For my first attempt at a Poor Man’s Whiskey I’m going with the classic recipe of Poor Man’s Pappy. This is a blend of 40% Weller 12 and 60% Old Weller Antique which is supposed to tone down the rough edges of OWA and add more complexity to it while upping the proof and punch of the somewhat mellow Weller 12. There are a number of spinoff recipes that add all sorts of other things to the blend but let’s start with the classic.
Poor Man’s Pappy
Recipe
60% OWA; 40% W12
Neat Tasting Notes
Nose: Strong with sweet butterscotch, cherry and oak notes
Taste: More cherries, slightly tannic oak and some warm spices
Finish: Lingering butterscotch and slightly tannic oak with hints of baking spices
Results
Accuracy: Vague
Value: Fair
Conclusion
This was fun but I’m honestly not convinced this recipe is even better than OWA and definitely not better than a decent OWA pick. I do prefer it to Weller 12 but that doesn’t really surprise as I think W12 is just ‘good’ but not particularly great. This didn’t taste anywhere near Old Rip Van Winkle which was the closest thing to Pappy I had on hand.
TL;DR: Fun, relatively good, not exactly worth it
You can also follow me on Instagram(@atxbourbon) or reddit to keep up with these Poor Man’s recipes, reviews and my other whiskey-centric adventures. I’ve also done a blind tasting video for this blend.
Scale
Accuracy
Perfect: effectively could not tell them apart
Close: good enough for a Poor Man’s Whiskey approximation
Vague: it sort of tastes similar?
Not at all: what?
Value
Great - A great deal, I’d blend it again
Fair - I don’t feel like I wasted the components
Poor- Regrets