Tastes

This spirit has a lot of habanero flavor without too much of the pepper’s trademark heat. The honey comes through well first, with the pepper’s spice coming a few moments later. It’s well balanced and the flavors are as advertised. Still, I can’t see myself drinking it neat. It made an excellent mule, though!

Very good value bourbon. Very sweet on the nose. The palate is a little thin, but balances the sweet honey and vanilla with rye spice and oak well. I like this as much as my Evan Williams. Great for sipping or mixing as an everyday bourbon.

A definite improvement on the standard Crown. Still has the fruity, almost grape-like quality, but the caramel vanilla on the nose and the rye spice on the finish make this a more interesting whiskey.

Interesting. Has the sweet nose of a bourbon but the spicy taste of a rye whiskey. Not bad.

As billed. This is the standard Woodford Reserved kicked up a notch. The sweet vanilla/caramel and the oakiness are both stronger and richer. Very sweet on the nose, but fuller and more complex on the palate. There’s more leather and tobacco on the finish than I prefer, but otherwise, this is a wonderful bourbon.

Fruity esters are forward, maple syrup on the finish. As everyone has said, exceptionally smooth. I very much enjoyed this bourbon, but prefer and little sweeter and a little oakier. Glad I had an opportunity to sample it, but not worth the high price for me.

The nose was not particularly inviting; it seemed like it had too much going on all at once. The majors flavors I got on the palate were leather and tobacco with some sweet notes of brown sugar and caramel underneath. Very complex. Not bad, but not necessarily my profile choice of bourbon.

My first barrel proof bourbon. The nose is amazing with strong notes of baking spice. I can definitely tell it’s strength from the burn, but there is not a lot of ethanol taste. I get a lot of rich oaky roundness, followed immediately by very sweet caramel and corn flavors. This is a helluva bourbon!