Leopold Bros. American Small Batch Whiskey
Opened: April 17, 2012
86 proof (43% ABV)
Price: $44.99
Pot Distilled From Open Fermented Sour Mash
Producer-distiller: Leopold Bros.
Tasting Date: May 7, 2012
Color in glencairn glass: Faded yellow with a rose glow.
Nose: Moist, spongy, metallic with mellow sweet powdered sugar. Grapes, strawberries, green apples, waxy vanilla varnish. Fruit cocktail. There is a definite rounded, plush character on the nose.
Taste: Light brown sugar entry achieves depth with green apple skin and strawberry cream. The palate centers around a soft, serene bed of vanilla flowers with unassertive grape and apple tones, and a wash of that diluted strawberry kick. Mild, bitter pepper sprinkles along the outskirts and comes to the fore on a finish that brings to mind rosé wine and pink rose essence, and leaves little to no burn.
My biggest joy from this whiskey is the texture: it is plush and clean like satin sheets; comforting, pleasant and cooling. There is a grounding, fruit-based bitterness throughout the sip, but the overall theme with this distillate is balanced apple flesh. Drink it instead of wine with dinner. This is a friendly, charming whiskey that grew on me as I got to know the mood it encourages.
Value: $60/$45
I really grew enamored of this whiskey over the course of the bottle I drank through. Though it is not specifically labeled as a bourbon, it does qualify for bourbon status, with a mashbill of roughly 65% corn, 15% rye and 20% malted barley. They age it in new American oak, and unlike many new micro-distilleries these days, Leopold Bros. ages their whiskey in full-size 53 gallon barrels, just like the big boys.
Unlike most of the big boys, this is a whiskey that has been aged for less that two years, thus it is not a straight bourbon. This young whiskey is kind of like a cross between a white dog, which is what whiskey is called right off the still before being barreled for aging, and a straight whiskey, which requires two years of age in American oak. So much of a straight bourbon or straight rye’s character comes from the influence of the barrel. Indeed, time spent aging will mellow any white dog, overwhelm some subtleties with oak influence and cover up imperfections with the chemical processes that take place when whiskey meets wood. This American Small Batch Whiskey (ASBW) has interacted only minimally with wood, and thus time has not had the luxury to sand down the sharp edges or sweeten the bitter leftovers of modern distillation. Yet, the whiskey shows itself as having a plush, creamy mouthfeel and no off-flavors.
Leopold Bros. likes to declare that the techniques they employ come from American whiskey-making traditions that predate prohibition. Instead of leveraging new technology and taking advantage of industry shortcuts that have been developed in the post-prohibition world, Leopold Bros. goes through more traditional paces, and in this product we find the ‘eau’ of their efforts. My bottle came from barrel #45; each bottle is individually numbered as it is filled directly from the barrel. It’s unfair to directly compare Leopold’s ASBW to a small batch bourbon that has been aged for 12 years like the EC12; this is a different category of whiskey. I’ll concede that though there’s a case to be made for not directly comparing the whiskeys, your $45 does not change.
Still, despite its age, I find that the quality achieved here surpasses the price tag. There’s no doubting that my enjoyment of this whiskey has been enhanced by becoming privy to some of the distillers’ process. My intellectual understanding of what I drink can’t help but figure into my experience of it. It’s an aspect that may be a bit more nebulous than the nose, palate and finish, but just as the physical sensations stimulate my imagination, so does the intellectual knowledge. Perhaps I am over-romanticizing, but it’s great to know how a product born of old-time practices tastes, and while I enjoy many, many whiskeys from distilleries that use more industrial methods, it’s important to me to keep some bottles around that do not follow suit.
I can’t wait to taste what a few more years of barrel-aging will do to this stuff!
Whiskey Wonka 
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Blog Update: New Whiskey Category « Whiskey Wonka said this on May 14, 2012 at 5:46 pm |
I know exactly what you mean when it comes to the intellectual side of whiskey influencing your palate on a subconscious level. I had the same experience with the High West line of whiskeys. I just loved their style so much, I think it made me overlook some of the glaring oddities in flavor for me. But I think its ok to dwell in that sort of ignorance. As long as it leads to enjoyment, who cares where it comes from eh? Anyway, great write up! I’ll need to poke around and see if I can find a bottle, you’ve certainly got me intrigued!
Slainte,
Chuck
http://www.whiskeyworldtour.com
Thanks for the comment, Chuck! For the most part, I would agree that it’s ok to dwell in ignorance when it leads to enjoyment. A caveat I would offer is that I do not appreciate it when a company tries to intentionally mislead me into making assumptions about a product that cast it in an untrue light. The pleasure I may derive from a marketing strategy that manipulates me by suggesting false truths acts to skew reality and makes an honest evaluation impossible.
That is why I thirst for the details behind a whiskey I drink. I like being an educated consumer because it allows me to compare products on an even playing field.
That’s interesting about High West. I’m a big fan of a number of their products, and part of what really makes me appreciate them is the company’s forthright manner in discussing the histories of their sourced whiskeys.
Well, I dont mean to say that High West gives misinformation about their whiskeys. The point I was trying to make is that they market themselves as a “western” or “cowboy” whiskey company, and being a native Californian, and having an avid respect for the old west culture, it was that which originally drew me to the whiskey, despite the fact that, at the time, I was completely unfamiliar and not quite fond of other Rye whiskeys.