by Jay Erisman, EQ Wine & Spirits Manager

The great Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky, changed their name in 1999 from the George T. Stagg Distillery to Buffalo Trace. But in fact, for much of the 20th century they were popularly called the Ancient Age Distillery, due to their flagship brand. Ancient Age Bourbon is one of those old-school Bourbons that your grandfather drank, but it has always been excellent whiskey. The top of the line is Ancient Ancient Age, or “Triple-A” for short. It’s bottled at 10 years and 86 proof, and is not sold outside Kentucky. It’s long been a favorite of mine and many Bourbon lovers–writer Jim Murray is one noted adherent–but now there is possibly the best triple-A yet, available only at The Party Source. That would be our latest Private Barrel, the first ever Ancient Ancient Age single barrel bottling.

The regular Triple-A 10 year is terrific Bourbon, a perfect example of the old-school in top shelf Bourbon: extra aged but still inexpensive, gold screw cap on an antique bottle, the kind of thing you’d give someone as a textbook, dictionary definition of Bourbon whiskey. The whiskey shows an overall balance of corn sweet, rye spice, and oak dryness in a medium body. It can’t quite decide whether to be sweet or dry, and settles for dry in the finish.

Our Party Source Private Barrel has turned out rather well. From the first sniff the whiskey is more complex than the standard issue Triple-A, with vanilla nougat and toffee tones augmenting the sweetness, black peppercorn and sassafras in the spice, and more dry, grainy detail to the oak–an open, accessible aroma with a well-controlled 43% alcohol. In the mouth, the TPS single barrel is a lot fatter and richer and fuller, “wayyy more viscous in the mouth” as one of our staffers put it. The entire palate is simply broader and longer, from a velvety entry into an extended spiced (spearmint?) mid-palate that turns seamlessly to a spicy, lip-smacking finish. It is ever so slightly sweeter than the regular AAA, but it finishes with the same dryness. A splash of water mellows it even further, and gives slight emphasis to the sweetness.

Taken together, the two bottlings (AAA regular and AAA Party Source) are a perfect demonstration of the value of a single barrel bottling. Selecting, as we do, one choice, mouthwatering honeydripper from a group of barrels that would otherwise be bottled together offers the chance to find the ringer, that sole, superb oaken vessel which has conspired with time and fate and the hand of the maker to mature a truly superior Bourbon. Here’s the cool part: with a bottle of each of these in hand, you can experience the difference between a standard, excellent Bourbon brand and the single barrel full custom expression of the same–and all of that for a just bit more than thirty bucks.

Which also highlights the extraordinary value presented by our native American whiskey: there’s a world of terrific Bourbons priced well under $25, even under $16 a bottle. With Triple-A in the house, you’ll laugh all the way to the four-dollar-a-gallon gas station.

Ancient Ancient Age Ten Year Old Bourbon The Party Source Private Barrel 43% abv $15.49 750 ml

Tags: ancient age, barrel, bourbon, buffalo trace, kentucky, spirits, whiskey

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 1:42 pm and is filed under EQ, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.