I Tried Hundreds of Whiskeys. This Cheap Bourbon Costs Three Times Better Than Its Rivals

Old Grand-Dad Bonded is one of my favorite bargain bourbons for several reasons, besides its $25-per-quart price point at stores around me. My appreciation revolves around the reference to the name, the near-disappearance of the brand, and the delicious high rye porridge bill.

The brand was created in 1882 by Raymond Hayden, named after his grandfather and distiller Basil Hayden Sr. Basil's portrait still appears on every Old Grand-Dad bottle (though today's bottles have a more serious outline rather than the cheerful one in past bottles). Despite several changes in packaging and distilling locations, the brand has remained true to its high rye profile, which accounts for 27 percent of the mash bill. It benefits from spice complexity, including notes of extra rye, white pepper and cinnamon.

The brand changed hands over the years, including a Prohibition bypass with the American Medicinal Spirits Company, which later led to production by National Distillers. What Prohibition didn't kill, the disco booze of the 1980s almost did; Bourbon sales were in steep decline.

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DeKuyper Peachtree Schnapps was one of the rising stars this decade; so much so that Tom Cruise played a major role in the movie. Cocktail. It also played a central role in my first drinking adventure. For my birthday, my older co-workers wanted to share some worldly knowledge before I start college in less than a month. We mixed schapps with orange juice to make Fuzzy Navels.

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Perhaps to offset lagging American whiskey sales, Beam purchased the DeKuyper line in 1987 for $545 million. The deal also included a handful of National Distillers whiskeys that were declining in popularity, such as Old Taylor, Old Crow, Old Overholt and Old Grand-Dad. In an age of sugary, colorful and fun, it's unclear whether whiskey labels sweeten the deal or unload unwanted baggage.

While Beam sold some of its brands, such as Old Taylor, to the Sazerac Company, it also shelved other brands, such as Sunny Brook. But the company saw the value in Old Grand-Dad and decided to keep the brand and the original recipe alive.

The recipe part is important for flavor, but unfortunately this treatment was not universal. Old Crow, for example, has been converted to the same recipe and process as the regular Jim Beam White Label Bourbon offering but is bottled younger. Having recently tried Old Grand-Dad Bonded, distilled in 1951 and bottled in 1956, the whiskey is not the same. The older one is more caramel and toffee-dominant, with other flavor variations attributable to differences in yeast strain, distillation and maturation techniques. But in modern bottles the essence of taste is still there, as well as tradition and quality.

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Since bourbon prices have risen astronomically, Old Grand-Dad Bonded has only slowly risen with inflation, costing me only 75 cents per ounce. Its quality-to-price ratio has made it popular among bartenders and price-conscious whiskey drinkers; especially since the prices of the Wellers and Blantons of the world have more than doubled in the last 15 years. For high rye bourbon fans, Old Grand-Dad Bonded is one-third cheaper than Bulleit Bourbon with a similar grain structure.

Old Grand-Dad is currently produced in three strengths, 80, 100 and 114 proof, and like the Goldilocks story, the first one falls a little slack and the third is a little warm for me. 114 proof plays a role in softening sweeter ingredients in cocktails, such as amaro and other liqueurs in the mix, but the extra proof makes it less enjoyable to my palate as a sip.

Additionally, Old Grand-Dad Bonded must meet certain requirements to be labeled as such. Bonded whiskeys are at least four years old and proven to 100, a historical indicator of purity. Considering its price and quality, I find myself enjoying this whiskey at home at night, as a boilermaker pairing amber malt-forward beers in pubs, or as an old-fashioned person in mundane moments like cooking dinner when pure spirits are draining me. My stomach is angry. Of course, there are better quality bourbons on my shelves, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to justify them price-wise for anything other than special moments, so having Old Grand-Dad Bonded on hand is truly a blessing.

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