Maker: Heaven Hill, Bardstown/Louisville, Ketucky, USA
Distilled
1: Heaven Hill, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
354: Brown-Forman, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Style: Kentucky rye.
Age: NAS
Proof: 100 (50% ABV)
Michigan State Minimum: $24 (DSP 354 edition is no longer being produced).
Appearance
1: Burnt orange.
354: A bit lighter. Bright copper.
Nose
1: Alcohol, caramel, creamed corn, tarragon, sawdust.
354: Softer. Spearmint, alcohol, roasted corn.
Palate
1: Neat- Heat and little else. Water brings out candy and oak notes.
354: Round and soft, even neat. Potpourri, rock candy, alcohol.
Finish
1: Hot and harsh. The caramel and herbal flavors start to shift into something much less pleasant.
2: Long and grassy. Freshly mowed lawn, alcohol, orange peel.
Parting words: After the infamous Heaven Hill fire in 1997, HH turned to their competitors/friends at Jim Beam and Brown-Forman to distill some of their whiskeys for them while they made necessary alterations to their new distillery in Louisville. Brown-Forman (the distillery formerly known as Early Times, DSP 354) picked up the distillation of Rittenhouse, our heroes’ flagship rye, during that period. It is also during that period that many whiskey enthusiasts like myself became big fans of the bonded Rittenhouse. Perhaps the consistently high quality of this rye and Sazerac rye during that period led to the current rye revival in some way.
Anyway, I’ve been wanting to do these two head to head for a long time. Now that I have, I’m surprised. I didn’t expect much difference between these two but there was quite a bit. When two whiskeys are so close to each other, those differences can become exaggerated, naturally, but that’s the point to these head to head tastings. “It’s the little differences,” as Vincent Vega said.
Simply put, the DSP 1 did not fare well against the 354. It wasn’t terrible, it but it was comparitively hot and unrefined neat. It was better with a splash of water and even better than that mixed. 354 needed no water and gave off some very pleasant characteristic rye notes in the nose and the palate. When mixed, there was very little difference between the two.
1 is mildly recommended overall but recommended as a mixer. 354 is recommended for all purposes but given its growing scarcity I would save it for sipping neat or close to it.
