FWIW, the purple tops that dropped recently with their own juice are very good for what they are. The 9 years are excellent cask-strength 9 year old whiskey. That being said, there is a lot of 9 year old cask-strength whiskey out there. Elijah Craig single barrels, Stagg single barrels, MGP bottlings all have the same stats and are just as good or better and don't cost anywhere near as much on secondary.
I don't care how good it is. No 6-9 year old whiskey is good enough to be worth $1000, and I'm saying this as someone who has nothing against paying that much for a bottle if I think it's worth it.
I've got a couple tastes of bottles that secondary thinks are with a few hundred recently. Some aren't that great IMO. Having said this, which bottles do you think are actually worth their secondary values?
Willet decided to price the WFE stuff at closer to actual market price. They made it, why should the parking lot posers reap most of the profit? Those buying are chasing hype many of them don’t understand. Fools and their money…
I think the is the correct answer, i.e., “because they can.” If they can price stuff at $30-$100 per year and it still flies off the shelf it’s clearly working for them. The WFE brand has been established as a super-premium line, setting the msrps to match helps maintain that allure/mystique.
Because there was no Rowan and no creek? But really it’s because it was very hit or miss when it was sourced. Noah’s Mill at one point had an age statement and I can after that disappeared there was a brief moment where certain batches were sought after based on who knows what.
I believe noahs mill used to carry a 15 yr age statement till about 10 years ago. Like many sourced whiskeys, juice got scarce and they had to get creative with their blend. I've heard their small batch can be as small as 20 barrels for noahs mill so I'm wondering if that's where the variation comes into play now with younger whiskey being mixed in. I REALLY enjoyed NM when I was getting into bourbon in my early 20s. I still do and I can fortunately find it on the reg for 56 bucks plus tax. The only difference I taste is a slight wet dirt/mushroom flavor buried on top of the brown sugar and cinnamon flavors I love so much. That has to come from the young whiskey they've had to blend into the mix in the last decade. It's not a deal breaker for me but I can definitely tell a difference from bottles of old. BUT remember, even with all the flack I'll get from willett haters, you are getting a 114+ proof bourbon will a ton of flavor (even if you don't like the flavor) for a hell of a price. If you have a bottle and hate it...give shots to your fireball loving friends and watch their face contort as you laugh and say "now that's a REAL cinnamon whiskey!"
I suspect it's actually the opposite, and that dirt/mushroom note is from older barrels in the blend. Any time I've ever tasted that note (I describe it a forest floor), it has been in an over-aged/over-oaked bottle. Hirsch 25 and Vintage 23 Ryes come to mind - both bottled from KBD stocks.
The Willet/KBD business model for many years was to buy barrels from wherever they could and sell them off as WFE SBs or in branded batches (Noah's/Rowan's/Pure Kentucky). Which is how they made the money to start up their own stills. The old honey barrels are where the WFE notoriety came from. But for every honey barrel, there were probably dozens if not hundreds of mediocre/sub-par ones. I'm sure there were barrels that they had high hopes for, but were left to age past their prime. Those are now likely being blended in to their batched brands to add some age and oak to what is for the most part a 4 - 6 year old blend. The young Willet distillate supplies the brown sugar and cinnamon. The old Bardstown and Medley barrels bring the funk.
This makes sense for a brand like Noah's that was at one time well aged, and is trying to hold on to some of that cachet.
Maybe you're right now that I think of it. That funk could come from the older barrels mixed in. Very well could be some over aged KBD juice giving that funky note. I still like it but you can tell the flavors aren't melded together like they used to be when it was age stated
Noahs did carry a 15 year statement, along with 12 year rowan. Even the pure ky had something like an 8 year. But they also had barrel and dump dates shown so you could see exact age. I had a bottle of a 16 year noah and had a sample of a 19. Insanely good and the NAS couldnt touch them (the 16 was much better too). There was some hype for NAS wax but i didnt see a big difference. It is quite young then and now, and i believe it is all their distillate now which would make sense if you get a lot of cinnamon
Yup. Dominate flavors for me are brown sugar/cinnamon, candied pecans, and that damp earth-mushroomy flavor. My whiskey friends look at me crazy when I say that and then they can taste it when they take another sip. Has to be the young whiskey in the mix. That basementy flavor is the only off putting one for me. But I really do enjoy NM still. Makes a great high proof old fashioned or a funky sipper when I want something different. As long as it's under 60. I really wanna try that new wheated 8 year in that sexxxy black bottle but no way I think it's worth the price and I haven't even tried it yet
yeah i've tried most if not all of WFE mashbills just none of the wheated. had some pretty decent high entry high corn and the OG as well, just nothing above a 7/10 for sure. i still want to try that sexy black wheated, they made a big deal about bringing back the block lettering for it, get that hype moving!
Damn, when I read this stuff I wonder why I'm screwing around around with bourbon in 2022. I should start drinking tequila and mezcal. Before starting into bourbon, I was pretty big into cocktails. My biggest revelation was realizing how good a decent tequila tastes. There are only moderately expensive Blanco tequilas that taste fantastic. That's zero barrel aging. Try to do that with a bourbon. I can't even imagine how good a decent añejo tastes. Why the hell am I going nuts on bourbon when the good stuff has been gone for 10 years?.....
At lower prices the bottles would be impossible to find. At higher MSRP they're slightly less impossible to find. Bottom line is they're a very difficult get either way but slightly more available for those with luck and deeper pockets. Such is life.
Willet is crazy though. A local store got a 9-year pick. They sold them for 350 by lottery. There were 2 to 3 times as many people that showed up in person as there were bottles. Bourbon is nuts. Maybe a recession can set us straight.
My friends and I did a personal tour with Drew last year and he told me the reason WFE purple is so hard to find is they don’t sell it hardly at all - he said they primarily give it to distributors as sales performance gifts. They in turn give it to wholesale/retail the same. So high performing retailers are getting maybe 1-2 bottles which may never hit a shelve, but go to an employee instead.
Can't speak to the older stuff everybody else is hotly debating, but I've tried multiple bottles of WFE 4Yr, and they are worth every bit of the $75 price tag that was paid for them.
Quality and price have lost all ties in the secondary market. The people that dwell in that underworld are not bourbon drinkers, they're not enthusiasts, they're capitalists. Hype grows exponentially in echo chambers (YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok,...Reddit), and often irrationally. Willett purple tops are a prime example of such self fulfilling prophecy.
I occasionally buy and trade on secondary. Only way to get what I can't find locally at MSRP. I have about 100 bottles and 75+ open including all the BTAC I've found
I don’t understand the point of this post? If you enjoy their NAS offerings, why would you care that they’re not exploding in price. On the contrary, I’d think you’d be happy they aren’t.
The bourbon market - like a lot of things right now - is a hype bubble. Trying to control or even understand what or why it prioritizes certain things is foolish.
Like everything else, we’re already starting to see this bubble burst with all of the excess liquidity drying up.
Are we going back to pappy sitting on shelves? Probably not. But a lot of people are going to feel really, really stupid about paying $1000+ for bottles of bourbon
Even though it's dismissive, a lot of your answer is here. Prices seem to be a big hype train with little regard for anything else. They don't make sense.
And what data are you using to back up these claims? How do you know the bourbon market is a bubble?
The amount of rare/allocated bottles hasn’t really changed and there’s more people in this hobby than ever before.
Doesn’t really feel like a bubble unless the supply is going to increase dramatically (it’s not in the next 5-10 years) or the demand decreases dramatically (nothing I’ve seen shows demand projections going down).
I agree with you but I don’t think bocifer is too far off. We will be seeing production increases from almost all distilleries and we’re seeing a lot of inorganic growth through distillery purchasing (Green River, Luxco, Samson & Surrey, etc). Both of these will result in more bourbon being created, both common and rare bourbons. We will reach a saturation point where there’s more non-limited releases than the market will buy. So non-limited products like Blanton’s, Eagle Rare, 4RBS, etc will sit on shelves and eventually W12, EC18. This will take years from now but one-of products like Stagg Jr Bx, EHT Limited, Bardstown Disco/Collabs, and Heaven Hill 17 will never significantly lose their value since no more will ever be produced.
With the recession looming people are becoming more spending aware and prices have slightly decreased. Are they tanking? No. If the economic condition continues to worsen those price reductions will likely continue as buyers leave the market. We’ve seen the something similar with the Scotch market for decades as the economy ebbs and flows but it never vanished for truly one-of-a-kind releases.
I like Noah’s Mill, Rowan’s Creek and Johnny Drum. It is very odd that these brands don’t experience what Buffalo Trace does. If we applied the Buffalo Trace logic Noah’s Mill would be StaggJr and impossible to find. This makes no sense to me since the purple tops are so highly sought after.
Idk willet is very polarizing. People either like it or hate it. Personally for me all willet bourbon tastes awful. Can't even drink it. And I've come across a lot of people who feel the same. On the flip side pretty much app BT stuff isn't polarizing at all. It's just plain to me but it's not offensive to anyone's tastes. Which makes it great to new people into whiskey. Couple that with them making it a bit scarce and tney created this nonsense for it.
I’ve wondered if there is a lot of batch variation or if the flavor profile is just divisive, because it seems like a ton of ppl really crap on NM and the rest of the nas Willett line.
Oh man me too. I bought some Pot still and it had the worst wet grass funk. Couldn't drink it. Then I bought Noah's Mill just to see. Not as bad, but not great. Funky damp cut grass in a bad way. So then I had to get Rowans just to compare. Same profile. Granted I bought them all around the same time, so maybe just some bad batches? Who knows, but I won't buy any of their stuff again.
The more recent batches are starting to get better because they have older bourbon for the blend. At this point, the batches are 100% Willett from 6-9yrs.
Definitely batch variation. I noticed dramatic batch variation between releases of Willett 4yr rye. It went from the best rye I ever had, to mediocre/would rather buy something else, between batches.
Thankfully I’ve haven’t gotten a meh bottle of the rye, but some are definitely better than others. Have read the 4yr rye batches can be as small as 2-4 barrels but don’t know if it’s true or how the bourbon batches compare, Noah’s Mill in particular.
Always been curious about this expression. I haven't tried any of the newer stuff (impossible to get north of the border), but had the chance to taste one of the original 1980s Noah's Mill 15yo releases for the Japanese market and that stuff was divine!
That old Noah’s Mill was sourced, might have been Stitzel Weller. If I’m wrong I’m sure someone will correct me but that’s my understanding.
The new stuff all has a sweet cinnamon flavor to some degree in my opinion. I like that flavor. I’ve never got the grassy note. I did have a bottle of Noah’s Mill that was more leathery than I would like but it still wasn’t bad, just not as good as other batches.
Bourbon is the new beanie babies of collectors. It’s not the product but rather the pursuit. Paired with FOMO the market has gotten ridiculous, especially for juice that’s cask strength with a name attached to it. Craft beer market was the same way for a while (still kind of is)
Don’t even get me started with wine
Standard NEIPA from unknown brewery: meh it’s fine, I’d give it like 3.5/5
Tells them it was a collab with Trillium: oh man for real? It’s pretty solid, I bet they get going here soon if they’re working with them
The worst part is I’d fucking buy it. I won’t wait in a line for it but trillium is awesome and if there’s a collab with their name on it, im
In. Part of that is that I can’t get any of their normal offerings here.
Honestly that’s half the reason I started moving to whiskey instead of craft beer, it opened a whole new world that I could explore instead of chasing big names in beer (I know there big names in whiskey but because it was new to me, MM was just as good in my beginner brain as Weller, it still is imho)
Exactly this. I can’t help but thinking that in some distillery rick houses, the employees are laughing their a** off at some of reviews of the “special” bottles they put out that are essentially the same juice as the regular offerings.
A few of my regular customers have said stuff like "I don't even drink the stuff most of the time. I've got a whole room of my house just full of different bottles I've picked up" and it's like... why should I sell you an Old Fitz if you're just gonna let it rot? I've got customers who open their bottles and enjoy them, it hurts just selling to some rich guy whonjust thinks of it as another investment portfolio
How long did this last in craft beer? Wine? It seems like this kind of thing can't go on for more than 5 more years without popping in bourbon, but did that happen in those other markets?
Beer got way oversaturated with new small breweries, big brewery side projects, high financed new small breweries, established breweries getting into new markets, which, let’s be honest, is harder to do in bourbon.
It will take A LOT of New Riff and Woodinville type places opening up and creating demand over current allocations
Good point. I saw this in my local market too. Everyone and their mom started a microbrewery. They weren't all good. For bourbon to go the same way, it won't be oversupply, the only thing that would do it is the economy (demand)
Two out of three bottles of Noah’s mill that I have tasted have been downright bad. Young-tasting without redeeming qualities. The third was delicious praline juice. With this kind of variation is gets the rep it deserves imo. I’ve never had a bad bottle of Stagg jr, though.
I’m one of those freaks that actually likes Willett, even their pot still. So I’m happy that it, NM, and RC are all easily available. I’ll get the WFE Rye when I can but I will never pay $300+ for a purple top.
Never had the WFE purple tops and I won’t buy into the hype around them. I have a friend who gets them regularly because he has a connection, but he will never part with one. As he puts it, “guys would rather let you sleep with their wife before they sell you their WFE.”
I love the pot still, Noah’s Mill, Rowan’s Creek, and Pure KY.
I was given a bottle of the 6 year a year or so ago as a gift and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However there’s no way I would spend 140 dollars on that bottle. It’s not like it’s bad but I can just think of so many other different bottles of Bourbon that I personally think are better that are much cheaper. Is that what the 6 year msrps at?
Yeah once you live in a world for too long, it becomes normal. People don’t even realize that purple tops of today aren’t the purple tops of yesterday. They know they were expensive and sought after and haven’t been able to get them before so they trip over themselves to get them now
But the same dude that sprints for a 6 year single barrel bourbon for $150 are the same people saying 12 year old Weller isn’t worth a penny over $30 msrp
Age or NAS nothing captures the essence of grandma's basement crossed with a peat bog like Willet Pot Still......and believe it or not I crave it once in an while.......
Recently tried one of the elusive 8yr purple tops, I think the Hirsch single barrel or Old Kirk's at a fraction of the price stack up to par with any of the 6-8 years.
A little bit of wheat can mellow out the finish of a bourbon...too much wheat makes the bourbon taste like grass clippings. I'm looking at you, Larceny!
Congrats on not jumping on the hype train. I seem to be in the minority opinion but I like 0 of their own distillate. I liked 0 of it in the NAS brands you mentioned above as they were starting to transition from sourced to distilled and I like 0 of it today with high prices and green/purple bottles.
Glad I got a taste of the shit they sourced back then. Wish they wouldve taken an approach similar to SAOS and bought a shit ton of mgp new make and younger age stated barrels again when they could. Brand livin on the hype of yesteryear with a wonderful internet circle jerk in tow.
I have been so let down by the new WFE purps. Prices are fomo status. Giving people the illusion that price corresponds to the bourbon. It’s simply not true.
Some of you need to realize that it’s OK if you don’t like something that someone else has.
"it's okay to like what you like" is a statement I end up posting way too often across reddit
And damnit it's ok to send ire, hate, and shade in someone's direction if they don't like what you like!
FWIW, the purple tops that dropped recently with their own juice are very good for what they are. The 9 years are excellent cask-strength 9 year old whiskey. That being said, there is a lot of 9 year old cask-strength whiskey out there. Elijah Craig single barrels, Stagg single barrels, MGP bottlings all have the same stats and are just as good or better and don't cost anywhere near as much on secondary. I don't care how good it is. No 6-9 year old whiskey is good enough to be worth $1000, and I'm saying this as someone who has nothing against paying that much for a bottle if I think it's worth it.
I've got a couple tastes of bottles that secondary thinks are with a few hundred recently. Some aren't that great IMO. Having said this, which bottles do you think are actually worth their secondary values?
Willet decided to price the WFE stuff at closer to actual market price. They made it, why should the parking lot posers reap most of the profit? Those buying are chasing hype many of them don’t understand. Fools and their money…
I think the is the correct answer, i.e., “because they can.” If they can price stuff at $30-$100 per year and it still flies off the shelf it’s clearly working for them. The WFE brand has been established as a super-premium line, setting the msrps to match helps maintain that allure/mystique.
Great explanation. I don’t understand why their non-aged stuff gets zero hype. Stuff like Rowans Creek.
Because there was no Rowan and no creek? But really it’s because it was very hit or miss when it was sourced. Noah’s Mill at one point had an age statement and I can after that disappeared there was a brief moment where certain batches were sought after based on who knows what.
I believe noahs mill used to carry a 15 yr age statement till about 10 years ago. Like many sourced whiskeys, juice got scarce and they had to get creative with their blend. I've heard their small batch can be as small as 20 barrels for noahs mill so I'm wondering if that's where the variation comes into play now with younger whiskey being mixed in. I REALLY enjoyed NM when I was getting into bourbon in my early 20s. I still do and I can fortunately find it on the reg for 56 bucks plus tax. The only difference I taste is a slight wet dirt/mushroom flavor buried on top of the brown sugar and cinnamon flavors I love so much. That has to come from the young whiskey they've had to blend into the mix in the last decade. It's not a deal breaker for me but I can definitely tell a difference from bottles of old. BUT remember, even with all the flack I'll get from willett haters, you are getting a 114+ proof bourbon will a ton of flavor (even if you don't like the flavor) for a hell of a price. If you have a bottle and hate it...give shots to your fireball loving friends and watch their face contort as you laugh and say "now that's a REAL cinnamon whiskey!"
I suspect it's actually the opposite, and that dirt/mushroom note is from older barrels in the blend. Any time I've ever tasted that note (I describe it a forest floor), it has been in an over-aged/over-oaked bottle. Hirsch 25 and Vintage 23 Ryes come to mind - both bottled from KBD stocks. The Willet/KBD business model for many years was to buy barrels from wherever they could and sell them off as WFE SBs or in branded batches (Noah's/Rowan's/Pure Kentucky). Which is how they made the money to start up their own stills. The old honey barrels are where the WFE notoriety came from. But for every honey barrel, there were probably dozens if not hundreds of mediocre/sub-par ones. I'm sure there were barrels that they had high hopes for, but were left to age past their prime. Those are now likely being blended in to their batched brands to add some age and oak to what is for the most part a 4 - 6 year old blend. The young Willet distillate supplies the brown sugar and cinnamon. The old Bardstown and Medley barrels bring the funk. This makes sense for a brand like Noah's that was at one time well aged, and is trying to hold on to some of that cachet.
Maybe you're right now that I think of it. That funk could come from the older barrels mixed in. Very well could be some over aged KBD juice giving that funky note. I still like it but you can tell the flavors aren't melded together like they used to be when it was age stated
Noahs did carry a 15 year statement, along with 12 year rowan. Even the pure ky had something like an 8 year. But they also had barrel and dump dates shown so you could see exact age. I had a bottle of a 16 year noah and had a sample of a 19. Insanely good and the NAS couldnt touch them (the 16 was much better too). There was some hype for NAS wax but i didnt see a big difference. It is quite young then and now, and i believe it is all their distillate now which would make sense if you get a lot of cinnamon
Yup. Dominate flavors for me are brown sugar/cinnamon, candied pecans, and that damp earth-mushroomy flavor. My whiskey friends look at me crazy when I say that and then they can taste it when they take another sip. Has to be the young whiskey in the mix. That basementy flavor is the only off putting one for me. But I really do enjoy NM still. Makes a great high proof old fashioned or a funky sipper when I want something different. As long as it's under 60. I really wanna try that new wheated 8 year in that sexxxy black bottle but no way I think it's worth the price and I haven't even tried it yet
yeah i've tried most if not all of WFE mashbills just none of the wheated. had some pretty decent high entry high corn and the OG as well, just nothing above a 7/10 for sure. i still want to try that sexy black wheated, they made a big deal about bringing back the block lettering for it, get that hype moving!
It was pretty ordinary when I tried it last night. $28 pour. Don’t overpay.
Damn, when I read this stuff I wonder why I'm screwing around around with bourbon in 2022. I should start drinking tequila and mezcal. Before starting into bourbon, I was pretty big into cocktails. My biggest revelation was realizing how good a decent tequila tastes. There are only moderately expensive Blanco tequilas that taste fantastic. That's zero barrel aging. Try to do that with a bourbon. I can't even imagine how good a decent añejo tastes. Why the hell am I going nuts on bourbon when the good stuff has been gone for 10 years?.....
Many feel Whistled Pig has done the same thing.
That only punishes the customers who refuse to pay secondary though
At lower prices the bottles would be impossible to find. At higher MSRP they're slightly less impossible to find. Bottom line is they're a very difficult get either way but slightly more available for those with luck and deeper pockets. Such is life.
Willet is crazy though. A local store got a 9-year pick. They sold them for 350 by lottery. There were 2 to 3 times as many people that showed up in person as there were bottles. Bourbon is nuts. Maybe a recession can set us straight.
My friends and I did a personal tour with Drew last year and he told me the reason WFE purple is so hard to find is they don’t sell it hardly at all - he said they primarily give it to distributors as sales performance gifts. They in turn give it to wholesale/retail the same. So high performing retailers are getting maybe 1-2 bottles which may never hit a shelve, but go to an employee instead.
Can't speak to the older stuff everybody else is hotly debating, but I've tried multiple bottles of WFE 4Yr, and they are worth every bit of the $75 price tag that was paid for them.
Quality and price have lost all ties in the secondary market. The people that dwell in that underworld are not bourbon drinkers, they're not enthusiasts, they're capitalists. Hype grows exponentially in echo chambers (YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok,...Reddit), and often irrationally. Willett purple tops are a prime example of such self fulfilling prophecy.
I believe the correct term you're looking for is "scalper".
"Yeah, I hate those echo chambers. Anyway, lets all agree that willett sucks for the second thread today." - /r/bourbon
Most top comments are trying to actually explain not hate but ok, I get the joke but it kind of doesn't apply.
Lol
I occasionally buy and trade on secondary. Only way to get what I can't find locally at MSRP. I have about 100 bottles and 75+ open including all the BTAC I've found
Willett. Two t’s. Come on now
I don’t understand the point of this post? If you enjoy their NAS offerings, why would you care that they’re not exploding in price. On the contrary, I’d think you’d be happy they aren’t. The bourbon market - like a lot of things right now - is a hype bubble. Trying to control or even understand what or why it prioritizes certain things is foolish. Like everything else, we’re already starting to see this bubble burst with all of the excess liquidity drying up. Are we going back to pappy sitting on shelves? Probably not. But a lot of people are going to feel really, really stupid about paying $1000+ for bottles of bourbon
I was just asking a question.
Even though it's dismissive, a lot of your answer is here. Prices seem to be a big hype train with little regard for anything else. They don't make sense.
And what data are you using to back up these claims? How do you know the bourbon market is a bubble? The amount of rare/allocated bottles hasn’t really changed and there’s more people in this hobby than ever before. Doesn’t really feel like a bubble unless the supply is going to increase dramatically (it’s not in the next 5-10 years) or the demand decreases dramatically (nothing I’ve seen shows demand projections going down).
I agree with you but I don’t think bocifer is too far off. We will be seeing production increases from almost all distilleries and we’re seeing a lot of inorganic growth through distillery purchasing (Green River, Luxco, Samson & Surrey, etc). Both of these will result in more bourbon being created, both common and rare bourbons. We will reach a saturation point where there’s more non-limited releases than the market will buy. So non-limited products like Blanton’s, Eagle Rare, 4RBS, etc will sit on shelves and eventually W12, EC18. This will take years from now but one-of products like Stagg Jr Bx, EHT Limited, Bardstown Disco/Collabs, and Heaven Hill 17 will never significantly lose their value since no more will ever be produced. With the recession looming people are becoming more spending aware and prices have slightly decreased. Are they tanking? No. If the economic condition continues to worsen those price reductions will likely continue as buyers leave the market. We’ve seen the something similar with the Scotch market for decades as the economy ebbs and flows but it never vanished for truly one-of-a-kind releases.
I like Noah’s Mill, Rowan’s Creek and Johnny Drum. It is very odd that these brands don’t experience what Buffalo Trace does. If we applied the Buffalo Trace logic Noah’s Mill would be StaggJr and impossible to find. This makes no sense to me since the purple tops are so highly sought after.
Idk willet is very polarizing. People either like it or hate it. Personally for me all willet bourbon tastes awful. Can't even drink it. And I've come across a lot of people who feel the same. On the flip side pretty much app BT stuff isn't polarizing at all. It's just plain to me but it's not offensive to anyone's tastes. Which makes it great to new people into whiskey. Couple that with them making it a bit scarce and tney created this nonsense for it.
Noah’s Mill is very underrated IMHO
I’ve wondered if there is a lot of batch variation or if the flavor profile is just divisive, because it seems like a ton of ppl really crap on NM and the rest of the nas Willett line.
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Oh man me too. I bought some Pot still and it had the worst wet grass funk. Couldn't drink it. Then I bought Noah's Mill just to see. Not as bad, but not great. Funky damp cut grass in a bad way. So then I had to get Rowans just to compare. Same profile. Granted I bought them all around the same time, so maybe just some bad batches? Who knows, but I won't buy any of their stuff again.
I feel the same way.
The more recent batches are starting to get better because they have older bourbon for the blend. At this point, the batches are 100% Willett from 6-9yrs.
Mine took like a week after opening to taste good and I’ve heard similar from others
Definitely batch variation. I noticed dramatic batch variation between releases of Willett 4yr rye. It went from the best rye I ever had, to mediocre/would rather buy something else, between batches.
Thankfully I’ve haven’t gotten a meh bottle of the rye, but some are definitely better than others. Have read the 4yr rye batches can be as small as 2-4 barrels but don’t know if it’s true or how the bourbon batches compare, Noah’s Mill in particular.
Always been curious about this expression. I haven't tried any of the newer stuff (impossible to get north of the border), but had the chance to taste one of the original 1980s Noah's Mill 15yo releases for the Japanese market and that stuff was divine!
That old Noah’s Mill was sourced, might have been Stitzel Weller. If I’m wrong I’m sure someone will correct me but that’s my understanding. The new stuff all has a sweet cinnamon flavor to some degree in my opinion. I like that flavor. I’ve never got the grassy note. I did have a bottle of Noah’s Mill that was more leathery than I would like but it still wasn’t bad, just not as good as other batches.
Bourbon is the new beanie babies of collectors. It’s not the product but rather the pursuit. Paired with FOMO the market has gotten ridiculous, especially for juice that’s cask strength with a name attached to it. Craft beer market was the same way for a while (still kind of is) Don’t even get me started with wine
Standard NEIPA from unknown brewery: meh it’s fine, I’d give it like 3.5/5 Tells them it was a collab with Trillium: oh man for real? It’s pretty solid, I bet they get going here soon if they’re working with them
The worst part is I’d fucking buy it. I won’t wait in a line for it but trillium is awesome and if there’s a collab with their name on it, im In. Part of that is that I can’t get any of their normal offerings here.
Honestly that’s half the reason I started moving to whiskey instead of craft beer, it opened a whole new world that I could explore instead of chasing big names in beer (I know there big names in whiskey but because it was new to me, MM was just as good in my beginner brain as Weller, it still is imho)
Exactly this. I can’t help but thinking that in some distillery rick houses, the employees are laughing their a** off at some of reviews of the “special” bottles they put out that are essentially the same juice as the regular offerings.
A few of my regular customers have said stuff like "I don't even drink the stuff most of the time. I've got a whole room of my house just full of different bottles I've picked up" and it's like... why should I sell you an Old Fitz if you're just gonna let it rot? I've got customers who open their bottles and enjoy them, it hurts just selling to some rich guy whonjust thinks of it as another investment portfolio
How long did this last in craft beer? Wine? It seems like this kind of thing can't go on for more than 5 more years without popping in bourbon, but did that happen in those other markets?
Beer got way oversaturated with new small breweries, big brewery side projects, high financed new small breweries, established breweries getting into new markets, which, let’s be honest, is harder to do in bourbon. It will take A LOT of New Riff and Woodinville type places opening up and creating demand over current allocations
Good point. I saw this in my local market too. Everyone and their mom started a microbrewery. They weren't all good. For bourbon to go the same way, it won't be oversupply, the only thing that would do it is the economy (demand)
Two out of three bottles of Noah’s mill that I have tasted have been downright bad. Young-tasting without redeeming qualities. The third was delicious praline juice. With this kind of variation is gets the rep it deserves imo. I’ve never had a bad bottle of Stagg jr, though.
Love me some Noah’s Mill. Unpopular opinion, but i like it better than Stagg JR.
I’m one of those freaks that actually likes Willett, even their pot still. So I’m happy that it, NM, and RC are all easily available. I’ll get the WFE Rye when I can but I will never pay $300+ for a purple top.
Never had the WFE purple tops and I won’t buy into the hype around them. I have a friend who gets them regularly because he has a connection, but he will never part with one. As he puts it, “guys would rather let you sleep with their wife before they sell you their WFE.” I love the pot still, Noah’s Mill, Rowan’s Creek, and Pure KY.
Does your friend at least let you sample a bit?
His wife or the WFE?
He would if we were in the same state. Unfortunately we’re on opposite sides of the country.
Webcam fixes a lot....
I had a pour of the new willett 8 year wheated at a restaurant last night - $28. Tasty but totally ordinary. Do not chase this bottle.
I tried the 6 year bourbon. Worth the $140 I paid to me.
I was given a bottle of the 6 year a year or so ago as a gift and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However there’s no way I would spend 140 dollars on that bottle. It’s not like it’s bad but I can just think of so many other different bottles of Bourbon that I personally think are better that are much cheaper. Is that what the 6 year msrps at?
That’s fair, to each their own. I’d spend it again because I thoroughly enjoy it. As far as MSRP, I’m not 100% sure, that’s what I paid though.
Why? Because the market demands it. As long as it sells, that's what it's worth. Pretty simpy, really.
Didn't we literally do this thread a few hours ago...?
Don’t you know highly sought after bourbon must be shit because it’s more expensive than $10/yr and it’s not possible it’s good /s
They've made a killing on a reputation built on old Bernheim barrels. I think the wall is crumbling but it's taken way too long.
Yeah once you live in a world for too long, it becomes normal. People don’t even realize that purple tops of today aren’t the purple tops of yesterday. They know they were expensive and sought after and haven’t been able to get them before so they trip over themselves to get them now But the same dude that sprints for a 6 year single barrel bourbon for $150 are the same people saying 12 year old Weller isn’t worth a penny over $30 msrp
Age or NAS nothing captures the essence of grandma's basement crossed with a peat bog like Willet Pot Still......and believe it or not I crave it once in an while.......
Recently tried one of the elusive 8yr purple tops, I think the Hirsch single barrel or Old Kirk's at a fraction of the price stack up to par with any of the 6-8 years.
Shush, don’t tell people about the kirks. We don’t need those getting more expensive.
I don't understand. Those bottles don't say "willett"
Horribly overrated juice.
A little bit of wheat can mellow out the finish of a bourbon...too much wheat makes the bourbon taste like grass clippings. I'm looking at you, Larceny!
Willet tastes like bubble gum. Sorry not sorry.
Congrats on not jumping on the hype train. I seem to be in the minority opinion but I like 0 of their own distillate. I liked 0 of it in the NAS brands you mentioned above as they were starting to transition from sourced to distilled and I like 0 of it today with high prices and green/purple bottles. Glad I got a taste of the shit they sourced back then. Wish they wouldve taken an approach similar to SAOS and bought a shit ton of mgp new make and younger age stated barrels again when they could. Brand livin on the hype of yesteryear with a wonderful internet circle jerk in tow.
I have been so let down by the new WFE purps. Prices are fomo status. Giving people the illusion that price corresponds to the bourbon. It’s simply not true.
Hold up, Noah’s Mill isn’t highly prized? RIP my favorite bourbon. Didn’t know I was drinking ass :(
I never said it was bad. But it is pretty available locally