Buffalo Trace White Dog – The Review
Posted on September 30, 2010 | By The Bon-Vivant | 2 Comments
After a long wait, Buffalo Trace has made limited amounts of White Dog available in California. With great excitement I was able to purchase a 375 ml. bottle at Ledger’s Liquors in Berkeley (a most excellent liquor store) for about $20.00. To get an initial idea of White Dog and what it is, please see our post from April.
Several of us convened on a pleasant summer evening to taste “The Dog.” Tasters were myself (a.k.a. the Enabler), the Bon-Vivant, associate Mike, and the Palate.
The Enabler – *Snort* Yargle!
The Bon-Vivant – Mama.
Mike – Wuck?
The Palate – Tequila! Well, maybe that is just the hint of cornchips and lime/citrus that I smell.
The Enabler – uuuhhhhhhhhh!
The Bon-Vivant – *wheeze*
Mike – Corn, yeah, I get a little of that. Like corn mixed with propane or something.
The Palate – A hint of apple (and by that I mean the slowly rotting, fermenting fruit) and a bit of orange.
The Enabler – oh. heavens.
The Bon-Vivant – *cough, hack, spit*
Mike – People pay money for this?
The Palate – It is extremely warm in the mouth. A fairly long finish. While not a sipping whiskey, I think that this might make an interesting margarita. A Dogarita if you will.
The Enabler – *wheeze* Smoooooooth.
Smooooth!
“Well dawgies!” (Channeling my inner Jed Clampett-Jed was always very fond of white lightning)
Gasoline?
White Dog turned out to be an interesting experience. This basically raw whiskey is pretty much what they turned out in the cowboy era and before, where there was not much, if any, aging done. Whiskey was distilled and immediately consumed, in these United States in those times. This completely explains why Cowboys were always doing shots. You notice in the movies that they never bellied up to the bar and then sipped a fine whiskey. No, no, no. They poured a shot glass and then threw it back, attempting to the best of their ability to completely miss their tongue, if possible.
I did find that White Dog is excellent for lighting briquettes for the barbeque, if you run out of lighter fluid. Molotov cocktails and acellerants for arson also come to mind.
In all fairness, Buffalo Trace pretty much put White Dog out as a novelty item. The reason moonshine is not that popular these days is that we have learned how to make things, like bourbon, that taste better than raw whiskey and we also have the time and ability to do so.
Buffalo Trace White Dog
Notes:
White Dog is 125 Proof. Ours cost $19.95 per 375 ml bottle. Interesting to try, worth keeping as a curio. Not a good sipping drink or drink for a straightforward cocktail. Great to give you an idea of how much a nice several years of aging is worth. We will look into a couple of mixed drinks with the White Dog, and report back. Especially the Dogarita. Watch for it.
Comments
2 Responses to “Buffalo Trace White Dog – The Review”
The Liquor Locusts
"The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind." ~H.L. Mencken
The Dangers of Thirst
"Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing." ~Jerome K. Jerome
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The Jug of Empire!
"How solemn and beautiful is the thought that the earliest pioneer of civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never the missionary -- but always whiskey!" ~Mark Twain
January 16th, 2012 @ 10:56 am
Folks,
I am surprised at your cavalier attitude toward this drink. Of course, I haven’t read the rest of you blogs, so maybe your using humor instead of thoughtful expression in your bibulous activity is how you fill the page. I highly enjoyed my first tastes of this exquisite and complex re-creation of our fine American heritage and am looking forward to exploring it more.
January 16th, 2012 @ 5:34 pm
Mr. Eugene, Sir,
We do use a bit of humor and exaggeration in many of our posts. However, our basic premise is pretty much as we wrote, that there is a reason that whiskey is aged. Subtlety and complexity are added by the aging process. There are certainly things to taste and be learned from White Dog (which now has several mashbills from Buffalo Trace). In some senses white dog could be like Grappa. Originally from the leavings of wine Grappa has now evolved and there are many drinkers who partake, as you seem to with the Dog, and explore the tastes and flavors that are there. For most people, though, who are used to aged whiskeys, this will not be what they are looking for. As I thought the first time I had Portagee Diesel, that it certainly had something, I was not sure what, and that there was a reason that commercially produced liquors were popular.
So, I welcome your comment, would even greatly appreciate follow-ups as you explore unaged whiskeys, but it is certainly not for me. Cheers, good sir.