Castle & Cairn

I recently have been working my way through a bottle of Blue Note Juke Joint  and enjoyed it's fruity profile but have had a tough time killing off the bottle due to a strange botanical off-note in the transition from palate to finish, somewhat reminiscent of vegetable clippings or fermenting tea. As has been my custom, I started absentmindedly dumping a few other bottles on my "death row" into it and a combination with a minority percentage of  Old Grand-Dad 114  seemed to be one of the better outcomes. A clear destination in mind, I recreated it in this 75/25 blend. How does it hold up? Vámonos! For the uninitiated, Whiskey Frankenstein is the practice of  whiskey blending at home  to create improved or interesting combos.  🧪Preparation I blended the two spirits in a 75/25 ratio to arrive at a 50ml sample, majority Blue Note. Final proof should be around 98.25. Whiskies were measured using a 100ml lab-quality graduated cylinder wielded with questionable ...

📚 Background: Now under the management of Jim Beam in Clermont Kentucky, the Old Grand-Dad brand was named by one Raymond B. Hayden after his grandfather Meredith Basil Hayden Sr. (incidentally the namesake of the Basil Hayden Brand, introduced by Beam in 1992). A truly historic line, the whiskey has been sold under the same name since 1840 and Hayden Sr's face still graces the front of the bottle. The old man was known for using a higher percentage of the more expensive rye in his distilling (the "more costly" small grains alluded to on the back of the bottle). Old Grand-Dad 114 is the highest proof offering of the roster which also features a 100-proof Bottled-in-Bond and an 80-proof budget version, alas reduced from 86 proof in 2013. Together, you may hear Old Grand-Dad and Old Overholt referred to as "The Olds", and Old Grand-Dad's distinctive orange and black visage has graced such cultural sensations as M*A*S*H and Mad Men . Though there have been r...