Tastes

(Note that this is a review of a "Small Batch Store Select" bottle, from Kensington Wine Market in Calgary, Canada--never-mind any questions about how the hell a "Small Batch" can be store selected like a single barrel). A nice, albeit soft smell, which I guess is what to expect from a wheat whiskey; a mix of Wheaties, banana bread, slight cherry, perhaps a touch of mint and some cherry Kool-Aid powder. Vanilla cake frosting. Slight breadiness or cookie dough. Taste is--again--light, an initial soft sweetness, more bread. Slightly wheaty, light cake batter, vanilla. Something evocative of an ex-bourbon barrel Speyside Scotch. Chocolate milk powder? Honey? Somehow I get a bit of cornmeal or cornflour despite the absence of corn from the mash. A touch of banana esters. Finish is a bit hot, dry. Slight vanilla and wood char. Nougat, maybe? Not terrible, but aggressively mild in flavour (aside from big, surprising heat in the finish). Super mellow, even without ice or water. Perhaps a nice warm-day summer sipper by the campfire, but there's not enough here to keep the attention of a whiskey fan.

A beautiful, lovely rye, leaning toward the softer end of the rye spectrum, and not going overboard on the barrel-influence because it was aged in re-used barrels (this juice was no doubt destined for Canadian whisky blends before High West rescued it). Creamy, honeyed, vanilla, and melon on the nose. Caramel and slight, soft wood. Baking spices--gentle clove, rye bread, caraway, slight pickle. The taste is equally creamy and soft, with more melon, ginger, vanilla, honey, wood-smoke, caramel, slightly tart apple, and baking spices and brining spices. Tremendously flavourful while being very balanced, very restrained, and very elegant. Slight dry, citrus pith, woody barrel finish. All things being equal, this is undoubtedly a five-star whiskey. And yet I can't say it's an absolute must-try either, because it's fundamentally no better than the much more widely available High West Rendezvous Rye (different than, but certainly not demonstrably superior to), a whiskey that's more widely available for a quarter of the price.

Evan Williams seems to play up the annual "vintages" aspect of its Single Barrel offering, but tastings across a few years--2002, 2003, 2004--reveal a pretty consistent bourbon, a straightforward bourbon-drinker's bourbon: cream soda, BBQ'd corn on the cob, cinnamon, faint cocoa, tobacco, oak, caramel. Some fresh fruit--apples, berries--and a kind of Kool-Aid grape-drink-type flavour I often get from Heaven Hill whiskeys. Sweetness, caramel, vanilla on the taste, then tobacco, honey, light citrus and tobacco. A hint of fresh-cut lumber. Drying, wood, grass, baking spices and wood-smoke on the finish. This is not, to my tastebuds, an absolute world-class bourbon. But it is a solid baseline bourbon, widely available at a good price, and it hits the marks of what a good, straightforward bourbon should do. A reliable old friend.

No huge peat presence here--only the faintest hint of smoke, with perhaps a hint of brine or iodine (indeed, this tastes even less peated than the ostensibly unpeated Bruichladdich offerings)--but a lot of sherry making itself known: nutty, brown sugar, fudgy chocolate, honey, floral, sea salt, raisins, dried fruits. More heather honey on the taste, lots of nuts and berries and a coastal saltiness. Peaches and more raisins. A lovely and well-rounded whisky, though I feel like it needs a bit of time to open up in the bottle and really come into its own.

I wanted to like this--"say nice things about Detroit" and all--and credit to these guys for (mostly) starting from scratch and making their own spirits the hard way (as opposed to sourcing like so many others). And I totally wish them the best. . . . BUT this is not good. It is less than not good. Their own spirit just absolutely erases the straight bourbon component. Corny, raw, dank, leather, and unbalanced oak (the flavour alternates corny alcohol bite with soggy charred wood). It's palatable in a cocktail (and the distillery bar itself is a nice, if somewhat pricy, place for a drink in Detroit) but not worth your time as things currently stand.