American Single Malt | 47% ABV

Score: 5/10

**Average. In a good way.**
***TL;DR***
*Unique enough to demand its own category*

Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

The household dynamic in which I grew up was not atypical for my community during the 1960s and 1970s. My father was the primary breadwinner and did not have much of a direct hand in the raising of me or my brother.

In contrast, my Mother’s primary focus in the division of labour within the household was to raise the two boys. It didn’t matter that she had a degree in art history and education, and prior to children she was a teacher and an artist. This was the division of labor that she and my father agreed to.

My father was the breadwinner and it took a toll on him. I often wonder how different he would have been if he was able to walk away from those “golden handcuffs”. The truth of the matter, however – and no offense to my Father, with whom later in life I became incredibly close – is the fact that my Mother was the one who raised me. She took great pride in raising her boys. She was firm but fair. Always creative. She was the egg in our family meatball.

Thoughts of my Mother have been, and are, ever-present. Especially so when issues of raising my own kids surface. From the time I became a father, I have tried to pass along the wisdom and guidance to my kids that I learned from my Mother. A good deal of it centered around art.

As noted, my Mother was an artist and a teacher. She (and my Father) were both born and raised in New York City. When they settled down, my parents moved an hour from their respective parents’ residences in the City. As my Mother would tell me, with a smile on her face, the distance was purposeful as it was close enough to be conducive for visits, but not close enough for an unannounced visit from their parents.

This relative proximity also provided my Mother with easy access to the City, which was indelibly marked in her soul. An integral part of going back to the City was going to museums. From the time I could remember, she would block off time to have a New York day. These would occur, roughly, four or five times a year. The day would see her get on the Metro North train, head into Grand Central Station, and then make her way to a museum or two. Of course, from time to time, she would also bring her children.

A favorite museum of hers was the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. “The Met,” as it is called, houses an enormous array of art from all ages, all media, and from all corners of the globe. When at The Met my Mother would spend hours and hours viewing some of the permanent collection as well as one or two of the rotating exhibitions on display. And, before heading back to Grand Central on the 6 train, she would finish her trip in the afternoon hours by purchasing a hot dog (her guilty pleasure) and then, sit on The Met’s front marble steps to people-watch. I learned well. Over the decades, when I’ve had the chance to go back to New York, I try my best to make time to do the same thing.

My Mother always kept an open mind – though clearly, as we all do, she had her preferences. As for her favorite styles of art, she was enthralled with Asian art; its marriage of simplicity and detail. She also had a huge appreciation for Native American art as well as the Classics from ancient Greece and Rome. But, as she had an open mind, she appreciated art in all of its forms. This brings me to a trip I took with my Mom that speaks to me today.

I was probably in the neighborhood of 12 years old, and she and I made our way to The Met. That day, we went to the Modern and Contemporary Art collection. Here, in contrast to the styles that I enjoyed the most, young Ogilvie came face-to-face with his first immersive experience with modern art. Braque. Dali. Picasso. I am sure my face screwed up with a combination of shock, revulsion, and curiosity. Cubism and the modern art of the early Twentieth Century was not my vibe. My Mother saw it all over my face.

In retrospect I am sure, as the artist and the teacher that she was, this was a purposeful trip to expand my viewpoints. I certainly can’t recall the conversations I had with my Mother that day, but the chat most probably started with me asking, in an age-appropriate way, WTF? My Mother, I am equally sure, spoke to me of the artists looking to break free from traditional constraints and employed different uses of form, light, and color. We spoke of an artist’s passion and how a technique or medium would reflect it. We also, I am sure, spoke of innovation and how thinking about how to do things out of the box was a healthy thing.

There was one piece of art – a charcoal on paper – entitled “Standing Female Nude” by Picasso that was used as an art lesson. My Mother and I examined the piece. And no, it is not inappropriate for a young boy; do a Google search and you’ll see that there are no salacious bits.

I examined it and it did not impress me. It looked like geographic shapes and smudges. My Mother let me chew silently with my thoughts for a few minutes, and then she started to speak aloud about the shading, the balance of the piece, the sense of curves even though we see straight lines.

Again, I don’t remember the entire conversation, but I remember that piece and stepping away from it – and many of its counterparts in that wing of the museum – with a broader appreciation. I am still not a fan of cubism, nor of modern art, generally. But that day, I was taught a valuable lesson that when you, at first, don’t appreciate or understand something carefully crafted and presented, it pays to pause. Take some time to sit back, analyze, try to appreciate what the artist was doing, and how their expression was being conveyed.

And, this, my fellow Dramfacers, is a perfect segue to the whiskey in my glass.

Review 1/2 - Ogilvie

St George’s Baller, American Single Malt, Distilled from barley malt mash and finished in Japanese umeshu casks, 47% ABV
US$65 (£53) paid

When I first became enamoured with single malts, I did quite a bit of reading and research. As it happened, this bottle was not infrequently displayed as an example of one of the up-and-coming American single malts. With its striking label graphics, this was a bottle that was not easily forgotten.

This bottling was always suggested by enthusiasts and authors to be among the “must-have” bottles for anyone having an interest in American single malt. I had never (and still have not) seen it on a shelf anywhere I have lived. This whiskey is from a relatively small operation on the other side of the country. This whiskey is from St. George’s Distillery in Alameda, California.

Though I didn’t retain a memory of any reviewer’s particular tasting notes that were ascribed to this Baller expression, the expression was affixed on my radar. Over the years, a picture of the bottle would, from time to time, still appear here and there in articles and pieces on American single malt. Sadly, for me, it was never seen in the wild. The bottle remained in my head, and has remained among the tales of whiskey lore.

Imagine my surprise, when, a few months ago, I did an online inventory search of some of my son’s local brick-and-mortar liquor shops. He was coming down from Washington, DC, and I thought it wise to find some bottles for him to bring. There, on my laptop’s screen, I saw this bottle on one of the stores’ sites. And, not only was this bottle available, it was on clearance. It was immediately added to the muling list. What I thought was a no-brainer was delivered. Ogilvie eagerly welcomed the new bottle to the cabinet, and eagerly anticipated the sampling of this would-be legend.

I opened the bottle a few days later, and with the initial smell and sip . . . well . . . I was transported back to age 12 looking at that Picasso with my face screwed up and my Mother reminding me to pause and examine what the artist/distiller was trying to convey.

Before I get to the nosing and taste, I have to make it perfectly clear that this tasting is the most confounding I have ever undertaken. This liquid is nothing like any single malt whiskey I have ever had. In order to score and assess, I had to let go of my preconceived ideas of single malt whiskey. This has confounded me to such an extent, I sent a sample to Nick and asked him to review and score the liquid along with me.

While I continue to be perplexed after those nosings and tastings over the past few months, I am intrigued, surprised, and lured at the same time.

Nose

Lavender and white grapes. Crushed Valentine heart candies. A slight herbal/vegetal note. A baseline mineral aspect is present. Not quite ripe casaba melon. Green apple peelings.

Palate

Sour and sweet. The floral notes of lavender and honeysuckle permeate the palate. Lemon rind? The more I sample this, the more I match those floral notes to a summer, citrus and hoppy IPA. The sour sensation is light and curiously nice; unripe fruit. I keep coming back to tart green grapes. A sweet taste is here, but it is wrapped in that floral layer. Sencha green Japanese tea. Mid palate, I can sort out a touch of a maple – perhaps identifying that touch of maple was through the power of suggestion, as my research relayed the fact that maple charcoal filtering was utilized with this whiskey. The slightest hint of char comes along at the end and combines with the maple hint. However, the tart and sour and sweet fruit notes are ever-present along with that floral, IPA note.

Incredibly perplexing. And yet, I keep coming back to it. It is rather interesting.

The Dregs

When I first opened the bottle, the waft on the nose and the taste on the palate were not complimentary. I noted at the time: “Sweet cabbage. Tart. Unknown unripe fruit. Tea leaves? And (the ubiquitous) garden.”

Over time, this bottle has opened up, thankfully, and has shed its sweet cabbage note. The tart and sour fruit has come forth, as has the floral element. This is a single malt, but I dare say that if I poured this to any traditional Scotch single malt aficionado this would not register as a single malt. There is no vanilla and honey from traditional ex-bourbon barrels. There is no sherry-forward influence. There is no peat. There is no signature malted barley note. I am not sure what folks would chalk this up to – with its mineralic, floral IPA, tea, and tart/sour grape flavors – but, surely, this wholly unique palate would make everyone initially screw their face up as I did at age 12 in front of that Picasso.

This single malt before me comes from a distillery that was at the forefront of craft distilling here in the United States. The website makes clear that the owners and distillers produce spirits with an eye toward the bold and unique. Mission accomplished. That is clearly translated into my whiskey. As their website says: “American-made. Japanese whiskey-inspired. Wholly original.” Yes, indeed. The only item about this whiskey on its website that gives a hint as to its make-up is that it states its unique flavor profile is “imparted by house-made umeshu finishing casks.” What is umeshu? The interwebs inform the following:

Literally translated, umeshu . . . means plum alcohol. It is often translated as plum wine, but this can be misleading, as the process is quite different to wine. Unlike wine, umeshu doesn’t feature fermented grapes, but is made with a base alcohol, plums, and sugar. This is why you will often see plums bobbing around inside the bottle. . . .

It is typically made by choosing a base alcohol like a white liquor, whisky, or brandy, and adding ume plums and rock sugar in an airtight container. Ume plums (Prunus mume) are a special breed of plum that have a high acidity which makes them no good for eating. But by steeping them in alcohol and sugar, their fruity juices and nutrients are brought out into a more complex drink.

Umeshu is usually then left to steep for around six months. Some brands pride themselves on their longer aging periods, and some home brewers may only steep it for three months, but six months is usually what it takes to balance out the flavors.

I have no idea from the bottle nor from the St George Distillery website if the entire aging was done in umeshu casks, or not. If not, for how long? If not, what other casks were used? Nothing is directly forthcoming on the bottle nor the distillery website. That said, I have heard reviewers state that this whiskey was created from American two-row pale malted barley, with some small percentage of the barley roasted. Baller is supposedly distilled using pot stills, aged in ex-bourbon casks as well as ex-French wine casks, filtered through maple charcoal, and then finished in the umeshu casks. I cannot vouch or verify that which I have gleaned from reviewers as, again, there is nothing on my bottle nor on the website.

Admittedly, this bottle has grown on me a bit. It is wholly different. It is a complete U-turn from what I have become accustomed to in the sphere of single malt flavors on any flavor wheel. I believe many of you – and that which I had to do for myself – will need to uncouple yourself from preconceived notions of single malt before a fuller appreciation of this whiskey reveals itself. Again, at least that is the journey I have taken.

And, as an added, unknown factor, I don’t know if a recent bottling of this expression will be any different than the one I have with me as I believe my bottle may be a dusty. I note that the label that is at the top of the bottle’s neck and goes over the cork top has what appears to be Japanese lettering. When I look at the St George Distillery webpage, the picture of this expression has a neck label with lettering stating “BALLER” in English.

Also, comparing my bottle to the picture of this expression on the website shows differences in the front label’s coloring as well as the bottom, front label. I have looked at my bottle to find a bottle code, but the most I have been able to find is a “BW-9” etching and what looks like an etched QR code or crossword puzzle layout or braille grid. As my phone could not open a QR code, that grid remains a mystery. I don’t know when the liquid in my glass was bottled. If it was a long time ago – remember, the store had this on clearance – has the distillate changed? I bring this up for those who may venture out and find this bottle with an aim to compare notes – I hope my experience matches yours.

All that aside, I do like this. It has grown on me in a very strange way. From sweet cabbage to tart grapes and floral Japanese tea, this has developed and opened very well. How in the world do I score this? To say that I have struggled with this question is an understatement. This bottle is interesting, confusing, and compelling. At time of writing, Nick has his sample but I have no idea what he thinks of this nor how he will score it. There is nothing that I have had in the single malt world that compares to this.

While reviewers of, say, an Arran 10 will not vary much between scores as it is such a classic single malt whiskey profile, the Baller’s tasting notes are so utterly unique that I imagine reviews of this will run the gamut from lauded to panned. Sounds akin to comments about Picasso. I continue to struggle to assess a score. Without comparators to this profile (at least in my experience), I think I have to give this a 5/10. While, in a bizarre way, I have come to enjoy this, I can’t say that “this is encouraged as a solid purchase in these heady times” (our descriptor of a 6/10). And yet, I also feel that this is better than a 5/10 (“flashes of promise and at least one memorable note, but sits comfortably in the middle of the pack. . . . Represents many of today’s modern whiskey releases.”). So, perhaps a mid-to-high five?
Frankly, the score is immaterial on this bottle. I appreciate this unique experience. Full stop.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I never thought I’d be comparing a single malt to modern art. Regardless, my Mom is looking down, nodding, and laughing a bit.

Score: 5/10 OS

Review 2/2 - Nick

St George’s Baller, American Single Malt, Distilled from barley malt mash and finished in Japanese umeshu casks, 47% ABV
US$65 (£53) paid

Score: 4/10

**Some promise.**
***TL;DR***
*Love it or loathe it, you’re probably not going to be on the fence*

Nose

It’s very green. Very fruity. And very floral. And a bit chemical. It doesn’t nose like any single malt I’ve met before.

I get a whole salad of nettles, gooseberry, grass and a weird whiff of bramble leaf. It smells like a thicket of wild stuff growing along a hedgerow in the sun. But there’s also a distinct sweet fruitiness on the nose – which I guess makes sense with the umeshu cask finish.

There’s a menthol-minty note that’s quite prominent for me (couldn’t say if its peppermint, spearmint or Double Mint gum at this point). I get kiwi fruit, and something decidedly citrus, but softy so, like a lemon-lime hybrid in sherbert form.

And the floral note is like violets but mixed with an indistinct plethora of other floral notes. In fact it reminds me of the sort of overly sweet perfumes older female relatives used to wear when I was a kid and that you’d be overpowered by when they embraced you at family gatherings. Not entirely unpleasant, but somehow a bit too much.

And I think that’s what’s taking me into the chemical things. I’m fleetingly reminded of cleaning products and air fresheners dangling from rear view mirrors that are just out of the packet and too much for the confined space of the car. Again, not unbearable, just not what you’d want to breathe in for too long.

That said, this is not unpleasant on the nose. It’s just a bit weird and unexpected.

Curiously (perhaps), I don’t get plum on the nose.

Palate

My first thought is that it is quite thin on the palate. But unlike many occasions when that is the case, it isn’t watery at all. The 47% ABV is helping to keep things interesting and it warms as I hold it in my mouth. Tinned fruit salad in an alcoholic syrup is front of mind.

Then I swallow. And that’s when the flavour hits me. And not in an entirely good way. In fact this reminds me of the problems I’ve had every time I’ve tasted Rye whisky. There’s a sudden punch of what I can only think of as some sort of bubble gum/chlorine mash up and my face briefly adopts a weird expression like a small child that’s just eaten something that didn’t compute. In a blind tasting I would swear this was either a watered down eau de vie of some kind or a Rye (and I confess to limited experience of the latter as I simply don’t get on with it).

At this point I’m not liking this experience.

I persevere and come back to it repeatedly over the course of a couple of hours, trying to get beyond my initial reaction.

The green and menthol/minty notes from the nose are clear and present. The sweetness is there but not as strongly as was implied on the nose. The floral notes are taking third place and are hanging out in the background trying not to be noticed.

The finish is light and not particularly long. Which isn’t a bad thing.

The Dregs

First things first – you have to applaud anyone that is sufficiently adventurous to produce a whisky finished in an Umeshu cask. I’m all for the idea of messing around with casks. It can produce amazing and unexpected whisky.

In some ways I wish this had been a completely blind tasting. Whenever we taste something, whatever we know about it will inform our mindset going in. All I knew was that it was an American Single Malt and that it was thought to be somewhat off the beaten track of expectations. No matter how hard I may try, I’d be delusional to believe I can completely divorce myself from my conditioned expectations of what a single malt might deliver (widely varied though that is) – even allowing for the priming that it was “different”.

As someone who has a predisposition for anything that is offbeat and quirky, I typically enjoy food, drink, humour, people and anything else you might describe as eccentric and surprising.

But while I love the fact they did it, in this case, I’m not going along for the ride. It simply doesn’t resonate with my palate – and that has nothing to do with expectations of single malts. These just aren’t my flavours.

Almost inevitably, a release like this is likely to polarise opinion. Again, credit to St. George for having the balls (pun intended) to put out what is probably a Marmite whisky – one that will be loved by some and loathed by others.

As suggested above, I would likely not have said it was a whisky at all. And even now, I kind of wish it was an eau de vie or some other off-beat and exotic concoction of the type you find on an overseas vacation.

Speaking of which, I bought a bottle of Choya Umeshu specifically to taste alongside the Baller. I wanted to see if I could understand the whisky better through the lens of having tasted the stuff that was in the finishing cask. And actually, it helps.

Upon just the first sip of the Umeshu (at 14.6% ABV), the mystery of where the Baller’s unusual combination of flavours comes from is mysterious no more. These two are clearly cousins.

The sweetness is amped up in the umeshu and obviously the alcohol isn’t contributing nearly as much. It’s smoother and decidedly syrupy (in fact if you ever try this stuff, be sure not to get it on anything as its leaves a sticky residue). The flavours it offers are very much in line with the Baller but it’s much more sickly-sweet to my palate. Maybe I’d have it with lots of ice and probably something fizzy on a hot day. Or maybe I’d just leave it at the back of the cupboard.

To be honest, I’m kind of wishing I’d sent Ogilvie and Eallair larger samples for them to taste alongside the whisky. Guess I’ll have to find a friend that likes it.

I confess that having tasted the Umeshu, I now wish I could taste the spirit that went into the finishing cask. It would be fascinating to know how much of the spirit I’m actually tasting, but my gut tells me this is more about the Umeshu than the liquid influence.

I hope this stuff finds its community and that St. George find success with it. But it’s not for me.

And now I’m going to finish my evening with a bloody good scotch.

Score: 4/10 NF

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. OS

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