The Best Of New Spirits In The Market

Forbes | John Mariani | June 24, 2022

[Excerpt]

Liquor used to be so easy to buy when there wasn’t all that much to choose from. In my father’s liquor cabinet there was a bottle each of Dewar’s and Cutty Sark Scotch, Gilbey’s gin, Bacardi rum, Canadian Club rye and maybe Smirnoff vodka. Options were more than sufficient at the liquor store but he, like most people in those days, found a favorite label and stuck to it.

This was before distillers discovered they could make single malts, barrel strength, uncut, reserves, vintage and legions of whiskies aged in various wooden barrels and before vodkas (defined by the U.S. Standards of Identity as a neutral, odorless, colorless, tasteless spirit) were being filtered over diamonds or made in the Czar’s own kettle from water that came from 10,000 feet underground.

What used to be an easy choice has become a bewildering one, and marketing and advertising have a great deal to do with it. The spirits industry caught on to the way wines marketed their labels—including dazzling new graphics—and the media joined right in. Recently I read a report on a new rum described as smelling and tasting like "Bananas Foster. Over-baked almond shortbread. Chicle. New Suede." Little of which I want to taste when I drink rum.

Nevertheless it is my job, and pleasure, to sample the new spirits in the market and, aside from those that are obviously made to a flavor profile for a niche audience, I am truly impressed by the “iterations” available. That said, here are some of those I’ve been impressed with for various reasons, none of them owing to New Suede, so I shall refrain from struggling to come up with some specious silliness as to what they taste like beyond descriptions of what makes them distinctive.

…

Old Elk Double Wheat Straight Whiskey out of Fort Collins, Colorado, is a combination of two of their other products: Old Elk Straight Wheat Whiskey ($70) and Old Elk Wheat Bourbon ($55), which yields a higher proof (107.1), emphasizing its fruity character after aging for six to eight years, with a mashbill of 71.5% Wheat, 25% Corn, and 3.5%, released at 53.55%.

Read the full article at forbes.com