Tastes

Tasted neat in a plastic cup - alfresco at seaside. The view of sunset over the gulf is definitely making everything taste a little bit better. Ethanol & vanilla on the nose. A bit woody. Sweet and inoffensive on the pallete. Not sure I'd buy a bottle, but at this moment I intend to drink what's left in this one...

Definitely not my first taste of this old war horse, but my first reviewed here. The pour was from a freshly opened bottle, neat into a glencairn. I'm sitting here waiting for it to air out a bit and the scents coming up from the glass are just crazy. This isn't a lightweight, and you'll know it right away! A swirl shows robust sheeting with thin, slow legs. Clearly there's a good measure of viscosity here. The color is a beautiful amber. After a few minutes in the glass I'm ready to stop looking and stick my nose right where it belongs... It is almost surprising that there's no strong notes of ethanol here. Certainly there is alcohol on the nose, but its not nearly as astringent and strong as the 57% ABV would lead one to believe. I get a vanilla monster, big sweet notes, and giant wafts of ginger, cinnamon, paprika, allspice, and even faint notes of cherries and buttered popcorn. This is a far more complex nose than should be expected from a sub $40 bottle. On the palette this is sweet with cinnamon red hots, vanilla, and a solid touch of carmelized sugar. The flavor opens with a candy's kiss, and immediately progresses to a full charge of flavor with a long, slow, warming finish. The mouthfeel is creamy, rich and thick. It coats the tongue and lips. Did I mention the finish. It goes on and on. Now this... this is a bourbon! Oh my! Everything you've ever heard about OGD114 is true. It's big. It's strong. It's spicy. It's bold. It's sweet. It's a great value. It's unimaginably tasty for a whiskey with no age statement, no secondary market, and no taters taking crotch shots in the car to share the celebration that comes from spending $80 on a $35 bottle that's artificially hard to find. There is nothing trendy or cool about OGD114. This is a an old-school bourbon lovers bourbon.

Enjoyed neat from a rocks glass at a restaurant. This is going to be a short review. This is sweet (ish), fruity (ish), cloying, and mostly inoffensive. It is not, however, a rye. There's nothing rye-like to speak of. There's very little to the (short) finish. No spices. No crazy fruitcake notes. No pepper. No complexity. No spark. What is there? Whatever it was bored the bejesus out of me. Pour an indifferent port into a indifferent rye and you'll end up with something like this. I don't like it and I'm certainly not spending money to buy a bottle after this tasting. I can think of half a dozen other whiskies I'd rather have, and all priced under $20 per bottle. This is a rye for people who don't like rye... or whiskey. Hard pass

I started drinking Dewar's White Label sometime around 1984, so this is a pretty familiar scotch to me. For a long, long time it was my daily drinker. As my available funds became a bit more flexible, my tastes changed and I progressed to single malts, bourbons and, my favorite, rye. But when I'm up against the wall and White Label is all that's to hand, I have no problems with it. This taste was courtesy of American Airlines at 32,000 feet. Served on ice. At least it was a real glass. Dewar's is okay. It tastes like grain alcohol with a few drops of a smokey something or other in there. It's like a real scotch whisky only without all the complexity, aroma and taste. Scotch from a fast food restaurant would taste like this. My favorite way to enjoy Dewar's White Label is 50/50 with soda. White Label has a bit of an antiseptic note that I'm not particularly happy with. It's less noticeable when served on the rocks, and it goes without saying that this particular whisky isn't intended to be drunk neat. This might not sound like a reverberating endorsement, but the truth is there are worse things one could find in one's glass. Like the other white label - Jim Beam - this is just a working class dram. It's not a world beater and it doesn't offend my taste buds. It's the 8th best selling scotch in the world at 2.8+ million cases (according to The Spirits Business web site), and that has to count for something. In my world an average nothing-special bottle that's available everywhere nets a 2.5 rating. right in the middle of the bell curve. Dewar's White Label is running with the pack, although I docked it a quarter point based on price. It seems like its just a bit more expensive than it ought to be. You won't find White Label in my liquor cabinet, but I'm happy to have it on a flight....

I'll never forget the first time I really tasted Rare Breed. It was 2014 and my wife and I had traveled the KY Bourbon Trail with another couple. I think there were nine distilleries at the time and we hit them all, along with lot's of tasting at various eateries in the evenings. We were getting ready to wind it up at Wild Turkey and my wife looked at me and said "I'm not sure what you're looking for, but that was the best bourbon we've had by far." Now my wife isn't a brown liquor gal. She'll sip it on occassion, but she's far more inclined to order a martini or craft beer. But when she says something is good, I've learned to pay attention. She is pretty darned good at pulling out complex aromas and giving them a name. Since then I've had a bunch of this. This taste was served neat in a glencairn. The pour is a polished cherrywood. Sheeting is notable and there are thick slow legs on the collapse. On the nose I get cherries, apples and baking spices. The nose is not strong or overwhelming ;it's actually quite delicate for such a potent dram. There is a bit of ethanol at first pour that quickly dissipates. On the tongue this is wonderfully balanced with sweet vanilla and bitter almonds, barrel oak and char, cherries, orchard fruits, slight ginger and black pepper . The finish is warming, with a slow and lovely fade that lasts at least a full minute. There is good complexity here. This taste is sophisticated with a fruity, bright personality. It's strong and sweet and balanced, creamy and rich. Mouthfeel is rich, but not overly thick. More silk than satin. This is a superb bourbon. Full stop. Wild Turkey Rare Breed, along with OGD114, Knob Creek Single Barrel and George Dickel Bottled in Bond, mark four points of my bourbon compass. I think they are all 4-out-of-5 stars, and I'll happily sip any one of them. This is top quality classic bourbon, and it's a bargain.

Revisiting this with a more complete review picture. I'm a Knob Creek fan. I started drinking the original 9 year 100 proof sometime in 1993, right after it was released. It was love at first sight. I've been a scotch head since the 80's, with a side deal with Canadian whiskies. I never really cared for bourbon much. My best friend was wholly committed to Maker's Mark at the time and, frankly, that wasn't my jam. Fast forward 25 years. After being less that impressed with the NAS 100 proof I'd stopped drinking it. Honestly I didn't notice that loss of the age statment. What I noticed was that it just didn't move the monkey anymore. And if you're a whisky-head then you know that damn monkey had better be dancin' or you're out buying a fresh bottle of something. And through some bizarre law of physics, something is never less expensive than the last thing... Its not like KC became bad, but it just didn't sparkle anymore. Then I found a 9 year old, 120 proof single barrel masterpiece. It had been released because... and get this... evidently a bunch of folks like me had just lost interest in Knob Creek. And you know what? Love again! AND THEN I HAD A STORE PICK THAT WAS TRULY EXTRAORDINARY!. Holy corn juice, Batman! That bottle got the monkey break dancing! This is one of my "core selections". These are the bottles I could enjoy forever. Knob Creek Single Barrel, Wild Turkey Rare Breed, Old Grand Dad 114, George Dickel Bottled in Bond, and Evan Williams Single Barrel. The WT and KCSB are tied for first in my heart. This KCSB is sweet, complex and sophisticated. I don't need to list what it tastes like or smells like. Go get a bottle! THIS is what great bourbon tastes like! Ordinarily I'd say this is a solid 4. That is to say it's top 20% of every bourbon I've ever had. Better than 4 out of every 5. And I'm standing by that. Keep that damn BT or ER, I'm drinking this. And once in a while, because this is a single barrel and they have some variability, you get a bottle that just satisfies. Its delicious. It checks all the boxes. Strong. Sweet. Complex. Aromatic. Full flavored. There's just nothing more you can ask from a $45 bottle. I'm having a generous pour from a bottle like that right now. With chocolate covered strawberries. And my wonderful wife of 40 years next to me. How good does ice cream get? And so I ask you; what more can one want from a whiskey?

Tasted neat from a rocks glass. The pour is a rich gold with notable sheeting and legs. I expect a rich mouthfeel. On the nose this is vanilla and honeysuckle. Sweet and rich. There's a trace of butter, caramel and light oak. This is super gentle on the palate. Creamy and rich as promised. Sweet with creme brulee, vanilla and nougat. Almost no heat, very little pepper. There is the expected Dickel bananas foster undertone and slight mineral notes. I'm not sure what Flintstones vitamins taste like, as it's been since sometime in the 1960's that I last needed a children's chewable vitamin. This is very tasty, but a bit boring. Its really easy to drink. In many ways it reminds me of Templeton The Good Stuff. Not in flavor but in how I react to it. It's just easy to drink without thinking about it. And clearly this is GD's answer to Gentleman Jack. It's a lovely quaff for a whiskey newbie, or someone moving into bourbon for the first time. No one will complain about this in their glass, its delightful. That said I still prefer the bottled in bond expression. It has a bit more oomph, real personality, a lot more complexity and it should be almost $10 less expensive.

Tasted neat in a glencairn. About 5 minutes was allowed to pass after the pour for the liquor to rest. The pour is brassy gold with thin sheeting and very little in the way of legs. The nose is cherry coughdrops, menthol, ethanol, and an almond note reminiscent of amaretto. There's a sweetness element and an alcohol element and they seem a bit disjointed and perhaps a little thin. The taste is initially sweet with cherry, vanilla, dill, cloves and mint. The initial sweetness fades quickly to a somewhat dry mid-note that carries a tinge of bitterness and this carries into the beginning of a peppery finish. This is a spicy rye with a bright, young personality. This is an acceptable rye when served neat. Its definitely not in the class of Pikesville, or even Templeton Good Stuff (the latter being a guilty pleasure of mine when straight, but a bit weak in the knees to go head-to-head in a cocktail) I find it to be a good candidate for a big rock and casual sipping. It works very well in a Manhattan, also. This rye has an affinity for vermouth, in particular in a perfect Manhattan with Noilly Prat rouge and extra dry 50-50. This is a good bottle and I'm glad I sampled it. I got it on sale for $27.99. It's worth that, but it has some stiff competition. I probably would take an Old Overholt BiB or a Rittenhouse over this. I do like this better than OF rye. I guess there's enough rye in the $20 to $30 range that this isn't going to be a repeat purchase for me. It's right near the highest point on the bell curve along with all the other the average players, and that's not quite good enough to get excited about.

I've been a Canadian whisky fan since I came of age. My first northern friend was Canadian Club 6 year (circa 1980) and I've explored quite a few since then. I've had several bottles of this particular whisky and I'm generally a fan of Forty Creek since I ran into a crazy 50% off sale at a liquor store several years back. I purchased a case of Barrel Select, a case of Copper Pot and a case of the Confederation Oak under consideration here. This is from the very last bottle of that case. Confederation Oak pours a rich, clear burnt sienna. It exhibits clingy sheeting when swirled, with quick tears that leave thick tracks. By appearances this is going to have a creamy mouthfeel. On the nose this is vanilla, candy corn, sweet demarara syrup, and Squirrel Nut Zipper candy. There's a little nuttiness to this. Pecans, not peanuts. There isn't a lot of complexity and this isn't going to hold your interest for some deep tasting session. It smells good, nuff said. Tasting this bears out its gentle, sweet nature. There isn't any real bite to speak of. This is a relatively low 80 proof. I'll admit that in recent years my tastes have leaned towards much higher barrel proofs. That said, this seems even kinder than its proof suggests. It's an easier sipper than Jack Daniels Gentleman Jack, for example (though quite a bit different in profile). The rye makes its presence known with traces of dill, mint and cedar. There isn't any giant profile, just a sweet candied flavor bomb. A drop of water will take any semblence of complexity from the nose, leaving mostly vanilla and candy corn. The water makes this really a very easy drinker, perfect for dessert. Mostly I've drunk this with a single large cube, often as a accompaniment to a coffee or espresso. I've also used this to make a brandy alexander, substituting for the brandy. I've also used it to make a crazy-sweet smoked old fashioned for guests who aren't whisky-experienced and want to try something new. This is a sweet, creamy, easy drinking honey/vanilla/candy liquor that's right at home when you want something that's not challenging. At the sub $35 price I got it for, it was a steal. At the $69.99 price I see it for at Florida liquor stores today, it's a hard pass. I have to dock it at least half a point for lack of value. It's good, just not $70 good.