Bully Boy white whiskey

[xiphias]

Did I mention the thank-you-for-being-part-of-our-wedding gift that Meghan and Patrick McGeough gave me? It's a bottle of a "white whiskey" from Bully Boy Distillers, a local distillery in Boston. They figured, correctly, that I'd appreciate a locally distilled spirit.

Now, those of you from the South, and from certain other parts of the country, may think of the term "white whiskey" as a fancier term for "moonshine." But this DOES have a few differences. Most important, this is a wheat whiskey, not corn (maize, for you people everywhere else in the world). Moonshine is definitionally an unaged corn whiskey.

Now, one would normally consider an unaged whiskey to be unbearably hot and raw, but this isn't anywhere near as hot as you'd think. It's about like an eau de vie, so it's got a significant burn -- I wouldn't offer it to a novice drinker, but I really enjoy it.

Yeah, actually, that's a pretty good way to think about it: it's more like a wheat eau de vie than like moonshine.

As I've mentioned before, I've got that thing with my palette where alcohol tastes sweet. So, for me, this is a pretty nice-tasting drink. I imagine that this would be less pleasant to someone who doesn't have that trait.

Comments

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I just finished off a bottle of their straight whiskey. Quite tasty, but best slightly watered down to take a bit of the bite away.

[(Anonymous)]

Mmmmm I like Bully Boy White Whiskey, but I don't love it. It has a slight hint of paint thinner to the patina...but it is punchy stuff to be sure.

Have you sampled Nashoba Valley Winery's homemade Grappa??....WHAM!! I like it, but only on controlled dosages.

Berkshire Mountain Distillery makes a superlative gin...mixes very naturally with tonic water and banishes the heat and humidity of summer nicely.

John Galligan
Hard Liquor Fancier.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I've got that thing with my palette where alcohol tastes sweet.

I think I have that. My friends tell me that stout and ale are supposed to taste bitter, but to me they both taste sweet (or did before I realised that I'm allergic to alcohol, at any rate.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

For me, they taste bittersweet -- they've definitely got bitter in them, and definitely have sweetness, too, so they've got that thing going on that chocolate has where the two play off of each other. So, yeah, they taste good. Lis, on the other hand, can't stand them, because they don't taste anything other than terribly bitter.

"Alcohol tasting sweet" often goes along with being a non-taster -- a person who lacks the ability to taste certain bitter compounds, which goes along with having fewer taste buds than average. The inability to taste phenylthiocarbamide is correlated with the inability to taste the bitter compounds in things in the cabbage/Brussels sprouts/broccoli families, with a lower-than-average taste bud density, and with alcohol tasting sweet. Also, since each taste bud has pain receptors, too, we experience spicy food as less spicy, and are therefore more likely to be chiliheads -- the same Scoville number just plain hurts less to us than average. It's a statistical correlation, so there can be people out there who have some of those characteristics but not others, but I personally fall into all of those categories.

There's some evidence that being a non-taster also correlates to overeating, because we just don't reach flavor satiety as quickly as average. We taste less, so eat more food in order to get the same amount of flavor. This ALSO ties into the "chilihead" thing, in that it creates a more dramatic eating experience.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I do taste some bitterness in brassicas, but not to the extent that a lot of people describe. And as a recovering bulimic, I do have a history of overeating. I'm less able to eat spicy food than many people I know, but that may be to do with having a low pain threshold in general. My pain tolerance is generally pretty high, but there's a strong psychological element to that, and I guess most food just isn't worth tolerating pain for, to me.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in Damnation Alley Distillery (http://www.damnationalleydistillery.com) I've been planning a visit myself, but haven't made it yet. (Hope the coding works; haven't done it in ages.)

ETA: Okay, it didn't work so I went old school. At least I hope I did...