Tastes

Neat. Neck pour. Feel a bit burned by the 2020 Makers limited release. That just didn’t hit me right... even with that recent experience, I purchased this 46 without hesitation. 46 itself is a solid pour and I always like the Cask Strength better. Really like the nose. Honey. Hard caramel. Praline. Brown sugar and cinnamon. Slight hit of pepper. Some nice oak. I want to say it is more floral than fruity. Very nice. Great, creamy and viscous mouth feel. Really coats. And it is sweet up front. So sweet. Vanilla and apple upfront. It starts bright and sweet but evens out in the taste into those pralines and caramel. Really dense bready note towards the end of the taste. The finish is a long caramel hard candy with a hint of oak that hangs in the back of the throat. I like this quite a bit. It’s sweet, it’s interesting, it brings a lot of flavor. It doesn’t have a stand out component or note though. I have had Private Selects that I would rank ahead of this. RC6 ranks ahead of this but it is better than the regular Cask Strength for sure.

Neat. Neck pour. First Chattanooga experience. First impression, the color is surprising. A nice, dark amber. The nose is nice. It’s young but only subtle. Not in your face green or grainy. Getting a lot of nougat. Maybe even tootsie roll. Spicy too, cinnamon and clove. Vanilla extract. I’m a fan of this nose. The bottle say aged more than 2 years. Very surprising for such a young product. Texture is surprisingly light and fluffy for the proof. This is a dark whiskey. Lots of cinnamon, clove, and fig upfront. Transition into this nice nougat and chocolate combo. There is some good pepper there too. The spice really lingers on the tip of the tongue even during the finish. There is a young green note right before the finish and it does hang on the legs. There is a really nice vanilla starting to wrap around the experience. I’m impressed but not in love. Chattanooga has a great start here. Lots of flavors, interesting transitions, and the $40 price. That’s $10-$15 below New Riff and $30+ less than Peerless. I will be keeping an eye on Chattanooga going forward.

Neat. Neck pour. I missed out on Ch 1 and 3. Really liked Ch 2 as a oddly refreshing rye. Intrigued by the concept of brown rice whiskey here. There is a lot going on with this nose. Getting the Beam peanut shells/peanut brittle. Bubble gum. Bubble gum is wrong... Sea salt taffy, strawberry sea salt taffy. Wow, leaning so bright. Vanilla. Lemon. Okay now it is dark and got this nice milk chocolate. This is a crazy nose. Okay it changed again. Now it is savory like the sauce in an orange chicken from a Thai restaurant. I’m a bit at a loss. Back to the peanut. I can’t keep up. Very nice, viscous mouth feel and it is packed with flavors. This is so complex it is perplexing me. I am getting milk duds up front. Transitions into a killer butterscotch which flows into peanut brittle. Getting orange and vanilla on the finish. Peanut brittle is hanging strong. Really hanging strong. Still hanging strong and even getting this nice rye now in the back of the throat. Now I am getting a distinct oat/rice on the finish. It won’t stop changing. I’m not sure I did that justice at all. This is one of the craziest whiskeys I have had. It’s delicious, it’s surprising, it’s unrelenting. It’s undoubtably Beam but then not Beam at all. Such a great finish. I am impressed by this one.

Neat. Neck pour. Big fan of Makers Private Selection and last year’s RC6. Happy to see Makers continue to branch out. Let’s see how the 2020 LR lives up to last year. This is meaty, first impression. How strange. Yeah, it just sits in this dark, savory range right now. I’m going to swirl this for a bit, this is changing the more it opens up... Okay starting to get this delicious caramel and vanilla beans. I can’t believe how much this is lightening and sweetening with air and a little swirling. Royal icing, very strong royal icing. Nice apple. Toasted coconut. The vanilla is taking over the longer I sit with it. Such a strange morphing nose, but it’s good. Oily texture, but first impression was off. Tongue got hit with a strong bitterness. Oaky bitterness. Cinnamon sugar is starting to shine through. Gosh, the palate is odd too. The bitter oak really amps up but does give way to a caramel wave. Then again the vanilla takes over. Toasted coconut on the finish. The vanilla and toasted coconut linger for ages. Man, this bitterness is killing me. I stopped, got some water, gave it a clean shot. The bitterness is not as intense, so maybe there was something with me there or it builds over time. With that said, still hits me wrong. One thing I will say about this, longest finish on a Makers. The vanilla and the toasted coconut at the end are strong but I don’t like the Journey getting there. I really hope this opens up....

Neat. Neck pour. I was excited to see this at Party Source today. $48 for a cask strength single barrel is pretty awesome to me. This nose is not a typical MGP rye nose. The dill is there but it’s really faint. The nose overall is surprisingly faint. This is oddly tropical. Like a mango salsa. Then I am getting sweetness. Cinnamon sugar. Vanilla frosting. Baking spices and pepper. The nose is a bit muddied but I like that it isn’t typical MGP too. Very nice, viscous and syrupy texture. Very syrupy and almost granular. Very dark on the tongue. Overly cinnamon-ed icing. Wow, that is an unexpected flavor bomb. It is a vanilla icing bomb. Like taking a shot of the icing in a cinnamon roll container. Then the rye really punches me in the face. Very very orange. The peppery. Back to a vanilla icing on the finish. Geez, those flavors are intense. The nose being so subdued suckered me in for the uppercut of flavor. Very potent. My eyes are watering. And my throat is under attach by cinnamon, pepper and rye that have no intention to leave. Solid solid stuff. One of the better MGP ryes I have had because it veers in an unexpected direction away from the dill. Glad the nose wasn’t an indicator of the crazy flavors.

Neat. Opened almost a year. This one got lost in the back of my collection but the fall season has really put me in the mood to re-explore some ryes. I know I loved this when it first came out but I can’t remember why. It’s incredibly citrus forward on the nose. Like a lemon orange combo, almost like a cleaning product but not in a bad way. No artificial but really exaggerated. Slight dill. Vanilla buttercream. Charred oak. What is interesting about this nose is that it has this light, bright notes but then these dark notes. Nothing in the middle. A refreshing rye though. Nice oily texture. Cinnamon icing on the tongue. Oh then those bright notes take over on the taste. Vanilla frosting, the orange, the lemon. And finish blends those all together for a nice dreamsicle. The rye on the legs lingers for quite a while. This is a delicious rye. The dessert notes are turned way up and the rye never overwhelms. I need to blind this against some other ryes, but would take this over a MGP.

Neat. Neck pour. 56.6%. Completed my Smoke Wagon vertical today with this purchase. I love these bottles. This juice has a lot to live up to though. To be worth the price, it has to be better than Remus Reserve. Remus is hard to best for the age, but maybe the extra proof and non-chill filtered helps elevate the Smoke Wagon. On the nose, there is a surprising amount of nuttiness. The only MGP I have ever gotten this note from before is Belle Meade Reserve when it was a batched product. Getting a nice cinnamon apple. A very surprising Fig Newton. Just found a great cherry too. Fresh oak. Charred caramel. Found the rye and now getting a hint of orange peel on the end. Blind, I don’t think I would identify this as MGP. I’d sway Barton or Heaven Hill. It lacks the typical MGP markers and goes in quite a few unexpected directions. All good directions too. Interesting. Mouth feel is perfect. So smooth. So oily. So velvety. Not syrupy though. Super smooth texture. Oh crap. This is a good bottle. Cinnamon, brown sugar, and apple sweetness on the tongue. Transitions into a vanilla extract and orange. Turns into the cookie side only of the Fig Newton. Exits with a delicious butterscotch. Rye lingers on the back of the throat too. I am shocked. This is amazing stuff. Worth every penny of the $80. So I said I would be comparing this to Remus, but Remus is stereotypical MGP. This Smoke Wagon is it’s own thing. I would be hard pressed to call this MGP on a blind. My only hope would be that butterscotch on the finish and maybe realizing how high rye it was with that orange note. But no, this is its own awesome corner of MGP. Such a big difference between this and the Smoke Wagon Small Batch too.

Neat. Neck pour. This has been on my to-buy list for a long time. Found it for $53 at Jungle Jim’s. Crazy price right? Had to pull the trigger. The nose on this is intense. The peat is actually making me hungry for some burnt ends. Once I acclimate to the peat though, this is so sweet. Short bread, coconut, and pineapple. Tons of salt and pepper. Like putting my nose into salt and pepper shakers. This may sound strange but there is a metallic silver there with it which triggered a memory of my grandparents salt and pepper shakers. That’s a deep cut of a memory. Vanilla extract. Man, this is delightful. I went into this thinking the peat would be overwhelming but instead the extra proof bumped up everything else instead. That’s awesome. Mouth feel is velvety and perfect. Wow, that is a ton of flavor all at once. Going to take a bit to tease this out... Yeah, intense. On the tongue, getting beyond the peat again I am finding that coconut, pineapple and vanilla extract. So sweet. Transitions into such a nice campfire smoke. Campfire doesn’t do it justice. More like a burnt cedar blank. On the grill with some pineapple marinated meat. The salt and pepper then hang on finish. A solid minute after my last sip, still getting all the flavors described above. None of them subsided or transitioned though on the legs. Everything described above is just hanging out for the duration. So intense. So so intense. I love it. My wife is going to come home 5 hours from now and I am sure these flavors are still going to be all over me. It doesn’t help that I dribbled a bit on my beard... If you saw my face it probably looks like I am in pain. Every time I sip my eyes squint and my lips pucker. It’s is so so good though.

Neat. Neck pour. Found this just chilling on a shelf today. I never had Series 2 and I loved the recent Series 4, so I was inclined to try this. Some say this is the best of the four releases too. On the nose, this is actually subtle MGP. Stereotypical MGP but quite faint. That is surprising. Well balanced though. Can’t decide on butterscotch or caramel, so I’ll just say both. So much honey and graham cracker. Vanilla royal icing. Getting a bit of orange on the back. Texture is thinner than I was expecting. Brown sugar and cinnamon up front with a hint of citrus. Butterscotch takes over. Then the honey. Little of that graham cracker and orange on the finish. The more I sip it there is a build of caramel in the back of my throat, just hanging and building. Umm, hmm. It’s the most average MGP I have had. I mean average in so many ways. Overall it’s middle of the road but all the flavors are right in the middle of what they can be. No flavor is turned up loud, if that makes sense. Nothing pops even though it all goes good enough. It’s very approachable. It’s a background MGP. If you are looking for a Remus, I would stick to Series 3 or 4 over this.

Neat. Neck pour. 90 proof MGP 5 year Rye for $40. Honestly not the best deal. 4 year Old Scout Rye is barrel proof and $50. But I love supporting Boone County. They have a sweet spot in my heart since 1833 came out. The nose strikes me as a balance MGP rye. Sometimes the barrel proof ryes can be too hot, but this is approachable and flavorful. The flavors are essentially standard MGP rye. Leans towards the dill/black licorice side of MGP but once again, the blending is balance so these notes don’t overwhelm like they typically can do. There is this really nice cinnamon roll drizzled with vanilla icing aspect to this. Reminds me a lot of Angel’s Envy Rye despite not being finished. Lots of pepper and rye through. Very spicy. Not as thin as I was expecting. It’s very oily while not being thick. Neutral mouth feel? Cinnamon vanilla sweetness on the tongue transitions to a combo of black and red licorice on the taste. Getting an interesting grape note. (?) All rye on the finish and the spice lingers. Just a well balanced, MGP rye. 90 proof is usually low for me but this brings the flavors so I am not going to knock it for that. I want to put this up against Bullett 12 year Rye (which I don’t have at the moment). I think despite being younger, it is better blended than the Bullett. If I were introducing someone to MGP Rye for the first time, this would be it. The price is the only thing that holds it back. At $30ish, this would be perfect. At $40 it starts getting closer to 4/5 year barrel proof single barrels from Old Scout or Backbone. I am impressed though by how much flavor this packs at 90 proof.