Tastes

I'm dead serious when I say this is quite possibly the best bourbon I've ever tasted. Huge cherry and cherry liqueur flavours. Vanilla, big caramel, sawdust. Cinnamon, nutmeg, raspberry, peaches, plum, cocoa. Cola. Orange jelly. Apple pie. Mint, some dusty rye. Delicious. Rich, big body, beautiful texture. Barrel proof flavour without a conventional barrel-proof alcohol kick. It's obviously long-gone from the shelves, but I've got two bottles tucked away for major life events.

[Review of the 2007 edition of the Islay Barley] An interesting experiment in terroir, the idea that the characteristics of a place can generate certain flavours. Even at a young age, this stuff is pretty good: light peat, seaweed, salty sea breeze, salted caramel, apple skins. Menthol, herbal, floral notes. Buttered popcorn. Complex (especially for such a young age), bittersweet. A bit hot and peppery on the palate, but quite solid, fresh, interesting.

To my tastebuds, this is essentially Rittenhouse Rye bottled at a lower proof and with a touch more age (and there's some circumstantial evidence to support such a theory: Michter's "head distiller" used to work for Brown-Forman, and Brown-Forman was contract-producing Rittenhouse on behalf of Heaven Hill while HH rebuilt after a fire--it stands to reason they had some barrels of the stuff leftover after HH transitioned back into making it themselves). Flavours are mint, corn (seems definitely like high-corn straight rye), creamy sweetness, maple syrup, vanilla. Lemon zest? Baking bread and baking spices. Custard? Cream soda. Cut grass, tobacco. It's not bad whiskey at all, but for the price I'd take the 100 proof Rittenhouse any day.

Coming from Canada, where taxes and responsible drinking legislation mean you'll never see *any* bottle of hard liquor for under about $20 (and even that woud be the worst of the worst rotgut), it's hard to conceptualize how a $15 bottle of OGD could be as good as this is. It's not setting the world on fire, by any means, but at $15 it's a tremendously respectable pour. Flavours are earthy, peanut buttery Beam-yeast, new make-ish fresh corn notes, baking spice (cinnamon, ginger), peaches, apple juice. Spicy on the mouth, with big cinnamon and clove, fruits, vanilla, caramel. Maybe a hint of cocoa?

At the price, it's so, *so* much better than it really has to be. $25 in Canada puts it in the same price range as a few bottom-shelf Canadian blended whiskies, and it's almost embarrassing how much better EW Black Label is than any of them (not to mention the standard Jim Beam White or even Jack Daniels, both of which it blows away in quality). Nose/taste is cream soda, grape drink, vegetal, musty. Creamed corn, cinnamon. Vanilla, citrus, peanut butter, wood char. Faint cherry.

With all the hype surrounding Weller 12, and all the shortages and all the panicking, I often feel like Weller Special Reserve gets seriously overlooked. Dollar for dollar, it's one of the best value whiskeys out there; outshines Maker's Mark for considerably less, and tends to almost always be available on the shelf. Nose/taste is sweet, cocoa, vanilla, butterscotch, nutmeg. Bananas foster, classic Buffalo Trace apple/cherry fruit flavours. Cinnamon and apple, making for a nice pie-like flavour. The only off-note is a faint metallic twang, but to be fair not even the Weller 12 bottles I've had recently are immune to that off-note. Great juice for the price.