chromatogram below shows the old and the new whiskey profiles overlaid. The black trace being the “open for 6 months” bottle and the blue trace being the freshly opened bottle:

As you can see from the above chromatogram, the two overlaid chromatograms appear identical, like the same sample had been run twice. Even when zoomed right in on the low-level components; little difference can be observed between the two profiles showing that they are compositionally identical and no reactions/degradation had occurred to any of the aroma compounds detected.

Ethanol aside, a total of 36 aroma compounds were detected in the Whiskey, which is more than I was expecting! The table below details those compounds and lists their relative percentage abundance. The analytical method used does not detect water and so the Ethanol level appears higher than the actual proof of the Whiskey- before anyone gets excited about it being an 85.5% hazmat! Also, the % abundance of the other aroma compounds will appear exaggerated but I’ve quoted to provide some idea of the proportions of the compounds present. What we’re really looking for in this study is differences between the two samples.

Many of the compounds identified were Esters, a group of compounds used widely in the flavour industry but also naturally occurring in wines and spirits. Iso Amyl Acetate, for example, gives the characteristic banana flavour to foamy banana sweets. It’s most likely accountable for the “banana bread” notes associated with such whiskies as the 1792 Full Proof or Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye. Other compounds detected that have aromas more characteristic of American Whiskey are Vanillin and 4-Ethyl Guaiacol which provide the sweet vanilla and smokey/char notes so prominent in American Whiskey.

There are other more sophisticated analytical techniques for Whiskey profiling capable of providing a more comprehensive analysis but HS-SPME-GCMS seemed to work quite well in this project and detected a good array of compounds.

To demonstrate that the analytical method was sensitive enough to pick out differences between Whiskies I analysed a Jim Beam Double Oaked Bourbon sample that I happened to have at work from a previous project using the exact same method. The chromatograms below are as follows (Black: Whistlepig, Blue: JB DO).

Clear differences can be seen between the two Whiskey profiles. Phenyl Ethyl Alcohol (sweet floral honey-like aroma) and Vanillin (the main constituent responsible for the aroma of vanilla pods) were seen to be higher in the Jim Beam Double Oaked Bourbon than in the Whistlepig Rye. Most of the other aroma compounds detected were more abundant in the Whistlepig. 

Conclusions:

Having only two of the six panelists correctly select the odd one out in a triangle test would usually be considered statistically inconclusive as you’d expect one in three to guess it correctly. That’s what makes the comments so valuable. Both panelists that correctly selected the odd one out stated that the freshly opened bottle was “duller” and the 6 months open bottle had more “zing and punch”. Both sets of comments completely support the “opening up with time” theory.

As for the 4 panelists that failed to detect any difference between a freshly opened bottle and one that was allowed time to “open up”; I suspect this effect isn’t as noticeable to some consumers as others.

The analysis showed zero difference in chemical composition between the two bottles which tells us that there is no chemistry occurring in the bottle - not within the first 6 months anyway. So the perceived opening up must be due to something else. I’m pleased I’ve investigated the aroma profile differences between two identical Whiskies but would still like to understand this “opening up” effect.

I can hypothesise that when a Whiskey bottle is corked, equilibrium exists between the Whiskey and the enclosed air (headspace) above it. When the bottle is fuller, very little headspace exists and so the majority of the volatile materials will stay in the liquid. The more of the bottle you drink, the larger the headspace volume in the bottle becomes and every time the bottle is opened those aroma compounds that build up in the headspace are released. In theory, this would mean your Whiskey would be getting less flavoursome the longer it was open, right? The most volatile and most abundant component in the whiskey is Ethanol. In the case of the BBS Whistlepig; 57.8% of the whole bottle is in fact Ethanol, closely followed by water. Therefore, surely it will be Ethanol that will move into the headspace first and saturate it, as it’s more volatile and more abundant than the aroma compounds. If we lost some Ethanol from the Whiskey every time you opened the bottle, you effectively increase the concentration of the other aroma compounds, or allow them to come to the fore. Perhaps this is what is behind the “opening up” phenomenon?..

Maybe comparing Ethanol levels can be my next experiment…

Acknowledgements:

Special thanks to the expert panel (Chris Neville, Dave Hoolickin, Tommy Gan, Chris Coleman and Chris Clayton) and to my employer who has allowed me the freedom to be creative in the Labs. Thanks also to Bobby and Aaron, who nearly made the expert panel but drank the samples before they got them home!

Thanks for reading.

Alex Gillham

BBS Member since August ‘17