Marketing Trick or Treat? Jim Beam Devil's Cut Bourbon Whiskey

I’ve never been a fan of Halloween. Masks, fancy dress, ghouls and ghosts. Not really my thing, I’m afraid. Little Dickensian urchins running around the street like urban foxes, looking for treats purchased in haste by frightened old ladies from the local pound shop. I don’t know who the Halloween equivalent of Scrooge is, but we’re certainly related. 

However, as this occasion become increasingly more commercialised over time, I have become increasingly more frustrated by its seemingly ubiquitous nature. From very little pieces of Halloween kit in the local supermarket, there now seems to be an entire aisle dedicated to crappy plastic bits and bobs which make the Elephant Man look like Kate Moss.

But as I sit in this evening, awaiting the inevitable knock-knock on the door from the local South London kids (who do a bloody good job scaring the bejeebers out of me with just a hoodie and a BMX on a regular day) adorned in a Scream mask with a flashing plastic poker, maybe I should have something ready for them as a treat?

Instead of a random bag of Haribo sours, I was thinking more whiskey sours... imagine the horror of the parents when I open the door to a  fully stocked bar, offering their little bundle of joy a top-notch cocktail. I might even garnish it with a packet of Marlborough Reds and a Turkey Twizzler. Go the whole hog on trying the keep them away of next year.

If I was to be handing out free whiskey sours which, for the point of responsible drinking and general welfare of the local community, I shall not be, then I would have only one choice of bourbon with which to make the concoction: Jim Beam Devil’s Cut.

A brilliantly worked concept for a new product (or ‘marketing’, whichever way you want to cut it), Jim Beam Devil’s Cut was launch last month in to the UK market after being a hit stateside and in selected other markets such as Australia and South Africa.

The idea behind this extra-strength offering from the biggest selling bourbon in the world is thus: we have all heard of the ‘angels’ share’, where a portion of the liquid inside the cask evaporates in to the air. Well, as with all whisk(e)y maturation, some of the new make filled into the cask after distillation, is absorbed into the wood and effectively lost forever. This, Jim Beam claim, is the ‘devil’s cut’. 

Clever.

With the angles’ share, this evaporated spirit is lost forever; gone to the heavens for an almighty party (or a party with the Almighty). The devil’s cut, however, is still locked inside the porous oak staves from which the cask is made. By filling the emptied casks with water and spinning them at high-speed, Jim Beam claim they can free some of this lost liquid. The water, containing a large amount of this ‘devil’s cut’ is then used to cut down the traditional six year old Jim Beam, resulting in a whiskey of higher strength and, according to the manufacturer, increased flavour. But is this a trick, or a treat?

Jim Beam – Devil’s Cut – Kentucky Straight Bourbon – 45% abv -  ~£25.00

Nose: the classic bourbon notes of raspberry jam, red boiled sweets and some cracked black pepper are all there, but there is an extra woody note of dry timber, some old antique furniture and a hint of spearmint.

Palate: Yes, there is certainly more oak in the palate and it is dryer than the traditional bottling of Jim Beam. The extra abv gives a good kick to the palate, but there is a richer and rounder feel (think well made flap-jack or cookie dough) to the classic Beam palate.

Finish: Spicy and filling.

Overall: Not strictly made for sipping, but for mixing, this does drink well with a block of ice, but is best used to make a robust Old Fashioned or Manhattan. If you like an additional twist of strength and flavour to your regular bourbon-based cocktails, then certainly grab yourself a bottle of this.

As for the festivities of this evening, I’m drawing all curtains, sitting in the dark and waiting for the night to be over. Or maybe I will set up that cocktail stall. More Bar Humbug than ‘Bah, Humbug’... 

Coffee In A Cocktail? Don't Be A Mentalist!

Sometimes the most obvious of pairings in cuisine can be downright, bloody awful.

Personally, I think that anyone who says oysters taste better with a liberal amount of peated whisky poured over them is a blithering idiot. Why ruin a good whisky on something resembling the contents of a used tissue??

Ok, apologies. I don't get Oysters at all. You may have seen a little video shot at the recent Feis Ile, where I try to conquer my abject terror of oysters. It did not go well.

Pairing whisky with anything edible is tricky. It works extremely well with chocolate - if the chocolate is robust enough to cope with such an intense flavour. Cigars and whisky are a dubious pairing, unless you have a very rich mouthfeel to the whisky, but nothing too overpowering. To quote Victor Ferreira, Cigar Sommelier for Boisdale Canary Wharf and one of the top 5 cigar experts in the world- “If you’re having a very rich, strong cigar, usually you need to balance it with a delicate and smooth drink or vice versa. You can reach a point where if your palate is overwhelmed by flavour, you can’t separate out which direction it's coming from.”

Wise words Victor.

So what about coffee?

I know a few whisky folks swear by the pairing of a heavily-sherried dram and an espresso. Again, I think so long as neither cancels each other out, or the earthiness of the coffee doesn't over power the whisky, it can be a divine experience.

But coffee in cocktails?

The Espresso Martini. Not sure I approve of this. The Martini is the personification of purity and balance. Throwing in a coffee is like dropping a Van Halen solo into the middle of Massenet's Meditation Suite.

The White Russian works to a point, but only if you're wearing a dressing gown, a slightly shabby beard and hang out all the time at your local bowling alley.

Here's the conundrum. Recently, Caskstrength were contacted by one of London's newest and most highly revered coffee shops, The Department Of Coffee & Social Affairs to see if we could develop a coffee cocktail to serve at the launch of a London Design Festival event- 'Imagined Cities, curated by Acclaimed gallery Dainow & Dainow.

Some of the works from 'Imagined Cities'

Painstakingly, the Baristas prepared a half-litre of perfectly brewed, bespoke espresso blend for us to experiment with before the launch.

We tried making a coffee based Whisky Sour, which totally fell apart before it even got to our lips. Next up was something in shot form, based on a coffee cordial, using naval rum, Muscovado sugar syrup and bitters. The mixture was immense, but too strong to be consumed on its own, so we had a brainwave. Why not make a simple long drink, using the cordial as a base, add another flavoursome spirit and top it up with something?

It worked. A lot. Our chosen mixture, The Leather Lane Liquor (named after the street that the coffee shop occupies) was a combination of things that surely shouldn't work:

The Leather lane Liquor:

In a Highball glass, filled with ice:

15ml Coffee Cordial: comprising of, Naval rum, a dash of Maraschino liqueur, muscovado sugar syrup, 1 vanilla pod, licorice bitters, cocoa bitters and a dash of spice (clove + cinnamon) plus a couple of pieces of expressed lemon zest.

20ml Jim Beam Red Stag. Ok- purists out there will whinge about this, but get back in your boxes, you naysayers!! Sure it's far too sweet to be sipped on its own, but the cherry sweetness counterpoints the power of the cordial.

Top up with tonic - Fentiman's is by far and away the best for this.

Over the top, express another piece of lemon zest and spray over some atomised espresso to give the whole thing a really heady topnote. (Our sprayers were from Muji, but got jammed up after an hour of cocktail making.) Stick to T-shirts and iceball molds, in future.

Harrison gets to grips with the Leather Lane Liquor

The finished product is quick to make, refreshing, aromatic, sweet and gives you a wonderful earthiness from the coffee on the finish.

The London Design Week launch party arrived and lucky, the cocktail was a winner- we knocked out 200 during the evening to a bunch of vaguely tipsy, very chattery folks.

Atomisation in slow motion...

Perhaps the caffeine cancels out the alcoholic properties?

Anyway, we'd love to hear from you if you have any other coffee/whisky related ideas or cocktails. This pairing is definitely a go-go...

For more information on the London Design Festival click here:

For more information on The Department Of Coffee & Social Affairs and their Coffeesmith Collective click here: