Reviews

This is Rock Town's own distillate, batch 18, with Phil Brandon as Head Distiller. Tasted neat: Very light nose; a bit of vanilla and perhaps cucumber was all I could pick up. Taste is fairly one-dimensional, with some caramel and oak before a strong medicinal alcohol takes over. Mid-palate and finish is very peppery and drying oak. It may be that too-wide cuts account for the alcohol predominance. Perhaps inferior casks result in the lack of flavor on the nose and in the taste. A splash of water reduces the alcohol and pepper. I reco. mend tryung it on the rocks or in a cocktail.

Batch 3 - Nose: Like nosing a waffle with butter and syrup, with a whiff of oak. Wonderful. Palate: Sweet, then moving quickly to white pepper and oak. Finish: Drying, with pepper slowly fading, then the oak. Medium-long. The french oak barrel finish is prominent on the palate and finish.

Batch 4CF Nose: Brown sugar-caramel, vanilla, very slight apple. Palate: Strong spice initially, pepper; then evolving to honey with background of baking spice. Finish: Slowly fading pepper and dry spice.

Nose has chocolate and caramel, with abit of the port coming through. The palette offers milk chocolate and an undertone of vanilla. The finish is strong mizunara oak spice, slowly fading. The mouthfeel is full. The nose and finish are, by far, the strengths of this whisky, and the finish is an outstanding example of mizunara influence.

Not the most complex bourbon in the world, but it's an easy sipper. I wouldn't buy it again for the price I paid. I purchased during a Total Wine promotion after I was told it was a poor man's Eagle Rare. Ha! Nose is vanilla, with a bit of pencil shavings. Palate provides light caramel, transitioning to spice. Finish is fairly long with diminishing spice. Mouthfeel is lightly oily. I'm not sure where this fits. It's not complex enough for a good neat dram, but too expensive for mixing (well one could use it as a mixer, but there are better mixers that are a lot cheaper). Bottle label says "From Barton 1792," but also "Distilled, aged and bottled by the Clear Springs Distiing Co., Louisville, KY," ...so???

Ugh. I must have received one of those heavily sulfered barrels. Boiled cabbage on the nose and even more prominent on the palate. I can't drink this.

Prichard's Tennessee whiskey is unique, with an express exception to the state law requiring anything labeled as "Tennessee Whiskey" to use the Lincoln County method of filtwring new make through charcoal before aging. Prichard's was one of three Tennessee distilleries (with Jack Daniels and Dickel) operating when the law was enacted, and the only one not using charcoal filtering. Unstead, it is aged in casks with a deep alligator char, and the resuting taste is somewhere between old-style Dickel (pre-Cascade Hollow rebranding) and Jack Daniels. Don't expect a typical Tennessee whiskey. Nose shows peppery spice, some leather and a background of vanilla. Palate begins sweet, then overtaken by spice with cigarbox notes on the roof of the mouth. Mouthfeel is slightly thin, with some lack of rickness. Finish: spice slowly fades, leaving a faint oaky memory.

Caramel bomb. Nose shows heavy caramel, with juicy fruit gum and slight strawberry. Taste is predominantly caramel, again. Relatively short finish moving to drying spice. Overall, too much caramel.

This batch (early 2024) is significantly spicier (and less sweet) than the pour I tasted a few months ago. The nose is predominantly toffee and cinnamon, with a hint of leather. Palate shows more toffee, transitioning into red hots and spice. Finish is medium-short, with leather, then quickly moving to pepper and cinnamon on the tip of the tongue.