E.H. Taylor, Jr. Collection, Wahehouse C Tornado Surviving Bourbon

stats: Kentucky Straight Bourbon, Bottled in Bond, 50%, $65

When I wrote about the Glengoyne Teapot Dram last year, I mentioned that I was a sucker for a whiskey with a great story. I bought that bottle shortly before leaving Scotland in the spring of 2012, at the end of a two week visit. But a few months prior to that I had picked up another bottle which also had a great story; E. H. Taylor Warehouse C Tornado Surviving Bourbon.

I have quite a few unopened bottles in my collection and this is one that was long overdue for inspection. Buffalo Trace introduced the E. H. Taylor Jr. Collection in 2011, and its inception was likely prompted by the success of their Antique Collection. But this group is a little different.

While the Antique Collection has evolved gradually over the years, its bottlings are always put out as annual releases, pricing is consistent across the range, and what they offer from one year to the next is usually the same (except for some age and proof variations).

With the E. H. Taylor Collection, there have been six different offerings so far. Two of them, the Single Barrel Bourbon and the Small Batch Bourbon are regularly available, and the latter is at a significantly lower price point than the rest of the collection. The next two, the Straight Rye and the Barrel Proof Bourbon are more limited and my go in and out of availability. The last two, the Warehouse C Tornado Surviving Bourbon and the Old Fashioned Sour Mash Bourbon were special one-time products that were released in 2012 and 2011, respectively, and neither will be made again.

Buffalo Trace has recently received label approvals for two new additions to the series; they are bourbon bottlings whose themes relate to how the barrel staves were seasoned and treated. I’m guessing we’ll see the new members of the collection by the end of the year.

As for the Warehouse C Tornado Surviving Bourbon, in the spring of 2006 a tornado touched down in Frankfort, Kentucky, damaging two of the warehouses at Buffalo Trace. Warehouse B was empty at the time, but Warehouse C contained 24,000 barrels of whiskey. Much of the upper portion of the north wall and a portion of the roof along that side of the building were torn off. Somehow, the barrels of whiskey inside all made it through unscathed. But the barrels on the upper two floors of that part of the warehouse were exposed to the elements; wind, rain and direct sunlight, for several months until repairs could be completed.

Those barrels remained in place and continued aging until late in 2011, when 93 of them were batched together for this special bottling. Their ages ranged from 9 years and 8 months to 11 years and 11 months. The lot, on average, had lost 64% of its contents to evaporation.

The rate of loss through evaporation can vary with warehouse location, and is typically faster on the upper floors of a warehouse. As a reference, we can look at the evaporation levels from the 2014 Buffalo Trace Experimental collection that compared bourbons from different floors of a warehouse. Those were all 12 year olds from Warehouse K. That’s great because the age is close and Warehouse K has a similar construction to Warehouse C; earthen floors and an all wooden internal structure that is surrounded by a brick shell. The biggest difference is that K has nine floors and C has six floors. The levels of evaporation for the warehouse K experiment are: 27% for floor 1, 25% for floor 5, and 49% for floor 9. Clearly, the process speeds up when the barrels are out in the open.

Enough background, let’s move on to the bourbon.

On the nose, the aromas are big and dense, but not too sharp. Leather, shoe polish, clay, wood from an old barn, a hint of dry spice (maybe ground allspice). I find it reminiscent of George T. Stagg.
Surprisingly, my first impression on the palate is that it’s a little hot. It’s very viscous on the tongue. There seems to be a bit of sweetness (perhaps even maple) up front mingled with complex barrel notes; oak, char, vanilla, etc. But that is short lived, heat and fiery spice notes (cinnamon red hots, peppermint) quickly come to the fore.
As it moves through the finish, the blazing spice notes grow and expand, building in layers. It eventually reaches a zenith, and then slowly recedes.

It took me a few ounces to wrap my head around this one and really start to appreciate it. I would liken this to a heavily peated single malt; the spice comes in waves, building and reverberating. There are some background flavors that try to round things out, but savoring this whiskey is all about hanging on to your hat for the wild, spice-driven roller coaster ride and seeing where it goes. I found that taking a healthy sip and rolling it on the tongue for a few seconds before swallowing maximized the effects that I was enjoying.

I tried adding a few drops of water, and while it did tame the fire a bit, it didn’t really bring anything additional out of the whiskey. I like this one, but it is far different than what I was expecting. I’m going to let the bottle sit, partially consumed, for six months or so then revisit it and see how it has evolved. I’ll put my findings up as a comment on this post.