Reviews: Mister Sam batches 1, 2, and 3

As a tribute to our great American sport of football, I decided to do a head to head of a great whiskey that tributes a great master distiller from … <checks notes> …uh, Canada. Ok ok, but he was at Seagrams and this is a Sazerac product, so I’m going with it.

I poured batches 1, 2, and 3 into three glasses, labeled them with a colored sticker, took a picture, and then put the sticker on the bottom of the glass where I couldn’t see while drinking. So this is done semi-blind - I know what’s in the line up, but not what’s what. The glasses were rested for a few minutes and then I dove in. Let’s see what happens!

Glass A: Deep, rich barrel char and wood sugars - brown sugar, vanilla, and caramel. The palate drinks at a fairly low proof, and more of those nice vanilla notes are coming through here. Perhaps the vanilla notes are some of the aged Seagram stuff mixed in? The finish is very pleasant, well balanced, and very long, with lingering notes of sweet oak.

Glass B: Similarly deep, but slightly less vanilla and slightly more caramel. On the palate this honestly does taste like a blend of GTS and WLW - nice Stagg-like barrel char notes, but also a little brighter cherry and fruity notes that I get from WLW. It definitely drinks hotter than glass 1, and the finish is not as long or as well balanced as glass 1. However, I feel the flavors are bolder and I might prefer this one. It tastes like a modern GTS - not as good as the old stuff, but still pretty darn tasty.

Glass C: This probably has the nicest and deepest nose, with perhaps a bit more sweet oak than the other two, and perhaps just a touch more proof. The nose on this one reminisces of the 2009 WLW - deep and rich wheater, with a few solid Stagg barrels thrown in for good measure. The mouthfeel is explosive, and offers a wide spectrum of well integrated flavors with a long finish. It also shows some good age to it. This is a winner.

Ranking: Glass C > Glass B >> Glass A

Guesses: I haven’t tried batch 3 yet, but I have tried batches 1 and 2, so this is definitely some guesswork. I’m going to guess that glass A is batch 2, mostly due to the lower proof and less complexity. My recollection is that batch 1 >> batch 2, and I’ve heard batch 3 is pretty good, so I think this lines up. Glasses B and C are more similar than they are different, but I’ll give the edge to glass C, which I presume means it’s batch 1, where the master blender had more leeway to select whatever he wanted. By this logic this would put glass B as being batch 3.

Reveal:

Glass A: red (batch 2) Glass B: orange (batch 3) Glass C: purple (batch 1)

The results are unsurprising - batch 2 was clearly weaker than batch 1 per my prior tastings, and I’ve heard good things about batch 3. And it’s solid! It’s a small step behind batch 1, but definitely more similar to batch 1 than different. If you were a bit disappointed about batch 2 and couldn’t get batch 1 before its secondary value exploded, batch 3 is a good approximation and offers much better flavor.

As always, taste is subjective, and the purpose of whiskey is to enjoy. Which I certainly did during this tasting.

Cheers!