Penny for Your Thoughts - Boundary Stone
The picture admittedly isn't from Boundary Stone, but I needed to find someplace for it! It's a shot of some incredible Ardbeg-based cocktails that we had at a recent Ardbeg Committee tasting event in Miami. Getting back to our weekend in DC, here are some thoughts on the whiskies we tried at Boundary Stone.
Four Roses Yellow Label (40% ABV) - Four Roses' main line has three expressions, and, unsurprisingly, the quality marches side by side with the price. Four Roses Small Batch is a good value for its $30 price tag, although not my favorite in that range, and Four Roses Single Barrel is close to the best at $40-45. Four Roses Yellow Label, however, is those bourbons' sub-$20, meant for mixed drinks little brother. The youth of this bourbon shines through in more raw grain notes and more rye taste, without a corresponding balance with the deeper, richer, dense fruit or caramel and syrup flavors that come to dominate the more expensive, better-aged Four Roses. I drank this neat just to try it, but wouldn't have it again. Its rye-heavy and relatively less sweet profile may be well-suited to cocktails where it's blended with sweeter ingredients, such as an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan (which is meant to have rye anyways). C+
Joseph Magnus (45%) - For those who like sweet, complex, dessert-style bourbons, Joseph Magnus is a strong contender. For those who want a craft distillery pedigree with an interesting story behind it (the family that owns it traces it lineage to a pre-Prohibition era distiller, for whom they named the brand), Joseph Magnus is a strong contender. For those who want a critically well-reviewed bourbon, Joseph Magnus, which has won a bevy of gold medals at San Francisco's high-end Spirits Competition, is a strong contender. Now, for those who want an affordable bourbon . . . not so much. This is a $80-100 bourbon, which means this DC-based label places itself among the limited releases and double-digit aged expressions from the best Kentucky distilleries. Moreover, it asks such high prices despite not distilling its own product -- this, like Belle Meade and many other brands, is actually sourced MGP bourbon from Indiana, albeit finished in a variety of casks (sherry, port, and cognac) in their DC warehouse. Perhaps one day they'll have aged their own distillate enough to transition fully to their own product but, right now, the ask is $100 for a bottle of finished MGP. To its tremendous credit, it's worth it, and I thought long and harda bout ordering a bottle after getting home. This is a rich, tasty bourbon, with vivid syrup and fruit notes: vanilla, strawberry, and some smoke from the barrel char, which hints at chocolate and coffee. Coincidentally, my friends and I stumbled upon this distillery while we lived in DC, and it also has a great tasting room and an incorporated cocktail bar inside the warehouse space itself, where one can see barrel upon barrel of this bourbon still aging. A-
Glenrothes '95 (43%) - This is one of those expressions that revises one's impression of an entire distillery. Previously, I knew Glenrothes as a relatively unremarkable Speyside maker that puts out a lot of no-age-statement expressions in funny-shaped bottles that resemble Blanton's. Now, I know them as the makers of Glenrothes '95. The combined effect of the oak and sherry aging here produces the scent and taste of a malted chocolate milkshake, with a pleasing mouthcoat and a moderately long finish. As expected with a Speysider, there are some dark fruit flavors at times, although this whisky would never be mistaken for the rich, dates-and-figs flavor of Glendronach or other heavily sherried whiskies, like the better Macallan expressions. Nor does this appear to be the distillery's aim, as the idea seems to be to produce a sweet, rich, balanced expression. In this, they succeed spectacularly. Interestingly enough, despite the huge DC premium on drinks, this 20-year old Speyside scotch was going for a (relatively) affordable $9 an ounce at Boundary Stone. Keep in mind, it's all relative, as the bar charged the same price for Ardbeg 10, Laphroaig 10, and Talisker Storm -- each around $50-60 in liquor stores. Glenrothes '95 is a $100+ bottle of scotch, so I had to give it a go. I'm glad I did! A-