750mL bottle - ~$28
- Purchased at Jax Liquor, Chattanooga, TN
Background
I generally keep my eyes open for “new to me” stuff when I go into any cigar store…or any liquor store. Sometimes it pays off. That seems to be the case when I went to Jax in downtown Chattanooga a couple weeks back. Blue Note Juke Joint Whiskey was relatively cheap and had a really cool bottle…after I bought it and got it home, I discovered it’s not bad tasting, either.
Blue Note crafts their whiskey in Memphis, Tennessee…the other end of the state from where I live. Juke Joint is at the bottom of their range, but it still uses whiskies that are a minimum of three years old and all Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey (“crafted in Memphis” generally means they buy the juice from a distillery in Kentucky, then blend it to taste at their own location).
The mash bill for this whiskey is 70% corn, 21% rye, and 9% malted barley. It is unfiltered and comes in at 93 proof.
Notes
Honestly, the reason I bought this whiskey was the bottle. It’s an attractive label with guitar motifs and blue foil. It exudes “cool”…and that’s what marketing is supposed to make you do…pick up something you might not have under other circumstances.
The whiskey itself had a nice medium-dark amber color in the glass and an aroma full of caramel and vanilla and molasses…and a slight nasal burn when I put my nose too close to the open top of the glass. From a little further away, there was more vanilla and malt aroma, almost like waffles cooking.
Taking a sip, I got flooded with that vanilla and sweet maltiness right up front, followed immediately by an alcohol burn that tended to obliterate other flavors. The only other thing that came out at me was some woodiness, but even that was muted by the vapors. I added some water to tame the beast. After that I got a lot more oak mixed in with the vanilla and molasses sweetness, along with notes of apricot and caramel. The water did the job of taming the vapors admirably.
I went with a Davidoff Special 53 to pair with this whiskey…high end cigar that cost more than the whole bottle of bourbon. But I felt like celebrating as this was the end of the weekend I had done back-to-back 12 mile walks (the first was technically a “hike” but that’s splitting hairs). I didn’t die, so I dipped into my stash of “really good stuff.”
I didn’t look at Blue Note’s website until after I had written all my tasting notes above, so I was gratified to see them note vanilla and apricot in their own notes. They also noted “allspice” which explains some off the other notes I picked up on but couldn’t describe…I need to bake more.
The cigar started off medium-plus in body with a complex, rich flavor. The bourbon added a good amount of sweetness to the mix and the cigar added earth and pepper. Blue Note Juke Joint has a nice medium-plus body of its own that goes well with almost any cigar fairly effortlessly…it won’t overpower much and not much will overpower it…and it just tastes good, especially when you add some water to it. I’m curious about trying some of the more specialized (and expensive) expressions off Blue Note in the future.
