The Tamworth Apple Brandy’s nose starts off with toasted oak, cedar, cinnamon and some discernible fruit. The palate fares better with light fruit, elegant body and a long and lingering finish. But there’s nothing about it that screams apple brandy. Am I wrong to want that?
This is neither a showy whiskey with cask-finished flavor vectors nor a particularly powerful pour. It’s an honest, approachable, full-bodied bourbon that makes old school drinkers say, “Now that’s bourbon!” It’s the kind of whiskey Booker Noe liked and wanted to share with others.
What made this brand believe that this liquid was special at all, much less so great that anyone slapped $2,300 price tag on it? Age and rarity? Both only go so far because often, overaged sprits become “rare: when someone figures out they should never go into a bottle on their own.
Once the liquid eased below the shoulders of that glass Old Grand Dad-style bottle, it did come round and begin waking up. Dark stone fruits appeared on the nose, along with white pepper, cigar leaf, oak and flamed citrus.
The nose is clean and a little sharp thanks to that sturdy proof that presents as white pepper, but it moves quickly to sweetened cereal grain (think Frosted Flakes before they’re drowned in milk), raisin, cinnamon, toasted oak and bitter chocolate.
I knew that I couldn’t do an entire show just about bourbon. I mean, maybe I could in Kentucky and Tennessee and maybe Atlanta, or North Carolina. (Then) I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to do it for myself and for those people that are interested in this topic.”
Surely no one came to bourbon musing there would someday be drinkers like them; lovers of bourbon who want to see it made, meet the people who make it and then drink it with friends new and old. But that, in a nutshell, describes Bourbon Banter’s third-annual Summit.
Lest you think Cain is some radical spirits maker, know that his grain choices and fermentation techniques are rooted firmly in family traditions. For more than a century, his family has used its own heirloom varietal born of Canadian rye “that’s similar to a brasado rye.
This bourbon is a study in patience. Knowing the founders of this brand, they didn’t expect this whiskey–the first barrels they ever bought before moving to distill at Castle & Key distillery–would turn out as well as it has…
Saying it’s not a complex bourbon is not a sleight, rather it’s a nod to whiskies that present as lean, lithe and elegant–which is no small feat for liquid resting 10 years in oak. In a world of double-oaked wood and tannin bombs, this measured approach is much appreciated.
