There are two stories to tell when it comes to the St. George Baller. One's about the distillery, and the other is about the product they're shamelessly (and thankfully) trying to ape.
The first story: I've written about a few of their offerings over the years, including a gin and a vodka, though they have three other gin varieties and two other vodkas I have yet to cover. St. George makes liqueurs, brandy, a California Shochu, a well-regarded bourbon, and even did a rum at one point. A person would be forgiven for thinking this is a “Jack of all trades, master of none” kind of situation, but the baffling reality is that just about everything they do is pretty good. Including this bottle, which is their take on a Japanese whiskey.
This is the spirits equivalent of watching a show like the Masked Singer, where you hear a showstopping aria come out of some woman in a head-to-toe a giraffe costume, only for the contestant to unzip the suit and you realize it’s been someone like Gwyneth Paltrow in there the whole time. As if to say, Guess what, disappointing normal person: I’m killing it at this, too! Not like they needed any more money, fame, or attention, but here we all are.
Onto the second story.
About ten years ago, you could walk into a BevMo and buy a bottle of Suntory's Hibiki 12 for about sixty bucks. Not long afterward, the world went mad. By that, I mean everybody woke up and decided they'd sell their newborn babies for a pour of Japanese whisky. As people hurled their money at the land of the Rising Sun, there wasn't enough well-aged hooch to sustain the demand. The 12-year bottles that for years were staples of the genre (i.e., Yamazaki, Yoichi, Miyagikyo, Hakushu, and the Hibiki) were reformulated into younger, “NAS” products.
“If you want to smell and taste something, the St. George Baller is the whiskey for you. Open the bottle and the aroma practically fills the room.”
Here's my biggest beef with Suntory, though. They used to do something with the Hibiki 12 they didn't do with anything else: they aged it in plum liqueur barrels. By the time my palate was developed well enough to realize how novel and wonderful this was, the bottle was discontinued. The Hibiki “Japanese Harmony” that succeeded the 12-year bottle didn't continue the plum liqueur aging. The Harmony is fine, though indistinct, though it becomes progressively less fine as the price continues to follow the Japanese whisky trend of rising without limit. Today, if you want to buy a bottle of Hibiki 12 on the secondary market, be prepared to spend up to $1,300, if some online prices are to be believed. Insanity.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who didn't want to live in a world without a plum liqueur-finished whiskey. About as soon as the Hibiki 12 was eighty-sixed, St. George came to our rescue and brought their own take on the bottle to the market. “Sure,” those plucky bastards must have said to each other. “Why not?” The samurai on the front of the bottle makes clear their intentions and is a sly wink to those in the know.
Note that it's not a one-for-one with the Hibiki 12. The distillers at St. George have crafted a product truly of their own design, and unlike the Japanese Whisky it is ostensibly aping, the Baller is not subtle.
By god, if you want to taste something, this is the whiskey for you. You don't even need to nose the glass to get the plum here: just open the bottle and the aroma practically fills the room. The plum comes through wonderfully juicy on the development, supporting a lot of chewy, flavorful malt and sweet baked goods. There's some minerality midway into the tasting, and then a wonderfully dry and woody finish.
The other element that the Baller has over the Hibiki is quite a bit more peat. This ashiness might be a dealbreaker for some, but it's strange how well-integrated it is. It's juicy and it's smoky. A lot of what makes a very fancy bottle like the Benriach Solstice 17 work is happening here, too.
But here's the craziest thing yet about the St. George Baller. At one point it was a limited allocation product, where unless you had an “in” or overpaid (a local store was selling bottles for $300 at one point), it was virtually unobtainable. I slowly sipped one bottle over the course of two years. However, because St. George is a good distillery that is equally good at the “biz” side of things, they must have said, “Hey, people seem to really like this stuff. Let's make more of it.” Over time, prices have steadily fallen, and now the bottle I was comfortable paying $85 for is about $45. As the kids say, Dope.
I wrote a thing recently about American single malts like this, in which I warned readers that weirdo, non-bourbon domestic whiskeys are generally more abrasive to the palates of newcomers to the world of spirits. That said, I'll be damned if about seven different people I've set up some tastings for didn't absolutely fall in love with the St. George Baller, declaring it their far-and-away favorite over the other very tasty Bourbons, Irish Whiskeys, and Scotches I'd assembled for them.
This was unexpected; I've found a lot of novices to be incredibly peat sensitive. As in, “Can't stand it at all and will make comments about licking an ashtray” sensitive. With this bottle, it hasn't been an issue. It's like the whiskey newbies had so much fun falling down the rabbit hole they paid no mind to any of the usual briars that scratched them up along the way. Another testament to the goodness of the St. George.
As a final note: St. George calls this the “Baller” because they hint at its suitability in a highball: i.e., a whiskey and (club) soda cocktail. It works great here, but to suggest drinking the whiskey this way as a default is an absurdity to me. Pour this stuff neat or over ice and ride the dragon.
