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I’ve never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the toolshed. So when I tell you that I was today year’s old when I finally put it all together that MPG (Ross & Squibb, Luxco, whatever you want to call it) has essentially themed their whole brand identity around the Prohibition era, you’d be right to tell me “you dummy.”
I have written a lot about Remus products and generally know them inside and out, but I never put together that every release was basically linked to a different person or event that occurred during the Prohibition years. It even took my neighbor, Brad, to point this out to me when I was sharing my sampled of Remus Babe Ruth Reserve the other night. Somebody out there please tell me that I wasn’t the only one that didn’t catch on to this until now.
Remus Babe Ruth Reserve
Backstory aside, Luxco/Ross & Squibb seem to be turning over every stone for relatable culture from the 1920’s. They already named the Remus line from a famous bootlegger and then kept the good times going with names like Volstead (The Act that put Prohibition into place), Gatsby (the famous novel painting a picture of how the high-life was in the 1920s) and now Babe Ruth. I personally predict we’ll see “Remus Herbert Hoover,” “Remus Charles Lindbergh” and “Remus Stock Market Collapse” over the next ten years.
Babe Ruth and his accomplishments need no introduction. His career spanned from before Prohibition (1914) to shortly after Prohibition (1935), so that makes him the perfect candidate for a brand that focuses on the Gilded Age/Prohibition to fixate on. The more interesting story is how a company like Luxco/Ross & Squibb managed to talk the estate of Babe Ruth into utilizing his name to sell booze. Babe loved to drink, but his preferred brown spirit was actually Scotch – Dewar’s to be exact. So it’s odd that a brand wants to tie his name to bourbon.
Even more strange was the decision to use the Great Bambino’s name on a really high-rye bourbon. Granted, this is the style that MGP is known for, but a thought occurred to me: “why not use this opportunity to draw more attention to their malt whiskey?” After all, Babe was said to really love Scotch and we’ve all been tracking that MGP has been making a malt whiskey for a while. I’m guessing that marketing didn’t want to fight with online know-it-alls that American Malt Whiskey and Scottish Malt Whiskey were two different things.
Easter Eggs
There are a lot of Easter Eggs hidden all over every bottle of Remus Babe Ruth. For starters, the number of bottles (10,624) directly correlates to the number of “At Bats” he had. Your bottle number allows you to view information for what happened during that AB by scanning the QR code on the back of the bottle. My bottle is 4,816 and the link says it was a plate appearance on August 28, 1925 with no home run.
Next we see that this bourbon is a blend of three different mash bills. The number “3” was chosen because that was Babe Ruth’s number. Doing a deeper dive into those mash bills tells us that the blending team used MGP’s classic “High Rye” Bourbon (LBSV – 60% corn, 36% rye, 4% malted barley), a 49% ryed bourbon (LISV – 51% corn, 39% rye, 10% malted rye) and a bourbon that contains 44% rye in the mash bill and which I’ve never heard of before. All of these components are said to 6-to-7-years-old. That’s something I’ll revisit later in the review when we talk about value.
Finally, the topper should be acknowledged for its design cues from the end of a bat. There have been other baseball-themed bottles in the past like Field of Dreams and Coopestown Doubleday and neither of them have ever thought to use a topper like this. It feels pretty nice in the hand as well.
Babe Ruth Reserve gives you all of this while putting it in a very stylish glass bottle with callbacks to the “Art Deco” era. The price tag is set at $150 as well. But is it worth that much? Let’s find out. I sampled this neat in a glencairn.
Tasting Notes
Nose: The nose has a healthy dose of classic MGP scents. I’m finding typical brown sugar, seasoned oak and cinnamon spice aromas with each sniff. The one note that seems to be new (kind of) is chocolate. I’m wondering if that’s solely because of the malted rye component of the 49% mash bill because malted rye and malted wheat have a lot of chocolate notes to me. Looking further, there are plenty of fruit notes to be found with cherry and citrus rind. I even find a bit of pine needle notes like I normally would. All-in-all, this isn’t a huge departure from the standard MGP profile, but the extra chocolate and fruit notes make it interesting.
Palate: This drinks very rye-forward. But there are also sweet molasses and brown-sugar notes, too. So this just barely misses the mark of being confused for a rye whiskey – which could be a good or a bad thing depending on what you like. There are definitely traits from both sides of the aisle as the session goes on. I find pine needles, anise/fennel and citrus just like I would in MGP’s 95/5 rye whiskey, but I also find the bourbon-y layers that I would in the LBSV recipe like cherries, cinnamon, oak and heavy vanilla cream. I also found a tiny amount of chocolate after really concentrating. This is a satisfying pour overall. But once again, not much that will shock you.
Finish: The high rye aspect keeps the finish popping with rye-spice, citrus, licorice and chocolate. The bourbon side of things keeps it sweet and also slightly fruity. The finish is a high point in terms of length and general enjoyability. It doesn’t get too dry or bitter – it’s just right.
Score: 8/10
Rating Remus Babe Ruth was kind of easy. It has the same enjoyability and depth of flavors as other MGP bottles around these specs, so it was instantly familiar. I originally started off with a score of “7.5/10” in mind after my first sip, but as the session went on, the extra layers of flavors kept adding to my enjoyment – so I added to the rating. If you think that the 60/36/4 mash bill can get a little boring at times, Babe Ruth is here to add some extra spice (figuratively and literally) to your perception.
Final Thoughts
This is the part where I typically bring up the value of a bottle and tie it in with my opinion on if you should buy one or not. This may come off as a little negative, but before I knew the backstory and the finer points of this bottle, I thought this was above average for the $150 price tag. It was only after I began doing my research and was able to recognize the genuine effort MGP/Luxco took into making this product. Then I began to warm up to it more. Some of you may not like to hear this, but my opinion changed a little bit after that and I felt more of a connection with it.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that if this bottle means something to you or fits in a genre that you’re interested in, it’s probably a good buy. Anymore, it feels like “$150 is the new $120” in terms of bottle pricing and this is right on the cusp of being acceptable. But if you’re an enthusiast that normally has a lot of fear of missing out (FOMO), then let me calm you down for a minute and tell you that you’d get similar enjoyment from a bottle of Remus Highest Rye Single Barrel.
Like most bottles that revolve around baseball (like the ones I listed earlier), Remus Babe Ruth has a wider appeal than I’m giving it credit for. There are people that absolutely love connecting the two and I’m here for it. If you fall into this category, then this bottle is the absolute best example of a bottle that ties America’s national pastime together with America’s native spirit. It doesn’t get much more American than that.