A Recent Whiskey Enthusiast Pits 16 Bottles Against Each Other in a March Madness-Style Tournament

An Introduction

Heaven help me, in addition to comparing fast food chicken sandwiches this winter, I am currently in the midst of a whiskey tasting tournament.

Here is the long story made short: I found myself with just way too many open bottles of whiskey entering 2021 and I had nothing better to do with them than pit them against one another in a series of blind taste tests, eventually crowning a champion.

The short story made long is that somewhere during the pandemic, I pulled a classic mid-life crisis move and become an overnight whiskey enthusiast. Just went zero to sixty on the stuff in the span of three months or so at some point in the fall. What can I say? Everybody needs a hobby! Just four or six months ago, I was a gin man at heart. Had you come to my house and rummaged through my home bar, well, first of all I’d have told you “get the hell out of here, what are you doing here, are you not aware that there is an ongoing coronavirus pandemic?” But secondly, and more germane to the story I am telling here, you’d have found half a dozen bottles of gin in there — botanical, dry, craft-distilled, local — and a dozen or more liqueurs and rums and vodkas and other staples, and maybe one or two bottles of cheap whiskey at most. I didn’t hate the brown stuff, don’t get me wrong. I had toured the Bushmill’s Distillery, I had ordered and enjoyed a flight of Scotches at a steakhouse a time or two, I had owned and imbibed many bottles of bourbon and rye, one at a time. I just wasn’t into it like so many other flabby booze nerd dads out there. And, well, suddenly I was!

At any rate, a whiskey-purchasing spree last autumn, followed directly by a holiday season in which none of my loved ones knew what to buy me and were presumably told “I dunno, he’s just into whiskey lately,” has left me with just way too much whiskey! Sixteen bottles, to be exact. And a thing about the number sixteen is that it’s just perfect for a little four-round tournament!

The Rules

Here is how this will work, or rather, how it’s been working. I looked up the ratings for the sixteen whiskeys in my possession on Distiller, and I ranked them one through sixteen on a spreadsheet. And then I immediately forgot which whiskeys were seeded where — this is much easier to do when you have kids at home, because of sleep deprivation and brain damage — and I asked my wonderful wife to place them accordingly into a standard 16-seed tournament tree.

And every night for several weeks now, I’ve asked my wonderful wife to present me with two competing pours of whiskey — her choice on how much to pour, I’m not actively seeking liver damage here! — in little Glencairn glasses so that I may sniff and taste and compare them, and take notes on them, and determine a winner. She has bought in on this and agreed to help me do it so long as I take detailed notes and make guesses on everything I’m drinking, probably so that I can show my dang ass at the end of all this and reveal what a whiskey noob I really am, and so that she can yell “you like twenty-dollar whiskey just fine, remember?” at me every time I want to buy another bottle for the rest of our marriage.

In the first round (sixteen whiskeys, eight comparisons), winners were chosen based on just one match-up. The second round (eight whiskeys) consisted of four best-of-three series. The third round — the semifinals — was (or is?) two best-of-five match-ups. And the grand finals will be a best-of-seven series that pits my top two whiskeys against each other.

I am blind to everything about the process, including which round I’m on and what I’ve already eliminated. It’s been a real head-scratcher, and a great reminder of the Dunning-Kruger effect! I envisioned and created this tournament somewhere around my own peak of “Mount Stupid” and have felt myself slipping slowly but certainly into the “Valley of Despair” as things have unfolded.

So please allow me to spend the remainder of this post previewing the sixteen whiskey bottles in my cabinet and tournament. One final note on spelling — I will try to be consistent in calling Scotch, Japanese, and Canadian variants “whiskies” while referring to American and Irish variants as “whiskeys.”

The Field

Enough already. Let’s see the whiskeys. Prices are for 750 mL bottles around these parts, ABV numbers were taken directly from my bottles, and the dumb little ad copy blurbs come from all over the internet.

IRISH

We’ll start things off in Ireland, where whiskey itself was born. (Do you know how to say “water” in Irish? It’s “uisce.”) I’ve got four bottles of Irish whiskey just raring to get in there and fight, and no that’s not an insensitive Irish joke, and even if it were that’d be okay because like every other white person with New England roots I am part Irish. So.

Powers Gold Label

$28 | 43.2% ABV

Powers Gold Label is cut from the heart of the distillate. That means more top and tail gets thrown away than any other Irish whiskey. Left to mature in selected American oak casks, this is where the spicy, bold character takes hold.

The most popular brand of Irish whiskey sold in the United States is Jameson, and it’s not even close. It outsells number two, Bushmill’s, by something like ten to one. Don’t quote me on any of this! I have always liked Jameson, and if you don’t dislike whiskey, you probably do too. It’s ubiquitous, it’s affordable, and it’s capable of standing on its own or sharing the spotlight with sodas and mixers just fine. As such, for ten years or more I had always made room for Jameson in my home bar. But that was before I got super into whiskey and punted Jameson to the moon, possibly forever! See, one of the first stops I took on my long and meandering journey into this expensive and health-hazardous hobby was right here with Powers Gold Label, an entry-level blended Irish whiskey that actually outsells Jameson in, oh wow, look at that, Ireland. It’s very good! (They would know, right?) I’m already on my second bottle of this stuff — it beat both Tullamore Dew and Jameson in various informal taste tests I did last fall, and I think it’s here to stay as my cheap Irish blend of choice. I mean forget the taste — just look at that bottle! I look forward to showing it off to friends and family for years to come, when all of this is over. I hold no illusions that this will win my silly little tournament — oh God, Imagine? — but it feels like a real grinder that could possibly pull off an upset or two given the right match-ups.

Powers Three Swallow

$43 | 43.2% ABV

Three Swallow is a modern expression of what the original Powers Whiskey tasted like back in the days of our John’s Lane distillery. This quintessential style of whiskey, single pot still is exclusive to Ireland, and is made from a mash of malted and unmalted barley, then triple distilled in traditional copper pot stills.

Single pot still whiskey is something I absolutely love, and it is something I did not even know existed just six months ago. To qualify as a single pot still whiskey, a whiskey must be made in Ireland; its mash bill must contain at least 30% malted barley, at least 30% unmalted barley, and at most 5% other grains or cereals of any type; and it must be distilled in a traditional pot still, rather than a more modern column still. Apparently this last part is very important, and the shape and material composition of a pot still causes more flavorful oils to end up in the final product, or something. I don’t know how it works, I just know that I like to drink it! Sadly, as fond as I’ve been of the Gold Label blended whiskey, I can’t say that I love this single pot offering from Powers. It’s fine, but it lacks the character and depth I’ve found in other single pots like Redbreast and Green Spot, and, ah, shoot, here I go talking about the next couple whiskeys already. Let’s continue.

Redbreast 12 Year Cask Strength

$72 | 57.6% ABV (varies)

Made from a mash of malted and unmalted barley and then triple distilled in copper pot stills, Redbreast 12 boasts the flavour complexity and distinctive qualities of pot still whiskey. The Cask Strength expression gives a glimpse of Redbreast 12 in its natural, full flavoured taste.

In my personal opinion — which is of course very newly formed and extremely uneducated — the standard Redbreast 12 Year whiskey, which you can probably get for less than fifty dollars, is the best valued whiskey on Earth. It is outrageously tasty, and while it’ll set you back more than Jim Beam or Jack Daniel’s, it really doesn’t break the bank. I drank it throughout the fall and liked it more and more with every dram. I even came to love the flavor of the little shot of water I’d have out of the same glass after I enjoyed Redbreast 12. That’s how oily and fragrant and delicious it was, and so naturally of course it is not in this tournament! Rather, when I last ran out of Redbreast 12, I went ahead and bought the cask strength version of Redbreast 12. Now, I used to think that cask strength whiskeys and high-proof spirits in general were a bit of a gimmick. “More alcohol just means less flavor, and I’m not looking to get wasted here, just to enjoy some drinks. No thank you, leave that shit in college, please.” What a goddamn fool I was! It’s all right there in the name; this is whiskey straight out the cask, before it is watered down to a desired bottling proof. It contains more flavor, not less. See, look at what a rube I am, only coming around on basic shit like this after spending hundreds of dollars on whiskey during a pandemic. Better late than never! Look. Listen. It is probably not fair that I am including a single 120-ish proof whiskey in a field of 80 and 90 proof whiskeys. This is like having a basketball tournament and letting one team put a sixth player on the court. That said, if I put straight ethanol into the tournament it would lose spectacularly and also I would regret it and get very sick, probably. So for all we know, Redbreast 12 Cask Strength is entering with a handicap. (It’s not. This is easily a favorite to win the tournament.)

Yellow Spot 12 Year

$100 | 46% ABV

Rather than being simply a ‘finished’ whiskey, Yellow Spot is special in that it contains whiskey that has been matured for a full 12 year period in three oak cask types: American bourbon barrels, Spanish sherry butts, and uniquely, Spanish Malaga casks. The Malaga cask brings an exotic sweet note to the whiskey making it a truly delightful taste experience.

I am no longer fucking around when it comes to my Irish whiskeys. The last bottle I went over was the most alcoholic entrant in the whole field, and this one is the most expensive. The Irish category is just stacked! This is Yellow Spot, a slightly rarer and slightly older and slightly more expensive whiskey than Green Spot. What is Spot Whiskey? I will spare you the lengthy history lesson, but label owner Mitchell & Son is not a distiller at all; it is a wine distributor. Back in the 1800s, it was common practice in Ireland for such wine merchants to purchase fresh distillate from nearby distilleries and then age it themselves in the used wine barrels they had on hand. Mitchell & Son were one of many to do this, and they marked their barrels with different colored paint spots to indicate which batches of whiskey distillate were meant to be blended together. Then the 20th century happened to Ireland and, ah, oh man. It was a doozy. (This is the lengthy history lesson I will spare you; I am clearly already going on at length about Spot Whiskey.) Anyway, economic anxiety ran rampant and just about everybody everywhere in Ireland went out of business, including every wine merchant maturing their own whiskeys… except for Mitchell & Son! They were the lone survivor, reduced by 1950 to making only their Green Spot variant. But in the past ten years they’ve reintroduced their entire original portfolio of Yellow, Red, and Blue Spot Whiskey. And they still don’t distill a lick of it themselves. Isn’t that something? I’ve lost you, I know, I’m wrapping up. This is the overall one-seed in the tournament and it will likely go far.

SCOTCH

Ireland may lay claim to being the birthplace of whiskey, but, let’s be honest here. Scotland’s whiskies — Scotches — are the spirit that became a worldwide phenomenon back at the dawn of globalization. There’s an amazing variety of character present across the world of Scotch, but the five bottles I’ve got in my cabinet are actually pretty similar; all are single or blended malts, none are grain-based, and most are peated. We’ll get into what all of this means, I promise!

Johnnie Walker Green Label 15 Year

$65 |43% ABV

Johnnie Walker Green Label is crafted from a palette of Speyside, Highland, Lowland and Island malts matured for at least 15 years — all perfectly balanced to bring together the intense aromas of crisp cut grass, fresh fruit, wood smoke, deep vanilla, and sandalwood.

Y’all know Johnnie Walker, I’m sure. Their entry-level Red Label is the top-selling Scotch in the world (it’s explicitly intended to be a mixer — you won’t enjoy it straight, you heathen!) and their top tier Blue Label famously sells for hundreds of dollars per bottle. In between those two ends of the price spectrum are the Black, Green, and Gold offerings, along with several dozen spinoffs and offshoots and limited releases to be sure. Interestingly, only the Green Label is comprised exclusively of single malt whiskies rather than grain-based whiskies; even the Blue Label has at least some trace amount of something other than malted barley in one of its components’ mash bills, and cannot call itself a “blended malt” like Green can. (All Johnnie Walker whiskies are blended whiskies. I should have said this sooner! I also shouldn’t have wound up with hundreds of dollars of whiskeys with nothing better to do than drink them by myself in a series of little taste-offs to crown one of them the champion, but here I am nonetheless.) As a blend of multiple single malt whiskies, I expect Johnnie Green to have more “layers” and “complexity” than any of the other Scotches in my field. But when it comes to blends, the whole is rarely the sum of its parts, and more often the average. We’ll see how this fares!

Laphroaig 10 Year

$56 | 43% ABV

Our Laphroaig 10 Year Old is the original Laphroaig, distilled the same way today as when Ian Hunter invented it more than 75 years ago. It is the foundation of all other Laphroaig expressions. In making Laphroaig, malted barley is dried over a peat fire. The smoke from this peat, found only on Islay, gives Laphroaig its particularly rich flavour.

There is a phenomenon that happens to some people when they dive directly into the world of peated Scotches; they are immediately and totally obsessed with finding the smokiest whiskies imaginable, the smokier the better, all other complexities and flavor components be damned. This was me, fam! I absolutely adored my first few drams of Laphroaig 10, giddy as hell that I’d found something that was as big a smoke bomb as Lagavulin 16 with half the price tag. And then in due time, as so often happens, that love of peat on peat on peat kind of faded, and I began to consider Laphroaig 10 as less of a sneaky-valuable elite tier whisky and more of a one-note gimmick with little to offer but the aforementioned peat on peat on peat. In all likelihood it is somewhere in between those two things, and I’m curious to see how it does in this tournament!

The Macallan 12 Year Sherry Oak Cask

$62 | 43% ABV

The Macallan Sherry Oak 12 Years Old forms part of our Sherry Oak range which features a series of single malt whiskies matured exclusively in hand-picked sherry seasoned oak casks from Jerez for richness and complexity.

The thing about Macallan — excuse me, about The Macallan, fucking Ohio State-ass definite article humpers — that sets it apart from most other popular single malts is that they tend not to make very smokey whiskies. This has put them in a perfect position to become, perhaps intentionally, a go-to brand for high-end gift-giving. A lot of people can’t stand the deeply peated flavors and aromas of some of the big sexy single malts from Islay in particular — Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, to name a few — and so Macallan’s decidedly un-smoky big sexy Speyside single malts, finished in sherry casks to add fruit notes and ruby red colors, tend to make for a perfect gift with which high-income people can say to one another, “we don’t know one another well enough for me to know your taste in single malt whiskies, but this is a classy way for me to give you something worth one or three hundred dollars that you’re statistically more likely not to dislike than a bunch of other single malt whiskies.” You know what I’m getting at — it’s Wall Street finance bro booze! On the one hand this is a bit of a stereotype and I should embrace all my whiskeys with an open mind. On the other, Macallan leans all the way into the fancy pants persona—it’s all right there in the bottle design! Posh, neat, tall and proud. Yeah, pipe down. We see you. At any rate, the 12 Year Sherry Oak Cask is probably not the flagship bottle of Macallan, but it’s certainly the cheapest. As the lone unpeated Scotch in my field, it will surely bring something unique and intriguing to the table. But how long will it stick around?

Port Charlotte 10 Year

$60 | 50% ABV

Port Charlotte 10 balances the typical heavily peated Islay flavor profile with a light, approachable spirit. Ageing for 10 years on the shores of Loch Indaal has had a profound effect on this spirit. Like sunshine on a winters day, this Port Charlotte 10 brings clarity and lightens the mood, welcoming and brightening the future.

Alright. This is perhaps a good place to talk about Islay and about peat. When it comes to Scotch production, there are five or maybe four or maybe six distinct regions of Scotland, each of them known for imbuing a different character into the whiskies they produce. The most famous of these regions is probably Islay, which is a single island off of Scotland’s West Coast and which is smaller in area than New York City. Islay, more than any other region, is known for its peaty, smokey whiskies. And if you’re wondering, “but why?” or, “what the hell is peat, anyway?” then just hold your horses, okay? I’m telling you! I’m telling you right now! Peat is decaying plant-based material found in bogs. It is essentially pre-coal. It is also a cheap and abundant source of fire fuel found all over Scotland, both historically and presently. Okay, put a bookmark in this. Let’s talk about malted barley — no, I promise, all of this connects, and it connects very soon! To qualify as a “single malt,” a Scotch whisky must have a mash bill comprised of 100% malted barley. Malted barley is barley that has begun to germinate or sprout. To malt barley, you soak it for a while and trick it into thinking, “okay, it is time to grow now.” And then as soon as it has begun to grow — to malt — you kill it dead right in its tracks by roasting, toasting, or otherwise cooking the absolute bejeezus out of it. You can do this in a variety of ways, including, probably, with a big-ass toaster oven of sorts. Historically though, in Scotland, where peat is abundant, an easy way to cook the absolute bejeezus out of germinated barley is to smoke it straight to hell with a big old pile of burning peat. And the best peat in Scotland is found on Islay, a large-ish island full of moss and heather but weirdly free of trees, and therefore free of old and dead and rotting wood. Now you see it! Now you have connected the dots! Islay’s bogs hold a peat uniquely free of rotten wood stank, which means Islay produces uniquely pleasant peat-smoked whiskies compared to the rest of Scotland, which means that Islay whiskies tend to be absolute smoke bombs. Port Charlotte is an Islay whisky, and as such, it is a smoke bomb. That’s all I’m trying to say here!

Talisker Select Reserve House Greyjoy

$58 | 45.8% ABV

House Greyjoy make their home on bleak and blustery islands off the west coast of Westeros whose unforgiving, desolate location shapes their lives. Situated on the shores of the Isle of Skye, one of the most remote and rugged areas of Scotland, Talisker’s layered flavors and signature maritime character are the result of its wave-battered shores.

Yeah, that’s not a description of a whisky so much as it is a comparison between a description of a fictional location from the hit HBO series Game of Thrones and a description of a real location in Scotland. See, what happened was, multinational alcoholic beverage conglomerate Diageo partnered with HBO to produce a line of Game of Thrones-themed whisky bottles by pairing various fictional Westerosi Houses to Diageo-owned Scotch distilleries based on their shared characteristics. It’s a fun idea, if a bit of a stretch! The problem with the execution is that Scotland is kind of sort of a one-note place, and that note is “rainy, rocky shores and the cold, salty ocean.” The Iron Islands of Westeros are a perfect fit for Talisker, sure! But they’re a perfect fit for all of Scotland, and therefore any distillery in Scotland, right? At any rate, I’ve had and enjoyed Talisker before, I have no idea what makes this Greyjoy variant of Talisker different from Talisker Storm or Talisker 10, and I’m curious to see how this Scotch — peated, but not Islay-peated — does in the tournament.

JAPANESE

Time now to jump all the way to Japan, where the art of blending plays a prominent role. Out with the single malts, in with the perfectly balanced compositions!

Nikka Coffey Grain

$65 | 45% ABV

This is a signature grain whisky which was released in 2012. Predominantly made from corn, whisky distilled in a Coffey still is matured in old casks such as re-filled, remade and re-charred casks originally made from American oak to deliver the sweet and mellow flavors of Coffey distillates.

Japan’s whisky culture was inspired by Scotland’s, and you can tell because of how they both spell “whiskey.” I would like to own more than one bottle of Japanese whisky — hell we all would! — but the thing about Japanese whisky is that it has absolutely exploded in popularity over the last five or ten years, and with that explosion has come a jacked up price point on every bottle of Japanese whisky. Furthermore, Japan knows how hot it is right now, and the country’s distillers and blenders are pushing all kinds of under-matured product out the door right now to capitalize on the boom before it ends. Case in point, Nikka Coffey Grain Whisky — a blend whose components are made in a cheap coffey still from a corn-laden mash bill like a common bourbon and matured for who-knows-how-long as there’s no age statement — is selling for the same price point here in America as all kinds of ten-to-fifteen-year-old single malt Scotch bottles. It’s insane, you guys! That said, this might be one of the best best blended grain whiskeys I’ve ever had, and I hope it holds its own in the tournament.

BOURBON

No whiskey tournament would be complete without at least a couple of bourbons. Even though the style isn’t particularly my cup of tea — no wait, of whiskey, ah fuck I missed the opportunity, sorry — I’d be remiss not to include these good old American corn boys. Yee haw?

Angel’s Envy Port-Finished Bourbon

$49 | 43.3% ABV

Angel’s Envy Kentucky Straight Bourbon is finished in port wine casks for an award-winning spirit. We guide each batch’s conditioning, blending our handcrafted bourbon in small batches of 8 to 12 barrels at a time. It’s typically aged for up to 6 years. While we lose about 5% of the spirit each year to evaporation, or “the Angel’s Share,” what’s left behind after we’re done is truly worthy of envy.

Angel’s Envy was the hot whiskey to gift-give this holiday season, at least in my little family of families; I gave a bottle to my wife’s brother, my sister’s husband got one from his own brother, and I myself received one from my mother. Everyone’s a winner here — there’s very little not to like about it! This is straight bourbon whiskey sourced from who-knows-where, finished in port wine barrels to take a little bit of the edge and bite and sting off of it. I’m very curious to see how it compares to the Macallan (sherry cask) and the Yellow Spot (sherry and Malaga wine barrels). Those two spend twelve years soaking up old grape flavors, whereas Angel’s Envy is only finished in them. (By law, bourbon can only be matured in new white oak casks. The more you know!) Will such a showdown ever occur in this tournament? Statistically, probably not. But also statistically, you can just go fuck yourself, yeah? Oh my God, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I am getting delirious, writing this many words about a variety of whiskeys. That didn’t even make sense! Let’s move on.

Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon

$27 | 45% ABV

For over 200 years, our distillery has been defined by a dedication to one craft: making fine bourbon whiskey. By honoring tradition and embracing change, Buffalo Trace Distillery has earned its place of leadership among the legendary spirits makers of the world.

There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about Buffalo Trace — another Kentucky-distilled bourbon amid a veritable sea of Kentucky-distilled bourbons — so let’s talk about why Kentucky is the whiskey hotbed of the United States. No, stop, it’s only like, a little more history! You see by the time the poorfolk of Scotland and Ireland got around to emigrating to the so-called New World, the whole Eastern Seaboard had been claimed and divvied up by the Puritans and Cavaliers and Quakers, and those poor Scotch-Irish had no choice but to head for the interior, the hinterlands. Yeah — Appalachia. And they took their whiskey-making craft and traditions with them — although, to be fair, everyone everywhere in America was distilling shitty grain whiskey by 1700 or so — and that is at least probably why Appalachia shares such a rich whiskey distilling culture with the old monks of Ireland and Scotland. It’s all about migration patterns, dammit! People! Culture! This shit matters. I like Buffalo Trace more than most other bourbons you can find for less than thirty bucks, and it just happened to be the lower-end bourbon I had on hand when I decided to do this tournament. I expect it to go down in flames immediately, as half of these will. Who knows?

RYE

It’s rye time, baby! Rye often feels like a forgotten whiskey variety to me, and that’s a shame, because it is a completely different beast than bourbon. Bourbon’s mash bill needs to be at least half corn by law; rye’s needs to be at least half rye. The best analogy I’ve heard compares the difference between bourbon and rye to that of cornbread and rye bread. Strikingly different, right?

Hudson Manhattan Rye

$47 | 46% ABV

Hudson’s Manhattan Rye is a long-overdue revival of a rye-making tradition that was deeply-embedded on America’s east coast before the advent of Prohibition. As with the Tuthilltown distillery’s other products, Manhattan Rye has been double-distilled and aged in small casks.

Labeling matters. We taste with our eyes first, and the bottle pictured here screams “faux-old fashioned bottle you’d find in a hipster bar in Bushwick or Astoria, next to a bunch of ‘tonics’ and ‘elixirs,’ where the bartender has cuffed pants and a waxed moustache and he fixes old bicycles and phonographs as a hobby.” Screams it! Hudson has just rebranded itself, though, and now the same (or at least a very similar) bottle of whiskey looks like this. They’re leaning all the way into “New Yawk, greatest city in the world, baby!” what with the subway typeface and color scheme and God bless them for it, but I think I appreciate the older bottle more. Either way, I definitely appreciate the amount of rye in the mash bill here — only 51% is necessary, but they’re going with the full one-hundo and distilling in an old school copper pot. We love to see it, folks! But do we love to taste it? Time will tell!

CANADIAN

Look, it’s not entirely clear to me what constitutes “Canadian whisky,” beyond the Scottish-Japanese spelling variant, and I’ll be damned if I go learn anything about it now!

Crown Royal Black

$35 | 45% ABV

A deeper richer version of Classic Crown Royal. Creamy profile with subtle dried fruit on an oak background with sweet maple notes and light vanilla towards the finish. Higher strength and more intense flavor.

Okay, confession time. When I said a while back that I had sixteen bottles of whiskey at my disposal, it was perhaps a bit of a lie. What I have is fifteen bottles, and then a couple of miniatures — 50 mL offerings, “nips” if you like — of Crown Royal Black. I have them because I received a variety pack of Crown Royal nips as a bit of a Christmas stocking stuffer, and I will head into this tournament having never once to my knowledge tasted Crown Royal Black. It will be the only complete stranger to me in this whiskey tasting tournament, and thank God, because I have nothing else whatsoever to add here and now about Crown Royal Black. (If it advances past the first round, I am in trouble; we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it — but we won’t! This cannot make it very far, right?)

FLAVORED

At last we come to the true dregs of my liquor cabinet — flavored whiskeys! Look, I may be a burgeoning whiskey snob now, but I believe that there is a place in this world for cheap, fun, gimmick alcohol. That place is probably not a self-respecting thirty-something’s liquor cabinet, but also, come on. Live a little! No, truthfully, I do not seek this stuff out. I am just occasionally given gifts by well-meaning people who still view me as a college kid. Bless their hearts!

Howler Head Banana-Infused Bourbon

$21 | 40% ABV

Blended with the finest Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey we could get our paws on. You’ve got a kick of oak, a whirl of sweetness, and some straight-from-the-jungle bananarama goodness. Enjoy neat, on the rocks, as a shot, or in a cocktail. Welcome to the jungle!

Maybe the most interesting thing about this whiskey, if you believe the bottle and the ad copy, is that it includes any amount of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey at all. Straight bourbon is a legally protected classification of whiskey, and while it’s not the highest bar to clear, a Kentucky straight bourbon must have a majority-corn mash bill, must be aged in charred oak barrels for at least two years, must be distilled and aged in Kentucky, and must be bottled at no less than 40% ABV. It just seems like they could have mixed banana liqueur or flavoring with any old generic un-aged grain whiskey and gotten a similar end product. Hey, maybe the inclusion of Kentucky straight bourbon will allow the Howler Head to fare just fine in this tournament. And also maybe pigs will fly, and maybe a group of stray dogs will build a rocket ship and colonize the moon. Let’s just believe in whatever the hell we want to, yeah? This blog is almost over and I thank you for your patience.

Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey

$23 | 35% ABV

On one side, you have good ol’ whiskey — a bold, loud, and strong partner-in-crime who exudes confidence. On the other, we have peanut butter — a rich, smooth, and irresistible spread that’s as dependable as they come for all your late night cravings. Little did you know, these two blend together quite phenomenally. In fact, they go together so well, they make PB&J jealous.

Oh for fuck’s sake, peanut butter whiskey? That makes sixteen. We’re done here.

Yeah, so tune in next month when I unveil or at least begin to unveil how this tournament went. I myself am dying to know, and I’m sure you are too!