Skip to main content

The Manual may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.

Four Roses Honors Al Young With Limited Edition 50th Anniversary Small Batch Bourbon

Al_Young-Four Roses
Image used with permission by copyright holder
If you’ve ever had a question about Four Roses, no matter how obscure, there’s one man to turn to, Four Roses Ambassador Al Young. Young has been around for fifty of the brand’s one hundred twenty-nine years and, to mark the occasion, Four Roses is releasing their 2017 Limited Edition 50th Anniversary Small Batch Bourbon to honor Young’s decades of dedication and tireless work with the brand.

Young’s done a lot of the years for Four Roses. Most notably, in 1990, he was named Distillery Manager and then in 2007 he became the Four Roses Ambassador. It makes sense, too, that Young is also the brand’s historian, having literally written the book on the brand—Four Roses: The Return of a Whiskey Legend—which came out in 2010.

Four-Roses-50th-Bottle_onWhite
Image used with permission by copyright holder

For this special edition release, four of Four Roses’ ten recipes (created from two mashbills and five proprietary yeast strains) were hand-selected together by Young and Master Distiller Brent Elliott. This special Small batch bourbon follows the release of 2016’s Elliott’s Select, the first special release created by Master Distiller Brent Elliott.

The recipe for this special edition (which will be bottled at 54.9% ABV) includes five percent, 23-year-old OBSV (delicate fruitiness, with hints of spice, vanilla and caramel), twenty-five percent fifteen-year-old OBSK (full-bodied, light spice, caramel), fifty percent  thirteen-year-old OESV (light, creamy, fruity), and twenty-percent twelve-year-old OBSF (herbal, full-bodied).

This combination of bourbons, according to Elliott, creates a whiskey that has honeysuckle and caramel on the nose, peach and apricot stone fruit flavors that mix with oak and sweet, rich fig on the palate, and a slightly minty finish.

In addition to the liquor inside, the bottle, too, will be a limited-edition throwback that is modeled on the design from 1967—the year Young started at Four Roses. Around 10,000 bottles are being produced. It will launch on June 10 and cost $150.

Sam Slaughter
Sam Slaughter was the Food and Drink Editor for The Manual. Born and raised in New Jersey, he’s called the South home for…
Forget wine — Beer and cheese is an unbeatable combination
Put the corkscrew away and crack open a cold one
Beer and cheese

When one hears the term cheese pairings, wine is the beverage that most often comes to mind, we'd wager. Because, of course, it is. The pairing of wine and cheese is as classic a coupling as peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, or chocolate and strawberries. They're meant to be together. But that certainly doesn't mean that wine is the only adult beverage that can dance an alluring tango alongside everyone's favorite dairy product. Beer, as humble as its reputation can be, is also a beautiful balance to cheese's immense offering of flavors. While some may think of beer as not being as multi-dimensional and varied in its palate-pleasing capabilities as wine, this is not the case - especially now that we live in a world with so many exquisite craft beers, stouts, and lagers.
Of course, another classic accompaniment to cheese is bread or crackers. Why might that be, one might ask. Is it because we're simply in need of a starchy vessel to usher the cheese into our mouths? The answer is actually a bit deeper than that. Starches like bread and crackers are made from the same yeasty ingredients as beer, so their pairing makes perfect culinary sense.
This isn't to say, though, that one can simply pick up a hunk of cheddar and crack open a Budweiser and expect culinary artistry. The science is a bit more nuanced than that, so we're here to help you find the best pairings for your favorite beers and cheeses.

How to pair beer and cheese

Read more
Mijenta has a new cristalino tequila — here’s why bourbon fans will love it
Mijenta has a cristalino tequila perfect for bourbon drinkers
Mijenta Cristalino

If you’re new to tequila, you might not know all the terms. Even if you’re just a beginner, you probably know all about blanco, reposado, añejo, and maybe even joven. But chances are, you’re not familiar with Cristalino tequila. This reasonably contemporary style is simply añejo tequila that’s been charcoal filtered to remove its natural caramel color and various impurities.

The style is more than just a little popular. It’s actually the fastest growing style of tequila according to Nielsen data. The newest brand to get in on the Cristalino trend is Mijenta.

Read more
You may not dislike IPAs as much as you think — you’ve just tried the wrong type
There's much more to the IPA than bitter hop bombs
Beer

The IPA has been described as the cilantro of the beer world. It’s assumed by some novice drinkers that you either love it or hate it. On one hand, it’s one of the most popular beer styles in the American craft world. It’s loved by many drinkers for its liberal use of hops and fresh, crushable flavor profile.

But haters of the style dislike it because they have an assumption that all IPA beers are aggressively hopped and uncomfortably bitter. While there are IPAs that fit that criterion (and fans of that style can’t get enough of them), there are also a handful of other types of IPAs to fit any palate.
The IPA stigma

Read more