Jos A. Magnus Tasting (Murray Hill Club, Joseph Magnus, Joseph Magnus Cigar Blend)
This wonderful little distillery has a long history and actually comes from my home state of Ohio! Joseph A. Magnus owned and operated a distillery in Cincinnati from 1892 until 1919, when Prohibition killed millions of gallons of poor innocent whiskey and closed down the distillery. I’m sorry, but I need a second to mourn for the loss of the poor whiskey.
Luckily, his great grandson Jimmy Turner found a bottle of this wonderful whiskey in his mother’s house. It was then that Jimmy decided not to let his grandfather’s legacy die with prohibition. He got some of the best bourbon minds in the business together to sample the original blend and determine if it was any good. They all were delighted by the delicious flavors and set out to recreate this amazing bourbon.
Nancy Fraley, their Master Blender (or bourbon Momma as I like to think of her), took the bottle home to her lab in California to deconstruct the original, while the rest of the team searched for bourbons with a similar profile. As luck would have it, they found the MGP distillery just 26 miles from the original distillery. They had plenty of lonely orphan barrels of bourbon that had been aging for eight years waiting for someone to love them enough to bring them home and finish them. Nancy Fraley had determined that the original barrels had been finished in sherry casts and set out to turn these poor lonely barrels into a wonderful finished product.
The Jos A Magnus Co. adopted these poor lonely barrels and took them to their new location in D.C. This is where Nancy finished the bourbon in sherry and cognac barrels, transforming them into the three amazing bourbons below.
Murray Hill Club has a sweet caramel spice with hints of apricot in the scent. It tastes of sweet spices that reminded me of nutmeg and transitions to a warm rye flavor leaving a spicy tingle on my tongue. A few drops of water brought out lovely clove flavors in the finish. This is a wonderful bourbon and I adore the complexity of the flavors as they transition. I recommend this bourbon for anyone that enjoys a flavor progression and a little bit of heat at the end of your taste.
Joseph Magnus I smelled very sweet sugar in the scents. The taste began with sweet candy flavors on the front end that transitioned to a smooth flavor of leather and dark chocolate with peppery undertones in the finish. I discovered this bourbon on a vacation, and I could not have been more excited to visit the distillery located in D.C. I recommend this for lovers of sweet smooth bourbons, and the minute I found a bottle I added it to my collection.
Joseph Magnus Cigar Blend has a sweet scent that reminded me of apricots and a spice I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The taste started out sweet and smooth, with hints of leather, and finished on a spicy note with a little wood and a light tingle. I did not taste the fruit in the finish like the distiller suggests, but I can agree that it would complement a cigar perfectly. I recommend that, if you can find one of these sought after bottles, you watch a sunset and enjoy a cigar with this wonderful bourbon.
I highly recommend visiting the Murray Club in the Jos A Magnus distillery and enjoy a cocktail whipped up by their wonderful bartenders. Shout out to Marcus! Please comment and let me know what you though of my tasting notes and even better what you think of these wonderful bourbons. With that, I’m off to yoga. Cheers!
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