From $11 bottles to $100,000 dollar glasses, Whiskey Critic Richard has tried over a thousand different spirits. We talk hidden gems, great values, industry secrets and more. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Cheap Beers.
Interview with Whiskey Critic Richard Thomas
Speakers:
Nick VinZant: Profoundly Pointless Host
Richard Thomas: Whiskey Critic and founder/editor of website The Whiskey Reviewer
Show notes and topics covered
How should you drink whiskey
What is the best value whiskey
What does a $100,000 dollar whiskey taste like
What are the best whiskeys you have tried
Nick VinZant 0:12
Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode, good whiskey and cheap beer.
Richard Thomas 0:22 And it was just very good stuff, not great stuff, but very good. And it was only $11 a bottle. And for $11 a bottle, it was the best buy on the planet. A lot of times what a novice in particular is doing is they're Miss identifying the effect of too much alcohol on their senses as being this, you know, like kind of harsh taste. And this caused the whole business to crash. Both in Scotland, Ireland, United States, Canada, everybody was sitting on top of a ocean of whiskey.
Nick VinZant 1:04 I want to thank you guys so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So if you're anything like me, you've been drinking at least a little bit more over the last couple of months. Now I I always go cheap. I drink the cheap stuff, because I'm just generally a cheap person. But it got me thinking about Alright, well, what's what's really good? What do the experts say? Is the really good stuff to drink. Our first guest is an expert in whiskey. He runs the website, the whiskey reviewer, and he has tried thousands, thousands of different whiskies. And not only does he have this fascinating insight into what makes us particular drink good. But he's also got some inside secrets about really what goes in to making all of the different drinks that you see at the liquor store and at the gas station or wherever you buy your alcohol. This is whiskey critic, Richard Thomas. So how many whiskies do you think that you've tried in your lifetime?
Richard Thomas 2:21 That's a difficult question to put a finger on. But I did a book called American whiskey, which was about, you know, distillers from coast to coast. So I've done notes on over 800. And so therefore, including the stuff I haven't done notes on, because it hasn't been commercially released, or, you know, I was just enjoying dinner and didn't want to bother with it, or what have you. That would probably push it into the four, low four digit number range, somewhere between 1200 and 15.
Nick VinZant 2:52 Wow. But how different are most of those? Right? Did they all kind of run together eventually?
Richard Thomas 3:00 Yeah, well, within a particular category, maybe? You know, it's kind of like if I were to be talking about comparing bourbon to scotch, which are the two big ones. Yeah, I mean, basically, if you try to do 300 Bourbons, and then you try to do 300, scotch whiskies, they will be very different from each other. And you will not be mixing the two in your head in any way, shape, or form. Our own perceptions of what we taste and smell and experience can change with a lot of other subjective factors, like basically, you know, what did you eat? How are you feeling physically? And then of course, there's just simply what you like, what you don't like, some people have genetic issues, like, you know, there's a genetic tag i was i was reading about last year. And I would point to people about this if they didn't like particular things that really, really amps up the negative response to bitter flavors, which means there's a whole, you know, swathes of food and drink that just, they don't like it, period, and there's no way that they can, because these things are very variable, and you have to try to take your time with them in order to, you know, mitigate that.
Nick VinZant 4:21 So when you like when you evaluate a whiskey, what are you doing, kind of walk me through the steps that you're looking at, like, how do you go about tasting it, that kind of stuff?
Richard Thomas 4:32 Well, you know, basically, I will pour now pour a simple DRAM size or shot size, so we're talking like 30 to 50 milliliters. And the first thing I will do is give it just a preliminary nosing just to see if the alcohol content is too strong. This is especially the case because cask strength, and entry proof whiskies which can be very potent indeed, have become more and more powerful. popular in recent years, and sometimes No, basically, it's a, it's a good bargain, especially if the quality of whiskey in question is quite high, because you've got more stuff in your bottle, you know, like a concentrated cleaner, as opposed to the regular strength, I mean, you know, bring it up, and it burns your nostrils. So there's that check, which is basically like, Okay, do I need to dial this down or not. And then, you know, you do the same kind of thing that you would be told to do on any distillery tour or guided tasting with a brand ambassador with someone like me, which is, you know, you start by nosing it, you keep your mouth open a little bit to allow for that olfactory circulation. And you get acquainted with it that way. And you take a little sip, and then you notice it some more, and then you start sipping on it. And, you know, you draw that out, because as you proceed through it, you know, you'll pick up on things that you didn't notice at first, it's, it's really much like, you know, you get acquainted with people, especially with a new whiskey, it's basically like going out on a first date, getting to know someone, so you take your time with it. When I'm doing an evaluation of something that's new, it usually takes me 45 minutes to an hour.
Nick VinZant 6:21 So the first step necessarily, like that's not really gonna give you an idea of what it tastes like.
Richard Thomas 6:27 Yeah, I mean, spirits in particular, are very high proof. Even, you know, like basic spirits that are bottled up like 40%, alcohol by content, or 80 proof. They do have a tendency to, at least initially overwhelm your senses. A lot of people, for example, when they're dealing with bourbon, there's this flavor call that they like to call barrel char. A lot of times what a novice in particular is doing is they're Miss identifying the effect of too much alcohol on their senses, as being this, you know, like, kind of charish taste.
Nick VinZant 7:10 So why whiskey? What about whiskey drew you into it?
Richard Thomas 7:15 Well, that's, that's very much tied into my youth. I mean, I was born and raised in Kentucky, and I am a Gen X her. So you know, I'm a very mature kid of the 70s in the 80s. Now, in this state Back then, I mean, that was like the Nadir of the whiskey business around the world in the 70s. The taste of the boomers in particular began to change. It's something that people in the alcohol industry talk a lot about, actually, you know, they moved away from whiskey and towards clear spirits like vodka, and got more and more into wine as well. And this caused the whole business to crash. Both in Scotland, Ireland, the United States, Canada, everybody was sitting on top of a ocean of whiskey that they couldn't sell, you know, it was looked at as a very kind of working class blue collar kind of drink. So it wasn't a celebrated as this, you know, source of regional and national pride the way that it is today. And so for me, the beginning of all of this was one day when I was 17 years old, I was looking at feature on a map called Glen's Creek. And I thought that that would make for some good outdoor exploring. So I drove my car over there, I parked it on a road called McCracken pike and I got off my bicycle a lot of back and began pedaling around for way that I thought I could safely access Glen's Creek because it was all on private property. And I didn't want to get you know my mind, but shut up rock salt, by some angry local farmer. So I'm trying to figure out how to get down there. And as I'm pedaling along, I came across a trio of what looked like abandoned industrial sites, one of them very industrial looking, but the other two were quite different because they had these you know, one of them was a kind of pho castle that was falling into disrepair. When I came back from this trip to like, what the heck was going on down there? I discovered that these were three distilleries and the fact that two of them were even as you know, kind of, you know, already falling into disrepair, semi ruined, you know, complexes were quite beautiful. And that kind of gave me my first hint that there was more to this story of Kentucky bourbon than I had been led to believe. And those three distilleries in the road today are now Woodford Reserve, capital and key and the Glen Creek distillery. They're all they've all they've all been renovated.
Nick VinZant 10:00 So how do you tell the difference between something that's bad necessarily or just not for you?
Richard Thomas 10:10 Well, that actually is a really good question. And my usual answer to that, because I'm not a snob, is, um, you know, basically, if you like it, it's good. That's, that's the simplest way to get at it, if you will like it, it's good. And, you know, it's I encourage people to not let people like me, for example, influence their thinking on things too much. You know, I, in fact, I think that, you know, if you find a critic who is very snotty about these things, and insists that I know the difference that everyone should adhere to, as far as what's good, and what's not what's excellent, and what's terrible, and, and they tell you that only one type of glassware is really all that good. I mean, you know, Jimmy Russell, he was, you know, quite an institution in the Kentucky bourbon industry. I mean, you know, he's the master distiller wild turkey for decades. And the first time we ran into Jimmy was hanging out at keman, which is the local horse track, you're in Lexington, Kentucky, and he was drinking as well turkey out of a Dixie cup. So some things you know, are good tools that help you get the most out of your experience. And of course, having nice trappings is fun. But at the end of the day, snobbery is defining how much you love something by how much you hate it. So, and I would rather not spend any time hating on anything. So as far as what's bad, I mean, I tend to approach it from I don't think most people will like this, you know, as you're reading, but different people say about different things, and developing your own tastes, you should try to gravitate to the people who mirror you the most. And then you have a good buy.
Nick VinZant 12:05 I mean, I remember when I kind of first hit legal drinking age to go into a store and actually buy it. It seemed like there was just a couple of brands, you know, jack daniels, Jim bean, and maybe one other thing. Now you go in there, and there's aisles full of it. Like how do you sort through it all?
Richard Thomas 12:23 Oh, well, that's, that's where the having the internet around is certainly a big help. Because you know, as you're sitting there looking at it, you can just whip out your phone and plug certain stuff in and find out what's what. One of the bigger issues these days with the plethora of brands that are sitting on the shelves and liquor store now is, you know, who made what, which comes up a lot. I mean, basically, just because it says that we're from old timey whiskey distillery doesn't necessarily mean there really is a old timey whiskey distillery. A lot of companies are basically just bottlers. You know, they'll buy stock whiskey aged out of distillery. And that isn't theirs. And, you know, they'll take charge of blending it, which is an underappreciated art in the United States. I mean, basically, you know, when you ate a barrel of whiskey, how it's, you know, to always come up within certain parameters, but exactly what you'll have at the end of that process, you know, it's not necessarily fixed proposition, the best example, in fact of trying to control for that would be Maker's Mark, those guys spend a lot of money on labor, in terms of doing what's called barrel rotation. So they have their warehouses, and they're moving their barrels around the warehouses in a pattern that is designed to achieve, you know, the most consistent maturation possible, so that the difference from one barrel to another is almost nil. And so when they dump all those barrels into a tank, and the tank feeds into bottling, they don't actually have to do this process of trying to try and tune it. So you know, they put a lot of investment in how they age it so that you know, in terms of moving stuff around in the labor that's involved that so they don't have to do a lot of work at the end of the process, when they have to bottle this stuff. Most other people do it kind of differently, where they'll have like a nine floor warehouse. And you know how the barrels at the top of the warehouse come out will be very different from how the barrels at the bottom do and that's predictable. But two barrels that are sitting right next to each other because of wood or any other factor could also come out quite differently. And taking like 500 of the things in a batch and fine tuning that so you wind up with a consistent product but you know bottling run after bottling Run after Baldwin is both uh, you know, there's a lot of skill and a little bit of art to it. And a lot of Americans don't appreciate that very much the way that the Scots do because the Scots the idea of buying whiskey from like, you know, 20 or 25 separate distilleries, each with their own separate identities, and putting it together into a single product is normal. So over here, you don't get that. And so you have a lot of companies that do this business, they'll source the whiskey and they'll bottle themselves. And, you know, if you don't actually look up who they are, what they're doing, you don't really know what is what it is that you're actually getting.
Nick VinZant 15:40 I didn't know that I just assumed that whoever's name was on the bottle was controlling the whole process of making it all the way to shipping it.
Richard Thomas 15:48 Now there's a there's a distillery in southern Indiana these days, they call it MGP. It's leftover from the breakup of the secrets Corporation, some 20 years ago. And basically, they are at this point, the single largest producer of basically, I guess you could call it whiskey available on the open market, I like to call that stock whiskey. So more or less if you're, if you want to start up your own whiskey brand, and you don't want to build a distillery and you need to get hundreds of barrels of whiskey that's been aged for at least a few years to get started. More than likely, you're going to go to MGP and ask them for a lot of brands that are around especially in rye whiskey are based in this way. And for a long time, they were pretty much the only source for this stuff. But as demand for their own products picked up. They increasingly had to close that spigot, because they needed their stock for themselves and for their own products. So there was no need to sell to anyone else. But nothing, you know, because the demand is so high other players have entered the market. I mean, there's a distillery. It's now one of the largest in the state down in Bardstown Bardstown bourbon company. And their primary business model is being a contract distiller for sourced brands, um, you know, basically, they've, I think the last time I talked to them, they had 30 something clients, and, you know, more or less, they were just like, you know, they, they, they make a deal. They make what the client asks them to make they agent in their warehouses, and they either ship it to the client for bottling or arrange bottling, you know, themselves. And, yeah, that's, you know, like, when you look at the liquor store, and they're, if they're doing 30, something brands, it's a pretty good bet that several of them are now customers of Bardstown bourbon company, and several more, our customers GP up in Indiana, and a few more or sourcing from somebody in Canada or sourcing from, you know, some small, smaller distillery that might be closer to them, or what have you. So a lot of brands, you know, they don't actually own a distillery, or they want to, but they, you know, that's another thing that's a part of this, you know, a lot of the smaller companies is basically, you know, they want to get it still in business. But that's a lot of investment, and hardware. And then you have to make the whiskey and you have to put it up for maturation for two years, four years, six years, eight years. It's a lot of money to tie up with the process. And certainly you don't want to start building up your brand. Only once you have a good product to sell. Because that could be a decade later.
Nick VinZant 18:51 That makes sense. Because I always look at these companies and like, wait a minute, this is a new thing. Yeah, they start making this 10 years ago. And that kind of exact question, right? Like they just so you can essentially start up a brand and six months later, you've got a 10 year old whiskey.
Richard Thomas 19:08 Yeah, yeah, you can do that. At this age finding 10 year old whiskey that's, you know, stock whiskey, you know, in barrels is available for that kind of thing. That would be hard to do and very expensive. But you could find four or five year old stuff, and you know, buy a bunch of it and bottle some of it now and then do your 10 year old A few years later, something along those lines. That's what a lot of people are actually have been doing. Since 2014 2016. You know, a decent American whiskey, it's mature at about four years that's properly aged at six to nine. middle aged at about 9012. And it's really old about 15 years, and scotch and Irish. is even more so. So it's a business where you really kind of you can't even, you don't have to be thinking about stuff that's so far in the future that you have no way of really knowing what's going to be happening by the time that you get there.
Nick VinZant 20:15 Yeah, that would be a definite challenge, right? Like, let's make the product for 2032. We actually have a bunch of listener submitted questions that I think kind of cover a lot of topics as well. So Okay, are you ready for some listener submitted questions?
Richard Thomas 20:31 Hit me,
Nick VinZant 20:32 most expensive whiskey you have ever tried.
Richard Thomas 20:39 Just a few weeks ago, I was writing a piece about what the most expensive scotch whiskies in the world are. And one of the things that got like, at the top of this list was this 50 year old MacAllan. But you know, it was it's both 50 years old and a 50 year old collectible, because the version that I'm talking about was bottled in 1983. So basically, it's like, I think when this stuff the market, it could be remembering this wrong. But like in 1983, it was being sold for 50 British pounds a bottle. And nowadays, if you want to get this stuff, it's over 100 grand. Holy. Yeah. I've tried that. And I think that is the most expensive thing that has passed my lens. Was it? Was it worth it? Like, I didn't buy it. I didn't buy it. And in fact, at the time that I tried it, it wasn't where it was, it was worth five figure amount of money, but not a six figure amount of money. But yeah, it was one of these things where I was at a show and someone was like, Hey, I have a little flask of the 1983 50 year old MacAllan. And so we sat down, and he's the kind of person that would have it would be bringing it to this kind of place. And so yeah, I got to try it. And it was the blind. But you know, keeping in mind the fact that the amount of money that it costs them was the equivalent of buying a nice new car. And now it's the equivalent of buying like a super luxury car. You know, the questions of whether or not it's worth it entirely and scaled what your disposable income is. I mean, you know, if you have the kind of money where you think that dropping 300 or $3,000, on a bottle of alcohol is, you know, not going to hurt you. It's not going to be painful. But yeah, it's totally worth it. But if that is a lot of money to you, and it's a painful expense to park with it, then No, it's not. You know, those things are very relative whether or not it's worth it. You know, is it was it worth it? Yes, it's worth it. Is it worth $100,000? a bottle? I don't have $100,000 to spend on anything. So no, not to me.
Nick VinZant 23:17 That makes sense. And I guess like the person, the person buying it for $100,000, that's probably like, 100 bucks to somebody else.
Richard Thomas 23:24 Yeah. You know, people are just fazed by things like that, not me.
Nick VinZant 23:30 Is, is when you look at though, like the price range of whiskey, is there a sweet spot in there where you can get something that's a really good quality, but not that expensive? Like, is there a sweet spot pricing wise,
Richard Thomas 23:44 there are certain items that are a little pricey, but I think they're worth the amount of money that you would pay for it. One example of this is, mixers, 10 year old rye, which is a single barrel. I love that stuff. And if you can get it for $150, because some retailers will mark this up steeply. But if you can get it for 150, I think it's worth 150. And there are a lot of things that you know, that are in that kind of range where they're like $100, or $150 or $200. And for most people that is like, you know, a birthday present to sell, or Christmas presents itself kind of price range. You know, it's it's expensive, but it's not terribly so it's not you know, it's the kind of thing that you know, you can splurge on it realistically,
Nick VinZant 24:35 what's your favorite, cheap whiskey, like the kind of rott gut stuff?
Richard Thomas 24:44 Um, my drinking is, I guess you could call it subsidized because, you know, people sent me things that they want me to try them. But let me try to think I that's the question I haven't thought about in a long time, like what's actually really, really cheap. You know, like, sometimes Simple like Jim Beam white label, you know, it's I treat it as sort of the benchmark for what bourbon is supposed to be because it is the best selling of the bunch. And it's not very expensive. You know, where I live, it's about $13 a bottle. And I mean, you know, seriously, there's there's craft beer, getting a six pack will cost you more than that. And it's not remarkable, but it's still just plain good stuff. You know, when I get asked, like, what is an example, right gut, one of the things I like to point to is this stuff called Kentucky gentleman. And there are actually two different types of Kentucky gentlemen, one is a bourbon and that is a very subpar bourbon. And then underneath it is blended whiskey. And the blended whiskey really is just awful. I do not like it at all, but there's a lot of cheap stuff that is good. And presents big, big bargains for the amount of money that you spend. Of course, the best examples of that are disappearing one by one, there used to be this thing here in Kentucky, it was the kind of it was something that you know, if you're coming, coming from out of state, you should go to a liquor store trying to find it and buy a cap case and take it home. It was made by Heaven Hill, it was Heaven, Hell, six year old bottles bought, which was only a Kentucky really, you couldn't get it anywhere else. But here. And it was just very good stuff. Not great stuff, but very good. And it was only $11 a bottle. And for $11 a bottle, it was the best buy on the planet. They don't do that anymore. You know, worried about it started to get around. And so more and more often, you know, you weren't sure people had it, because tourists would grab it. Which, you know, I appreciated that very much. I was basically like, well, it makes my life a little harder. But that's okay, you know, more people enjoying it, that's fine. And, you know, I I know how to take care of my needs. So that's okay. And then, you know, haven't held caught on to how popular this stuff was getting and decided that they could do something with that in terms of marketing. So they would do it. They turned it from a six year old into a seven year old. They released it nationally and they raised the price from $11 to 40. And that's that's the kind of thing that happens with these, these sleeper whiskies that are really cheap, and they're really good. These days, they can't stay that way for very long as a few years of people buzzing about them.
Nick VinZant 27:57 better better way to add water to whiskey straight water or an ice four.
Richard Thomas 28:04 Oh, well given that I spend a lot of time not you know, out in the summer and not in air conditioning, I have absolutely nothing against putting big blocks of ordinary ice into a glass of whiskey. And I do tend to look at that as primarily a climate thing. You know, like when it's when it's wintertime, you know, autumn early spring I'm not drinking chilled anything. So I switched strictly to putting a splash of water
Nick VinZant 28:43 coolest person you've ever had a drink with
Richard Thomas 28:47 just just the most all around cool time I ever had drinking somebody before. was a you know I was up in Scotland and I was meeting with Alan Winchester is the master distiller at the Glenlivet and that was just one of those situations where between him and who else was there that was the coolest you know bottle of scotch at overkill just simply because you know the conversation was so great. The time was so interesting you know it's just a very very well spent kind of thing where you came out you disrespect that was that really hit the nail on the head that was just an awesome time.
Nick VinZant 29:32 Last last question for me if you had to give a top three what would be in your top three?
Richard Thomas 29:41 Well, my top three I get that a lot like what are your favorite things to drink? What are your things to do this that or the other thing and I tend to think of it in terms of go to you know, it just basically like because go twos are more accessible, right? Like I could I could talk about the the all time mind blowing experiences like you know, the the super expensive MacAllan that I just mentioned before or drinking 28 year old Irish single pot still whiskey straight from Port pipe at the new Middleton distillery, things like that. But you know, that's not like normal stuff that everybody can appreciate. And what's on my shelf right now in terms of go to what have I got out? Let's see Well, before I mentioned the mixers, 10 year old rye, I've the mixers, 10 year old, single barrel bourbon, and that's on my shelf. And that's the priciest thing that's there. Right now I've got a large toasted barrel because it's new, and it's wonderful for kind of like a desert whiskey. I've got conus brimstone, which is super smoky. If you're into that kind of thing. Wild Turkey Rare Breed rye. And I brought this up because they just reinstituted it. knob Creek, small batch nine year old. And you know, any of those things would be on my list of go to favorites.
Nick VinZant 31:14 That's really all the questions I had. what's coming up next review? How can people kind of find out more about you?
Richard Thomas 31:21 Well, let's see. So my writing is here, there and everywhere. I'm the owner and the editor of the whisky reviewer, which is this point of fairly well known whiskey issues website. And of course, they're the books that I've written or contributed to the last one, which, like I said, we launched that aquarii is American whiskey. And right now in writing fairly steadily for chilled magazine, and Vine, Pear.
Nick VinZant 31:52 I want to thank Richard so much for joining us if you want to connect with him. We have a link to him on our social media or Profoundly Pointless on Instagram and Twitter. And we have also included in the RSS feed that's on this podcast