After the esteemed Blixco esq. recommended 'Old Potrero' whiskey in an old diary, I'd been keeping an eye on it, hoping it might drop in (phenomenally over-marked-up) price in the UK. It hasn't. However, a couple of weeks ago, it was once more time to do an (increasingly infrequent) exotic hooch order and, as I was surprisingly underextended on the disposable-income front, I decided just to go ahead and pay the full (eminently forceful) whack.

The package of three previously-untried esoteric spirits duly arrived early last week. Temptation broke the will this evening and I decided to give the aforementioned 'Old Potrero' (henceforth OP) a test run. This, therefore, is the first of three reviews to be dribbled-out in the forthcoming months. It should be noted that I am categorically not an experienced spirit analyst, as will become evident, although I do take an interest in the whisky field and, as befits the stereotypical "man o' t'north", I knows what I likes, precious.

First: some history.

Old Potrero is made by the Anchor Distilling Company, a subsidiary of Anchor Brewing, a successful micro-brewery based in San Francisco (some of you have probably had their acclaimed 'Steam Beer'). The brewery company is over a hundred years old, but the new 'micro-distillery' was started in the mid-nineties.

The distillery produces a gin called Junipero, as well as three variants of OP: 18th Century style, 19th Century style and "Hotaling's" (meant to represent a turn-of-the-20th-century style [as embellished by a serendipitous occurrence at the time of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake/fire]).

The 18-century and 19-century styles are, in essence, little different in the making (more on that later), both being matured for two years, but the "Hotaling's" is distinguished by being matured in charred barrels (as per bourbon), but matured for over eleven years (a much more scotch-ish maturation period). Quite frankly, I'd love to get my hands on some of the "Hotaling's", but suspect we won't see it here in the UK for some time yet; and, when we do, it'll almost certainly be the same price as a three-bedroomed house.

The front of my bottle reads, "Old Potrero Single Malt Whiskey", but lovers of Scottish single malts should pay heed at this point. While OP is, doubtless, a single malt in every meaningful sense of the term, its malt source is rye, not barley. There's nothing particularly novel about rye whiskey -- it's been around for years -- but an archaic quirk of trade law means that they can't call it 'Rye Whiskey', even though it is entirely rye-based -- ironically more so than almost every other 'rye whiskey' on the market. 'Rye whiskey', as a moniker, implicitly denotes the use of charred barrels, whereas the 'Single Malt' is produced with uncharred 'toasted' barrels. 'Toasting' is a natural finish of hand-made barrels, as they are shaped over an open flame.

This, then, is the essential difference between the 18th and 19th century styles: the former uses uncharred barrels for maturation (and therefore can't be called 'Rye Whiskey'), whereas the latter uses charred barrels (and can). The latter also differs by being bottled at a table-friendly strength of about 45% ABV.

My bottle stems from an older batch, before they started producing the three variants and, as such, does not have the same labelling as currently used by Anchor Distilling. It is, however, exactly the same product as the 18th-century variant. At one point, they made 'Single Malt' and 'Straight Rye'. In recent years, with the range expansion and rebranding, the 'Single Malt' became the 18-century variant and the 'Straight Rye' the 19th-century one. The bottle also carries a serial number (in my case '8-RW-ARM-7A/8A'), which I found to be quite cool, frequently having drunk plenty of whiskies of no such individuated pedigree.

In addition to the above, all of the OP whiskies are produced using pot stills, in the traditional Scots-Irish way, as opposed to using Coffey stills, which are frequently favoured these days for large-scale production, being more optimally suited for consistent and more voluminous throughput.

Aren't you glad we cleared that up? All of this, and more, is explained in a diverting promotional video by Fritz Maytag (Anchor's owner and president).

On to the hooch, then. What's it like?

The liquid itself is a pale, yellowish amber, lighter in hue than most scotches, but not overly so; there are certainly a number of scotches equally as pale. If we were being unkind, we'd say it was the colour of somewhat strong urine, but that would be pretty unfair.

Upon opening the bottle, I was hit by an almost over-powering tsunami of strong, phenolic overtones. This was enough to set my scepti-senses a-tingling; at first waft (coming from the concentrating hole of the bottle) it was more than slightly reminiscent of a number of unpleasant scotches I'd had in the past. It didn't look too good at first glance, but I persisted.

The whiskey is essentially 'cask-strength' (62.2% / 124.4 proof), and Anchor proudly states that this is because it pretty much goes straight from the barrel into the bottle. Anchor don't particularly recommend drinking it straight, and advocate adding water or serving over ice. As someone who usually drinks whisk(e)y neat (or neat-ish), and considers putting scotch on ice a dubiously uncultured practice at best, this presented me with a bit of a trilemma in how to go about sampling it. In the end, my Thrustescent sensibilities prevailed, and I decided to try all three.

I filled one broad, straight-sided old-fashioned glass with a couple of centimetres of the OP, intending to drink half neat and add water to the other half. Being geeky about it, some back-of-an-envelope algebra revealed that I needed to add an extra 44% of water to bring it down to 43% abv; roughly 'bottle strength'.

Sniffing the neat whiskey in the open glass brought more scents and flavours to my attention. Unsurprisingly, it's very alcohol-heavy; and this element is quite bitter-edged, nasal and chemical; but there's a strong underlying sweetness and airiness that really begins to shine through after a while. Among the undercurrents there was also cane sugar, an edge of coffee, tree sap, a fizz of pepper and the sense of standing by rushes next to a stream. If that last bit is too abstract for you, what can I say? That's what it reminded me of; that kind of head-clearing clean-air sensation; being wrapped in warm clothes but still feeling the cold breeze. It's kind-of interesting; there's a battle being fought between the immediacy of the powerful rye-tinged alcohol and the more open, spicy essence behind it.

Taste-wise, its strength really comes through, but not in the way you might expect. The immediate sensation is one of gradual (but rapidly-encroaching) warmth, which then dies back just a few steps before it would become 'too much' to become a mellow, massaging peppery-sweet cloud. There's an immediate assault, followed by a flourishing peace, and the expected brutality never completely emerges. It pretends as if it's going to overwhelm you with a bass-heavy pummelling, only then to sit back slowly and proceed to play Bach on the piano. Goddamn! It's pretty darned good.

Swallowing it is the spirit equivalent of dropping dynamite down a long mine shaft rather than being like a depth-charge. Knowing it's so strong, and that it presents a pretty formidable front, you expect it to blow you away with an abrasive and abrupt inflammation, but again: it doesn't. Don't get me wrong; it's got a beautifully compelling kick to it, but, like its taste, it flares gradually after a disarmingly long pause, seemingly at greater depth than average, never becoming too corrosive, and it then rumbles and echoes in a manner most lovable.

Adding water to it makes it even better. As advertised, everything sits back and becomes much more mellow and long-term-tolerable. It becomes more sweet, tangy and massaging, while retaining a fiery and peppery edge. I'd recommend adding another 25%-33% of water, rather than the 44% mentioned previously. It tastes excellent in both mixtures, but adding more water normalizes it just a hair too far; its individuality becomes more generic, and less intriguing; it still leaves a fine whiskey, but it takes away too much of the fire, adding too much stereotypical refinement. You want to open the whiskey up and take the edge off, but not tame it entirely. Adding ice, again, makes it much smoother and more 'centrist', but again removes too much of the idiosyncrasy which, for me, lies at the heart of much of its appeal.

To seasoned scotch suppers, the only real analogy one can make is the following: Take one of the strong island malts (Islay or Skye), retain much of the phenol, and then get rid of the peat, all of it, adding a touch more pepper and mango-chutney-edged sugar. If that sounds odd, it is, but it's a surprisingly satisfying place to end up, and never risks becoming too sweet in the manner of certain bourbons.

Overall, I'd give it something in the mid-eighties, percentage-wise, and I'm a miser. Two thumbs up. Now I just need to buy a revolver and a ranch.

[ PS. I've just had another water-diluted snifter. It really is very good. In the same way that the Americans really can't make our stuff, we really can't make this; it certainly merits investigation. Lke certain Scottish malts, it gets even better after some 'airing'; if you've got the time, I'd pour the glass at least twenty minutes before drinking. Sláinte. ]