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I noticed one thing with the guys in the Slacker Advent group – after the halfway point is reached, it’s like we’re all a little more dialed in and our guesses get a little closer to the mark. That’s not saying we’re perfect, but the confidence in our guesses seems to grow and the stakes for getting the right guess (or close to it) become more competitive.
The one trend I noticed with the guesses for the December 14th blind is just how many participant’s tasting notes seemed to increase in breadth and scope. Also, this is perhaps the most we’ve ever agreed on a lot of particular tasting notes across the spectrum. Just look at all this green and yellow:
While the variety may be a little lacking on this one, the consensus is just the opposite. I was shocked at the amount of similar fruit notes that the guys picked up on as well as the overwhelming amount of tannic/bitter notes. This bottle either has a lot of age to it or has been double oaked… well at least that’s one takeaway that I would’ve guessed. In fact, three guys guessed that there was a secondary barrel involved somewhere in the process. Let’s look at the breakdown of guesses:
The fruit-forward, sweet and tannic nature of the blind bottle persuaded a lot of people that what they were drinking was a Buffalo Trace product while the spice notes convinced a couple that Willett was in the bottle. I personally went with Four Roses on account of what I felt like was it’s “high rye” nature and the abundance of fruits. But December 14th was not my best night because as we quickly found out, there was no rye in the mash bill at all. Instead, it was…
December 14th Reveal
…quite the opposite. A wheat whiskey?!
The inclusion of this bottle marks the second PHC bottle submitted in this year’s Advent and the second bottle to contain wheat in the mash bill (the other being a 2024 Maker’s Mark Cellar Aged). And just like Cellar Aged – which had large numbers of the group guessing bottles with high-rye content in the mash – this one also fooled a lot of people. I personally found it to be intoxicatingly good and awarded it with a score that showed that. Here’s the breakdown of what everyone thought:
This seemed to be a highly polarized bottle with 9 people scoring it above an 8.5 and 6 people scoring it in the 7’s. The notes seemed to reflect a kind of love-it or leave-it relationship with the bottle, but all of that is to say that it now sets at #4 out of the 10 bottles we’ve reviewed. Not bad!
Backstory on PHC 13 Year Wheat Whiskey
Just like other PHC releases, this one had two separate batches. They are only identifiable by looking at the proof. The batch that Hunter provided was Batch 2 (126.8 Proof) and Batch 1 was 127.4 Proof. These batches consisted of barrels that were some of the first ones filled with Heaven Hill’s Bernheim Wheat Whiskey mash bill (51% wheat, 37% corn, 12% malted barley). This was also the first time enthusiasts would get to taste that mash bill at cask strength. The diluted (and younger) version is sold as Bernheim 7-year-old Wheat Whiskey.
Heaven Hill aged the barrels for this whiskey on or near the top of Rickhouse Y on their Heaven Hill campus. This was one of Parker Beam’s favorite warehouses. I bring this up because being at the top likely contributed to the large oak and tannin influence that nearly every group member found in this bottle. The heat does some amazing things to a barrel, but leave it there too long and you’ll get an oaky, bitter mess. In my opinion, these were pulled right in the nick of time.
