Tastes

This is a review of a 2023 TopHat Liquors (Kentucky) barrel pick. Nose: balanced corn, vanilla and hints of spice Taste: candied corn, more vanilla, brown sugar and instead of the usual high rye spice forward, this spice sneaks in at the end. Finish: medium Great complimentary flavors to the mainline Woodford bottles. And at $60 for 1L it was an amazing deal. Too bad some of the other bourbon companies are not producing barrel selections like this.

Brown Forman might be messing with you. This is identical to Old Forester 100. Taste, nose, finish, all of it. Except it costs a little more. Because the label is different? Kind of weird. OF100 is a good daily sipper and I rated it as such. But since this is supposed to be a different bourbon I gave this a 3.75 out of 5 — just like OF100!

Nose: brown sugar, oak, nutty Taste: dusty barkey, oats/grains, baking spices Finish: medium First time I tasted this I was pleasantly surprised but coming back it impressed me less and less. The Chardonnay barrel gives it an odd bitterness on the palate. May have to come back to it in the future.

Jack Daniel’s black label, the standard Tennessee whisky, is not bad at all for a bottom shelf American whisky. It’s basically just a bourbon that undergoes the “Lincoln County Process” …but this wasn’t as good. Nose: you get that famous JD banana on the nose but this was like a mushy over-ripened banana that isnt too appealing and kind of funky. Taste: the banana goes away thankfully but nothing too special, this just tastes like Jack Daniel’s. Finish: short Pass on this. Disappointed.

The nose is the only this about this that says: “I am a well-made whisky.” On the nose are hints of honey, floral notes, rye spice. Taste: mint and baking spices that quickly give way to stale, flat sweet tea Finish: short Hard pass.

My second favorite of the Nikka Coffey still bottles. Nose: sweet candied-corn, very soft alcohol scent, and a kind of floral-perfumy hint on the nose Taste: smooth with hints of grass, lemon, vanilla Finish: very short, a tiny bit of cinnamon at the end You can tell the barley is in there, but it doesn’t taste like Mellow Corn for instance even though corn makes up most of the mashbill or so I’ve read. It’s a good whisky but not for the $75-90 price point. If you can find it in sale it’s probably worth buying a bottle.

Nose: vanilla, caramel, dusty corn Taste: baking spices and a hint of banana Finish: a hint of orange peel and longer than you’d expect from a bottom shelf staple The fact Jim Beam can make this at a massive scale with consistency just reinforces my opinion that most craft distilleries won’t survive the last decades bourbon boom.

I hear a lot of bourbon drinkers like the other version of this but i’m the opposite. This is my favorite of the two Nikka Coffey still bottles (it’s a notch above the grain whisky). Nose: caramel, pecans, banana, maple syrup, apples Taste: spicy and candied vanilla Finish: medium Very sweet. I’ve seen this at $90 which is too high in my opinion. Below $60 is a good value.

Of all the toasted barrel finished bourbons of the last few years this might by my least favorite. I’m very fond of Woodford Double Oaked, Makers 46 and Michter’s Toasted but this one is heavy on the cinnamon, low on the oak surprisingly and not much else. Nose: similar to Makers 46, some oak with hints of apples & cherry Taste: cinnamon with a hint of vanilla’d honey Finish: pretty short actually with a little extra oak at the end

Why are 2-3 year old bourbons charging a premium again? The high proof hides a slew of imperfections. A few drops of water brings those out. Nose: vanilla, corn, oak Taste: hot cinnamon Finish: short $20 Heaven Hill beats this easy.