Kentucky: Day 3 - Angel's Envy

Like I said before, downtown Louisville has been evolving rapidly over the last few years. When I was here back in 2017, I was only able to visit Angel’s Envy distillery because my friend Conor O’Driscoll, their distiller at the time, was able to sneak me in the side door for a quick ten minute viewing (no photos allowed). Today, however, it’s a bustling tourist attraction with a healthy gift shop and tours galore, open to everyone who wants to visit. Not only that, it’s only a few blocks west of the AC Marriott, so you can easily walk if you’re staying in Nulu.

What’s even more exciting is this: Mission is the very first retailer in America to be invited to select a barrel onsite at the distillery. We did the first ever tour and barrel tasting with Deja, Angel, and Melissa from the Bacardi team, and—more importantly—we were told that all of the barrels from the sampling were overwhelmingly likely to be whiskey from Angel’s Envy distillery itself, not the purchased juice the brand survived on for its initial years. We were able to taste a five year old Angel’s Envy Bourbon with no port maturation as a control for our barrel tasting, so can you guess what we did?

Vic and I searched around for the Port cask with the least amount of influence, rather than the richest, most dessert-y expression. Knowing that we were going to get a barrel from the new distillate, we wanted to give our customers the chance to taste the whiskey itself in as pure of a state as possible. There was an incredible specimen that lived up to the hedonistic and supple delight that is Angel’s Envy at full proof, brimming with candied fruit and dark chocolate flavors. However, we chose the one that tasted the most like Bourbon and the least like Port.

And let me tell you: the new Angel’s Envy-distilled Bourbon is GOOD. We’re excited to be the first store in America to bring you back a barrel directly from the distillery.

And later that night at dinner, I got to hang out with my old friend (and distant family member) Conor O’Driscoll, who likely distilled that Angel’s Envy barrel before becoming the master distiller at Heaven Hill. We had dinner together at Jason Brauner’s Bourbons Bistro, then made our way down Frankfort Street into the lightning storm and the sunset.

-David Driscoll

Kentucky: Day 3 - New Riff

For some drinkers, the difference between Kentucky Bourbon and Indiana Bourbon is massive. One is the classic name they know, reminiscent of all the romance they read about in the Bourbon marketing materials. The other reminds them of Hoosiers basketball and Larry Bird, not so much whiskey.

Here’s what’s funny to me: MGP distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana is the producer of countless contract brands over the last decade-plus. Yet, despite the seismic difference in the way people think about Kentucky and Indiana, MGP sits along the literal state line of not just Kentucky and Indiana, but also Ohio. It’s basically a Cincinnati suburb that happens to be in Indiana. It’s just fifteen miles west of the Cincinnati airport (which is actually in Kentucky). From where I sit, it’s almost more Cincinnati than it is Kentucky or Indiana!

New Riff, perhaps my personal favorite distillery in Kentucky right now, gets all the love from the traditional Bourbon crowd because it’s a classic bottled-in-bond Bourbon, made in Kentucky, that sells delicious Kentucky Bourbon for a great price. Yet, for all intents and purposes, it’s an urban distillery that sits on the direct border of downtown Cinncinati, Ohio; a literal five minute drive from the Reds baseball stadium along the river.

You might think of rolling green hills, lush forests, and the bucolic serenity of rural Kentucky when you think of Bourbon, but the God’s honest truth is that most of the Bourbon you like to drink is made in urban Louisville, jutted up against the edge of the northern border with Indiana. Brown-Forman and Heaven Hill’s distilleries are about two miles south of the state line, while Angel’s Envy, Rabbit Hole, and Peerless are less than a half mile from Indiana territory. What all of these distilleries have in common is the Ohio River, which is what separates Indiana from Kentucky, and Kentucky from Ohio, yet unites these producers under one umbrella. Take away the government-issued distinctions, and we’re talking about meters of difference geographically.

But what about the limestone water that makes Kentucky Bourbon so distinctive, you ask? Depending on who you talk to, it would appear that some of the urban distilleries in Louisville proper rely on local municipal water for their production, rather than mineral-rich well water filtered through Kentucky’s natural limestone springs. New Riff, on the other hand (through sheer luck), happens to have highly-mineral, Kentucky limestone-filtered water from a well right under its parking lot, which runs off the final hillside you come over on the I-71, revealing the Cincinnati skyline as you descend down the freeway.

If you know the story of New Riff and its origins in retail, then you know that Ken Lewis built the Party Source just across the river from Cincinnati, on the Kentucky side of the border, because Ohio has state-controlled liquor. It’s located in Kentucky, but 90% of its clientele is coming from Cincinnati. While Ken no longer owns the Party Source, New Riff Distillery is located in its parking lot because Ken still owns that land. Fortuitously, that lot had access to the aforementioned limestone water source that goes into all of New Riff’s cooks and fermentations. Co-founder Jay Erisman believes it’s a big reason why New Riff’s whiskies taste so good in their youth.

So what were we doing in downtown Cincinnati today, then just across the river from Cincinnati at the New Riff barrel house? Selecting single barrels of New Riff Bourbon, of course! As we were driving up from Louisville this morning, Vic asked me what made New Riff my favorite distillery in Kentucky right now. “Because they make Kentucky whiskey on a traditional multi-story column still just like all the big boys—none of that pot-column hybrid stuff—and they age their whiskies in an old fashioned rickhouse, no different from the classic distillers we know and love,” I responded; “It’s exciting to have new blood in the game.”

For those who may be confused, in no way is New Riff a craft producer, or micro-distillery making some whiskey alternative. They’re simply a smaller version of everything we already enjoy. Their whiskey is honest and distinctive. Their vision is humble and community-driven. Their production is time-tested. As their company motto states, it’s simply a new riff on an old tradition.

Sitting down with Mollie, Jay, and Ken today—our industry partners of almost two years now at Mission—and selecting single barrels for the first time in person was a real treat and four hours wasn’t nearly enough time to soak it all in. Jay is a real historian of Cincinnati’s whiskey history and there’s a lot of info he shared with me that I want to feature on a future post. Needless to say, I had no idea of New Riff’s proximity to Cincinnati, a city I visited today for the first time. In the grand scheme of things, only a river separates MGP from Kentucky, Angel’s Envy from Indiana, and New Riff from Ohio. Maybe we shouldn’t get too bent of shape about the state’s distinction on our whiskey labels.

-David Driscoll

Kentucky: Day 2 - Jefferson's

Here’s what I can tell you about Jefferson’s that will intrigue you.

When you go to the Kentucky Artisan Distillers site, there’s a tour of the distillery and the bottling line where many brands (not just Jefferson’s) are dumped, vatted, and put into glass. The Pinhook Vertical Series 7 year old was being bottled as we walked through the facility and there was some Cream of Kentucky lined up as well. While the Jefferson’s distillery has a pot and column hybrid like some of the other small Kentucky producers, none of that juice has been bottled for public consumption under the Jefferson’s label. That detail will be relevant as we get to the barrel tasting.

Before tasting through the available single barrels, I asked Jefferson’s Chief Barrel Officer Dan Burke if we could walk through the warehouse where the barrels are matured to get a sense of their operation. We hiked through the lush green trees that separate the tasting room from the rickhouses and proceeded to tour the buildings. This is where things get interesting if you’re someone who likes to know where your whiskies come from.

I didn’t ask permission to share the information I gleaned from walking through the warehouse, so I won’t be posting any specifics here. What I will say is that a great number of the barrels from the Jefferson’s rickhouses have tags on them. Those tags also designate which brands own which barrels, so you can easily tell which barrels are owned by Jefferson’s specifically and which are being stored for other brands. Based on the tags I saw under the Jefferson’s lot, I couldn’t wait to head back into the tasting room for our single barrel sampling.

While the Jefferson’s Reserve is a marriage of four different Bourbons, the single barrel selections (bottled at 100 proof) are taken from a single distillery. According to Dan, one particular distillery makes up 65% of the Jefferson’s Reserve Blend with the other 3 comprising the remaining 35%. All of the single barrels Jefferson’s allocates to retailers come from that 65%. I can’t say for certain what that majority Bourbon is because it’s a proprietary secret. All I can do is deduce from what I saw in the rickhouse based on which distillery made up the lion’s share of casks.

Even if I’m wrong with that educated guess, the barrels I saw came from the best distilleries in Kentucky. The barrel we picked was more than six years of age and it wasn’t distilled in Indiana, so you can narrow it down from there.

-David Driscoll

Kentucky: Day 1 - Market Street

It’s been over five years since I’ve stayed at the AC Marriott in the East Market District of Louisville (also known as Nulu), and that was an in-and-out overnighter to pick out a few barrels and get back to California quickly—no real time to explore. I was emailing with a friend from Heaven Hill before arriving and he wrote to me:

“Louisville has changed a lot, and almost every night there are retailers, buyers, restaurant groups, whiskey societies—you name it—all selecting barrels on the Bourbon Trail.”

I could see it immediately from the Bourbon-focused boutique stores (not just the bottles, but clothing, books, lifestyle, etc) to the array of new bars and restaurants lining Market Street as you head east out to Butchertown. Nulu is bustling, even on a lazy summer Sunday evening, and it’s infused with an energy that far surpasses the early rumblings I saw almost a decade ago (when I probably should have bought a house in the neighborhood).

One of the new spots I was most excited to immediately try was Feast BBQ, a heralded location for everything non-vegan. It’s been open since the beginning of 2015, but I missed it on my last trip to Louisville and I made a beeline from the hotel to the front door as soon as we dropped our bags. Bourbon slushies with Jim Beam and ginger ale to start.

Since there were two of us, we broke it down into two plates and shared: brisket, pulled pork, collard greens, potato salad, mac and cheese, beans, cole slaw, white bread and pickles.

I honestly can’t tell you which side and which meat I enjoyed more. Obviously brisket is something we don’t see much of in Los Angeles (at least of this style and quality), so that was a treat, but I think the mac and cheese might have been the most impressive thing on the table—and I’m not even a mac and cheese person.

After dinner, we walked a block over to the Taj Bar and were instantly greeted by two labradoodles who were keen to lick our faces and jump up on our chests. After getting past the welcoming committee, we pulled up a stool at the bar and began chatting with the litany of dog enthusiasts lining the counter.

This is one half of the back bar at Taj, so there’s a great selection of Bourbon and rye waiting for you as you pick your poison. We opted for Old Forester 1920 and Heaven Hill Bonded as we chatted with everyone inside.

From there we wandered over to La Bodeguita de Mima, a 1950s Cuban-themed restaurant and rum bar that also sells cigars (and has a second Venezuelan spot in the back called Señora Arepa). It’s literally next door to the Marriott and that window to the right of the front is actually my room.

I’ve never seen anything this thematically wonderful in Louisville before and this is just one of the many rooms inside what is essentially an old house with stairs and various dining rooms of splendor. Imagine a bigger, brighter, more lively version of La Descarga in LA. We drank a glass of rum before bed, pondered the idea of a cigar, but decided to play it safe and get some rest for the days ahead.

-David Driscoll

Your Experience Vs. Mine

When I mentioned to a few friends that I was flying with Spirit Airlines directly from LAX to Louisville today, most of them grimaced and shuddered. 

“Have you ever flown on Spirit before?” one of them asked with a frown. “I’d take a connection with United over a direct flight with Spirit, even with the delay.”

I ignored it.

Then, after posting a quick photo of the terminal on social media this morning, and mentioning the rarity of a direct flight from California to Louisville, more people piled on. 

“If you actually get there,” one person commented on our Mission Facebook site; “It is Spirit Airlines, after all.”

“Hold on to your seat,” another friend messaged to me via Instagram.

“You guys are flying Spirit? Don’t you know?” sniped another.

Given the pandemic and the fact that just about every airline right now has its own horror stories, I was surprised that so many people had strong, vehement views about any particular company.

But do you know what happened? My flight took off on time. My seat was comfortable. The service was polite and professional. The ride was smooth. The cabin was quiet. The passengers were courteous. We landed earlier than expected. My luggage was in the baggage claim when I arrived. Zero complaints. Nothing but positive things to say.

Based on my single experience with Spirit Airlines, I would gladly fly with them again if today’s trip is representative of what I can expect moving forward. But, having only this one voyage to base my opinion on, clearly I’m not the best person to ask about the track record of the company. It worked out for me, but maybe not for others.

And that brings me to my point.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard a whiskey drinker, either online or at an event, make a definitive statement of quality about a brand or a batch of bottles after a single sip (or one 50ml sent to him in the mail), I’d be rich by now. 

Simultaneously, even when someone does have multiple takes with a whiskey brand, and proceeds to poo poo that label as a result of their own personal experience, it doesn’t necessarily mean you and I are going to feel the same way or encounter those same negativities.

Yet, if I had a dime for every time someone told me they’d shied away from a particular bottle or brand due to negative reviews online or from a friend, I’d—again—be a very wealthy man. 

You can’t always rely on the experience of other people.

If I had relied solely on the advice of friends and strangers, and avoided the direct flight to Louisville in lieu of a “better” airline, I’d be sitting in Detroit or Chicago right now, praying that my connecting flight wasn’t delayed or canceled due to the sheer chaos that is air travel at the moment. My luggage could be lost during the transfer. I might be waiting even longer due to weather issues in other parts of the country. 

Instead, I’m at the Marriott in downtown Louisville getting ready to have my first cocktail of the evening and deciding what I want to eat for dinner. I’m elated! It’s a balmy 84 degrees and I have additional hours to spend exploring the delights along Market Street while the sun is still shining.

Again, that’s not to say that the experiences of my friends and colleagues with Spirit Airlines are exaggerated or untrue, it’s just that they didn’t mirror my personal experience. Just like it’s possible to have bad service at a restaurant, or a rude bartender at the cantina on any given evening. That doesn’t mean someone else will encounter the same hostility.

And I can say the exact same thing about hundreds of wines and whiskies I’ve tried over the course of my career. Back in the day, I used to take great pleasure in finding fantastic casks from the least popular distilleries just to prove this point. My old boss used to do the same with “bad” vintages of Bordeaux. One time we had lunch with Frederic Engerer from Château Latour and he only poured wines from the worst vintages (all of which were incredible, of course) to teach us the same lesson.

If you’re willing to go out on a limb, life will often surprise you. In the case of Spirit Airlines, I’m certainly glad I gave it a chance. My personal experience was superb and I would take the direct flight from LAX over and over again if it’s this smooth in the future.

We’ll see about the way back!

-David Driscoll

A Kentucky Preamble

Hanging out at the Garage Bar in Louisville back in 2016

It’s been a busy week, especially given that I’m headed out to Kentucky this Sunday for a week of barrel tasting and distillery visits with most of the majors. I’m excited to land in Louisville as I haven’t been to Bourbon Country since the summer of 2019, which seems like an eternity ago after visiting multiple times a year for almost a decade. Louisville has long been one of my favorite places to hang out and I have a lot of wonderful memories attached to it, with its growing number of watering holes and delicious bites. I’m getting hungry and thirsty just thinking about it!

While I’m looking forward to the trip itself, my personal relationship with Bourbon right now is rocky at best. Our romance has been on the decline for a while now, but lately it’s been worse than usual. When you begin to associate one of your favorite beverages with a mindset that no longer appeals to your life’s philosophies, it makes drinking it far less enjoyable. On the whole, I’ve been avoiding Bourbon because it reminds me of the worst aspects of retail.

I’ve always looked at the romance of drinking via a character like James Bond, or the world’s most interesting man. My goal was and has always been to know as much about every liquid as I could, and to use that knowledge to improve my experiences and those of my friends and family. If I walk into an Italian restaurant, I want to know what to order from the wine list to pair with my meal. If I’m at a steakhouse, I want to know the right gin for my Martini. It’s about sophistication, of course, but it’s also quite practical. My ambitions with alcohol never involved being seen as an expert in a single category, but rather as knowledgeable across the board.

The backbar at the Garage in Louisville

What’s interesting to me, however, is that fewer and fewer people I encounter these days look at drinking through the eyes of someone like 007, where a worldly and all-encompassing suave is seen as desirable. Today’s ideal is more like the comic book guy on the Simpsons, where an obsession with a singular nerdism, coupled with a surly, sarcastic demeanor and an almost antagonistic approach to anything less than the best (“worst…whiskey…ever”) seems to be aspirational rather than embarrassing or off-putting (which it should be). But that’s the problem with getting older: subsequent generations have different motivations, which only reminds you of the fact you’re now out of touch.

I remember receiving an email from a customer back in 2016 after I posted the above photo from Louisville with the Garage’s backbar. He had asked me what we were drinking that night and I said something along the lines of: Maker’s 46, Johnny Drum, and Blanton’s. His response went something like this: “Oh man, why waste your time with Maker’s and Johnny Drum when there’s Stagg Jr. and E.H. Taylor available?” In a nutshell, that exchange is the embodiment of the mindset I’m desperately seeking to escape: this idea that at any given time we should be milking the opportunity to drink the rarest whiskies possible, rather than what might be appropriate for the moment.

The enjoyment of whiskey is what made you cool ten years ago, but today it’s what’s in your glass; just like it’s become more important to have Louis Vuitton plastered all over your clothes than to actually look stylish. Yet, I’m hoping that a week in Louisville will remind me of everything I love about Bourbon and that I’ll return with a fresh enthusiasm for what’s afoot in Kentucky. We’ll be live updating via the blog and Instagram site for the entire trip, giving you all the updates on your favorite distilleries like New Riff, Four Roses, Heaven Hill, Maker’s Mark, Angel’s Envy, and other Kentucky mainstays. 

The fun starts on Sunday!

-David Driscoll

Mission WINE & Spirits

Having worked in wine retail for more than thirteen years at this point, I’ll let you in on a little secret: you can tell how serious a wine store is by checking the back labels on their most prestigious European wines.

The name of the importer will tell you everything you need to know about where they’re sourcing their wine from (so long as you know your importers), boiling the situation down to one of two scenarios:

  • If their Bordeaux back labels list a major American distributor or wine portfolio as the importer, it means they’re buying from a local dealer, which means they’re paying the three-tier mark up. The local dealer is buying it from a negotiant in Bordeaux, importing it, and adding in an extra 15-25% along the way.

  • But if their Bordeaux back labels instead list a small or lesser-known name as the importer, it means they’re likely buying directly from France and using someone locally to clear the goods for a much lower price.

In order to buy directly from France and be successful, however, you have to have a few things at your disposal:

  • Money to pay for larger quantities of bottles

  • The ability to store and warehouse large quantities of bottles upon arrival

  • The ability to move volume in exchange for lower margins

  • A solid reputation among wine consumers to achieve that trust

Buying wine directly from France allows a wine retailer to be more competitive with its pricing, but it also requires a larger commitment because the shipping costs don’t make sense unless you can fill a container with cases.

In short, it requires commitment. Which is why you’ll find buyers for the most successful wine stores in America marching through Bordeaux each year, working out their deals directly from the source, rather than picking off whatever scraps get thrown their way stateside (often at a much higher mark-up).

-David Driscoll

Warehouse 1

Sometimes the booze industry has a sort of an uncanny psychic energy that moves through it, influencing the actions of large corporations.

Like the time I visited Hennessy many years back and told their blending team it would be cool to see something like a "Master's Blend" that came in a completely different bottle, and then proceeded to see that exact project come to fruition later in the year.

Or, like at the beginning of 2022, when Laphroaig launched its first-ever single barrel program and I requested a new set of samples that were exclusively from warehouse #1, then requested that my customized name be called "Warehouse 1" on the label.

"Why is this so important to you?" the team from Laphroaig asked.

"Because warehouse #1 is the iconic shoreline building that actually says Laphroaig on it, recognizable by whisky fans globally, and I want to be able to tell my customers that my barrel is from that specific warehouse," I told them.

"Do you think it matters?" they asked.

"Yes, absolutely," I answered.

I have to believe that the new 2022 edition of Cairdeas was already in the works this past January when we made our barrel selections and this conversation went down, but it's still interesting to see it shake out like this!

Great minds think alike? Perhaps. What's clear, however, is that we both know what our customers want. The new 2022 edition of Laphroaig Cairdeas is here, bottled at 52.2%, using barrels aged exclusively in warehouse #1 (and to be followed by a Mission Single Barrel exclusive also aged in warehouse #1 and also specifically called "Warehouse 1").

I've had at least thirty emails about this bottle in the last month alone, so expect these to go fast. One bottle limit per person. All in Pasadena for the moment, so use the notes section to move your bottle to a different location (or email me for help).

Laphroaig Cairdeas "Warehouse 1" Single Malt Whisky $89.99 (Limit 1)

-David Driscoll