Mayor Pingree Blue Label SiB 11yr

Mayor Pingree Blue Label Single Barrel 11yr

COST: $95 for 750 mL bottle (I’m reviewing a sample)

AGE: 11 years

MASH BILL: MGP distillate but unstated mash bill

PROOF: 116

This is bottle 66 of 138 from barrel I-2. Reviewed neat in a Glencairn

APPEARANCE: Reddish mahogany (1.6), really fat, medium speed legs. Looks very oily.

NOSE: Fairly classic bourbon nose with some vanilla, slightly burnt caramel, expressed orange peel, a hint of cherry, and a solid backdrop of spicy oak.

PALATE: This has a slightly oily mouthfeel that coats the palate excellently. Lots of caramel, particularly if you give it a good chew. Vanilla and tannic oak are present with a touch of cinnamon heat. I occasionally pick up a faint chocolate note as well, but it’s not very prominent or consistent.

FINISH: All 11 years of that oak show up in the finish. The finish is fairly long and very tannic and dry on the palate. Accompanying the dominant oak is a good amount of vanilla. There’s a little brown sugar sweetness and with a vigorous chew I actually get a little maple syrup. There’s a medium hug that I get from this one that lasts for a good 10-15 seconds right in the center of the chest. There is also that prickly, astringent feeling that is left on the palate that is a bit exacerbated by a cinnamon/rye spice going on.

RATING: 6.7/10

VALUE: 7.3/10 (this value is based on a ratio of the $/mL to the rating above compared to this same ratio for all other r/Bourbon reviews I’ve made and normalized to 10)

OVERALL: Solid bourbon. There’s nothing that blows me away here, but it shows good barrel characteristics, but fairly expected from an 11 year MGP bourbon. Based on the level of spice I was getting, I would assume this is either a higher rye mash bill or has a lot of malt with slight hint of cocoa I got.

BEHIND THE BOTTLE

Hazen Pingree moved to Detroit, Michigan after serving in the Union army during the civil war. He was the co-owner of Pingree and Smith shoe company which grew to be the largest shoe manufacturer in the American West. He grew to become part of Detroit’s elite, though he was hardly politically active and didn’t desire political power. He was surprised when his Republican friends nominated him for mayor of Detroit. He would go on to be one of the most successful and beloved mayors of Detroit.

He was elected mayor of Detroit multiple times from 1890 to 1896. Not being a bought and sold political candidate, he broke up monopolies, fought corruption, lowered utility rates, built public schools, improved roads, and overall did things for the people, not for special interests.

In 1896, he was elected the Governor of Michigan and would go on to bring the same energy and work efforts he had for the citizens of Detroit to the citizens of Michigan. But this whiskey was named after the Hazen Pingree the mayor, not Governor Pingree.

Pingree would go down in history to be regarded as the finest mayor Detroit has ever had, and is even regarded as one of the best mayors the USA has ever seen. He was truly a mayor “for the people.”

There’s not some idealic story about him making his own whiskey or anything like that for the background for what this whiskey is. It’s simply the fact that Valentine Distilling is located in the greater Detroit area and they wanted to make a whiskey “for the people,” and named it after the greatest mayor their city has ever seen who was “for the people.”

Now, as far as the Mayor Pingree whiskey goes, let me break this line down a bit for you because there are multiple labels within this vertical.

• Blue Label (this whiskey I reviewed) is reserved for single barrel bourbon that is 100% MGP distillate.
• Red Label is a batched bourbon that is a blend of Valentine’s own triple pot-distilled bourbon and MGP column distilled bourbon.
• Orange Label is a batched 95/5 rye whiskey. Based on Valentine’s website, I think this is also a blend of their own 95/5 rye whiskey and MGP 95/5 rye whiskey, because on their website they describe it as “like our red label…”
• Black Label is a very limited small batch product (like only a few hundred bottles) that is 100% MGP distillate. It is described as a blend that was “designed to showcase the 'outlier' profiles of barrels that have matured distinctive notes from those of their peers.”
• Green Label is a batched 95/5 rye whiskey. Their website does not share any more details other than that and some tasting notes and the specific age of barrels in the blend. Based on the fact it has some older barrels in the blend, while it could be all Valentine’s since they’ve been open since 2007, I am assuming it has some MGP distillate in it if not all (they almost make it seem as if the Green Label is to their rye whiskey what their Black Label is to bourbon).

So, if you were wondering what all the different Mayor Pingree labels are like I was, hopefully this can help you out.

One last thing. I’ve never been to Valentine Distilling, so all my research of them was just online. So, take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt, but understand that this is also an unbiased view of the information that I could glean from their website.

Valentine Distilling is proud of their craft distillery classification and prides themselves on the quality that craft distilling provides. They even go as far as to state the following on their website:

In an era of mass production, squeezing costs and maximizing profits, one important thing is lost: quality. Taking a stand against mass-produced spirits, Valentine proves that American ingenuity and quality American manufacturing is still alive.

By my account above, not a single label of the Mayor Pingree line uses 100% their own distillate. It all uses MGP distillate to some extent, and in some cases, entirely. How is that “taking a stand against mass-produced spirits?”

I’m fully aware how hard it is for distilleries to come to market at any scale without using some sourcing early on. But Valentine has been open since 2007…I would think we should be getting to a turning point where some of these labels should be 100% their own distillate. It just strikes me funny that they call out that quality is being lost in an era of mass production, squeezing costs, and maximizing profit yet they’re very reliant on MGP for their most revered and popular product… While I have zero issue with MGP personally, as a matter of fact, I quite love the fact MGP makes it so easy for new distilleries to make a splash and mix things up, but there’s no way you can target other large distillers in this categorization and exclude MGP.

At this point I’m digressing. But it just perturbs me that they make a statement like that on their website yet all but admittedly (in Valentine’s defense, they do not explicitly state it’s MGP distillate, but they do specify it was distilled in Lawrenceburg, IN…) use one of the largest mass-producers of whiskey to make their premier product. Something about don’t bite the hand that feeds comes to mind…

1 | Disgusting | ...I've not subjected myself to this level

2 | Poor | Balcones Lineage

3 | Bad | High West Double Rye, Jefferson's Ocean 28

4 | Sub-par | Weller's SR, Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select

5 | Good | Buffalo Trace, Sazerac Rye, Green River Wheated

6 | Very Good | Blanton's, Holladay Bourbons, Widow Jane Decadence

7 | Great | Baker's 7yr SiB, WhistlePig PiggyBack SiB, 1792 BiB

8 | Excellent | Most ECBP batches, JD SiB BiB, High West MWND Act 11

9 | Incredible | Barrel Bourbon Batch T8ke, BBC DS #7, Four Roses OESQ

10 | Perfect | Found North Batch 08