Tastes

Neat in rocks glass in Sunny Buck. Nose is very rich, with some candied fruit, vanilla, lite baking spice. Taste is more robust, with oak age coming on, raisins, plums, orange peel, licorice. Lots going on. Lingering mild spice and dark fruit. Decent. 12/21/19

1.75l because of course. Neat in Glencairn at home. Nose is full of peanuts and rye spice, some oak and mild vanilla. Fairly one-dimensional, but surprisingly solid. Taste: rye spice, high astringency, bitter apple peel, oak. Not terrible, but I certainly understand the cheap plastic 1.75l packaging. 12/18/19

Neat in Glencairn at home. Nose has baking spices over oak, leather, dried grasses, orange peel. Taste has definite spice - with lots of them intermingling - over oak, vanilla, dried orange candies, meadow grass, with a final cinnamon jolt. Lingering spicy finish. Good, not great, but nice for the price. 12/18/19.

Neat in Glencairn at home. Nose has oak, vanilla, caramel, baking spices, lite apple. More character than the Small Batch. Taste has spices and oak, butterscotch, with mild heat coming on at the end. Bit oily. Nice lingering spicy finish. Decent. 12/18/20.

Bottle to Glencairn at home. Nose has vanilla and orange zest, some rye spice coming on, and mild heat at the end. Taste has the rye spice, adding in some apples, clove, peanuts, dried grasses. Finish doesn't linger very long, though it doesn't just die either. Frankly, better than I expected. Decent enough. 12/13/19.

So this just won Whiskey Advocate's Whiskey of the Year. Of course I had to check it out (I am an awards whore, dammit it all). VA ABC just started getting this, I had to order a bottle from the warehouse and then no one at the store was familiar with it, and asked for a report after tasting. Bottle poured neat in Glencairn at home. Breezy joined me for the occasion. Nose does have the buttered popcorn and hint of Flintstones vitamins that other reviewers note, but with the vanilla and caramel followed by spice, it works. Taste has more butter immediately followed by baking spice, then some mild heat comes on, followed by the vitamin and butter again. Quite interesting, and very drinkable. Though I do agree that more than a couple drams at a time would be too much, too oily and medicinal on the palate. Overall - no, this is not the whiskey of the year, but it is definitely the best Dickel I have had, by a wide margin. 12/12/19.

Bottle pour neat in Sutherland tasting glass courtesy of Cousin Lane, who found it 9/10ths full in his late grandfather's old stash. Had it been unopened, looking at a 4 digit profit on the market. As it is, we ended up getting an exceptional opportunity at tasting history. Bottle looks exactly like the one for this listing, gold veins and so forth, but showing more age. Really cool. Extremely smooth, with caramel and apple peel, no discernible heat despite the proof. A real treat. Thanksgiving 2019 in Freehold, NJ.

Bottle 000186129 (WH CL-D) 8.5 years. I really like the original, and based on the sheer nonsense of decoration and words on this bottle, I fear the worst. Neat in Glencairn at home. Nose has some cherry cola, Dr. Pepper spice, vanilla, oak. Some heat coming through. Taste is more of the same, amplified by the heat. Second and third sips are more smooth, as my palate adjusts to the spice and heat. Splash of water brings out a bitterness, like birch. I just don't know about this one. I can say that I prefer the former "multi-barrel." 12/9/19

Bottle pour neat in a rocks glass at SMUG-NoVa Winter 2019 at Matt the Lion's new Fort Awesome. Nose is really weird,kinda swampy and diapers. Not good. Taste has some nice spice, bittersweet oak, apple peel, cloves. Decent, but gack that aroma. 12/7/19.

Neat in rocks glass at Yard House DC. Nose: definite apples, lite baking spices, mild oak. Taste: creamy spices, bittersweet, oak and apple peel. Lingering spicy finish. Ok. 12/5/19.