Tastes

Is it just me, or could a whisky taste any more like a beach ball? At first, I would say that I don’t mean that literally. Yet, somehow I do. There’s a rubber quality here that I associate with peated whisky, and Islay is known for their peated whiskies, and yet, the Classic Laddie isn’t peated. So where does the slight edge of rubber emanate from? Don’t get me wrong. The rubber isn’t overwhelming. It’s very subtle and may be all in my head. But actually, isn’t everything, perception-wise, in my head? Yeah, I’m going there. There’s something of a refreshing saline scent in the whisky as well that carries on into the palate. I’m a little suspicious of that blue bottle. That baby blue bottle. It’s baby blue like an azure sky with white lettering that reminds you of the clouds in that azure sky and it makes you think, I should drink this shit on the beach! The maltiness in this is beautiful. You can taste the grain in a way that both makes you think the whisky has a youth but it’s also well-blended. It’s like amber wheat and vanilla mixed. It’s bready. It’s like bread dipped in honey. This is a whisky that makes me want to go fly a kite in the sand. It’s a whisky that makes me want to sit around that campfire on Amity beach, you know that one at the very beginning of Jaws where those late-70s hippy kids who’ve missed the best part of the peace love movement are sitting around a fire trying to get laid and they’re pairing up and making eye contact and drinking bad beer right before the one runs off to get eaten? This is what they should have been drinking. This maybe would have made the beautiful blonde stay by the campfire sipping something good instead of cheap beer, avoiding the whole run in with a shark. This is never going to be the best scotch you ever taste, but I guarantee you it’s going to please every scotch fan you give it to. I think this is the baseline Laddie, which means, the only place you have to go from here is up, and as a baseline, it generally means the sky is the limit. That beautiful sky, azure and blue. Lord, they killed it in the marketing on this one. The bottle looks like you would expect the whisky to taste. PS. Please note, this review has been written under the influence.

These are the tastings of less interest often: those tastings of store picks where you can get them in one place and one place only, so that, even if they’re good, if you live outside that area you’re never going to find one? High West does a great many and they’re relatively inexpensive. They also move quickly. If you’re not locked onto them, you miss out, and this is the first time I’ve been quick enough to nab one: rum finished Double Rye. I believe in a previous review I’ve talked about how I’d had the Double Rye right before High West moved from using older stock from MGP to mixing in their own distillate where according to all of you the quality went downhill. I trust the people I follow here, so I’m not questioning that. The only reason I write, “according to all of you,” is that I never went back to the well of High West Double Rye after that, mainly because I was more interested in exploring other options. There’s no doubt, however, that High Rye retains an allure to me. The bottle design alone is amazing. I like the image they present, and I was always going to come back at some point, especially if I could get my hands on one of the coveted store picks that brought something extra on top of the Double Rye. Last one I saw was a sherry finish, I believe, and I missed that one. It wasn’t in any of the FW&GS stores near me, and I wasn’t going to travel for it while this one, the Rum Finish, showed up in a store about 4 miles away. And the day it hit shelves, I drove over and got the first bottle. (My dad once asked, do you check the site every day to make sure you’re on top of getting these things? Yes, dad, I said, I check the site every day). There was also a High West “American Bourbon” that was finished in Sherry, but I passed. In any case, I don’t regret my decision to pick this up. It was $55, which seemed decent for a store pick with a finishing, and the proof is 98.9, which puts it in a respectable realm. And after all, I’ve had other rum finished whiskies: the Tully XO, the Glenlivet Caribbean, and they always please, even if they don’t necessarily wow. And this is a pleaser but not a wow-er, too. The nose is essentially dominate by the rum, with the molasses spices coming through. The rye is ultimately subsumed, but that’s not necessarily a drawback. Would I like a bit more balance? Could I imagine this with a little more, say, cola or anise or hot rye spice, yes. But it’s not a deal breaker. The funny thing here, beyond the rum nose, is the palate, which might be more familiar if I’d had the regular Double Rye after the move to more High West Distillate, but again, there’s not much rye here. There’s a little bit of pepper, but oddly, the palate is full of tropical fruit. There’s molasses from the rum, but there’s also a lot of mango, which again, seems to me to mean the rye is being subsumed. The finish is decent and peppery and lingers, and is really the only place with this whisky where I get any rye notes. It’s actually a lot like the Glenlivet Caribbean in many ways in that the rum becomes prominent, perhaps because the foundational spirit in the mix isn’t well-aged and can’t hold its own against the barrel finishing. I’m certainly going to finish the bottle, but I’m also glad I didn’t have to travel far to get this. While it isn’t a letdown, it’s certainly nothing to instantly write your friends about and post on social media that they have to find this. Recently, I complained of rising prices, and because of rising prices, I often ask myself, before I spend, what else can I get for the equivalent amount that might be better? For a few dollars more I could have gotten Pikesville. For an equivalent price, actually a little less, I could have gtten the Jack Daniels Single Barrel Rye. If I went bourbon, I could have secured Wild Turkey Rare Breed Bourbon or the Old Forester Prohibition. So no, I don’t regret buying this necessarily. But there are better bottles in the price range, which means I won’t be returning to this particular well anytime soon. In the end, if I wanted a rum, I could have bought a rum and a better one to boot. Plantation 5 year goes for $25 a bottle. The whole reason you get a whisky finished in rum casks is to see who the two play off each other, and there's isn't much playing here. Not bad, just cost more than what it's worth.

So after my last post, tasting the Robert Burns scotch and ranting about how whisky prices are becoming outrageous, I went out today, the first day these Maker’s BEP bottles were available in my area and bought two bottles for $70 a piece. Is that too much? Nope, even though previous releases were $60, I don’t feel that $70 is too much for the final Finish Series Cask Strength Special Release that Maker’s has planned. I’m sad to see them go, in fact. And I bought two bottles because I either have or have had all of these except the 2019, and every time I’ve opened one of these and finished it, I wished I had bought another to store so I could enjoy it again down the line sometime. Ergo, I bought two of these today to make sure I could do that (the only other I managed to get my hands on a second bottle of was FAE-02). And I’m a little biased. Maker’s is my favorite bourbon from way back, I love the regular Cask Strength, and I love the Finishing Series. So this was a no-brainer. So first off, I think this might be a little darker than most of the others in the Finishing Series. I haven’t actually held the bottle up against those, but I like what the darkness portends, which is usually rich flavor. And make know mistake, everything you’ve heard about this from the review here on Distiller to the writeup on Drinkhacker to, well…those are the only I’ve encountered so far, but as a Barrel Entry Proof release, this does indeed double down on everything that is great about Makers: It’s 110 proof, and the nose is a bit strong, but it’s got a nice sweet corn edge to it (there might be more there, but my allergies are acting up something fierce today so my nose is a bit clogged). Despite the proof, the palate is smooth as silk with lots of rich caramel and vanilla and dark tobacco and cherry and the finish lingers nicely with a white pepper bite, a trace of cherry pie filling, and maybe a little bit of green apple on the back end. When I read that this was going to be 110 and celebrating the Barrel Entry Proof, I wondered how it would be any different from the standard Cask Strength but this is definitely different and I would say superior, especially in mouthfeel which is extremely creamy and coating. Overall, I'd have to say this is the best of the Finishing Series that I've tried, though I do have unopened bottles of BRT 02, FAE 01, and the 2020 Edition whose code was too complicated for me to commit to memory. Does anyone have any info on why this is going to be the last one? These were actually the releases I looked forward to every year. The way some people look forward to batches of Elijah Craig Barrel Proof or Larceny or Bookers, I looked forward to the Maker’s Mark Finish Series. If this is truly the end, they’ve gone out on a high note, like Jordan deciding to stop after six championships or Jay Z telling us he was going to retire after The Black Album. I kind of hope, like those cases, it’s all hype and Maker’s will be returning with more of this Series. But unlike those other examples, let’s hope they continue to rise to this level. If Maker’s comes back with a whisky that mirrors Jordan’s tenure with the Wizards, then maybe they should just stay retired. But I can’t say that I’m not a little sad about this, and I can’t say that I might not seek out a third bottle if they’re still in stock after my credit card rolls over and my whisky budget for next month is freed up again.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting to that point where I'm ready to stop buying whisky. Don't get me wrong, I love it. But I'm not seeing inflation. I'm seeing greed. The price increases in the last year alone are astounding. I bought a bottle of Legent a year ago at $35. It's now $50. I bought a bottle of Glenlivet Caribbean for $35 a few months ago. That too is now $50. I was just looking at getting another bottle of Knob 12 which I bought maybe 6 months ago for $60, and it is now $72. These aren't incremental cost of living increases. These are highway robbery. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking fuck these distillers. Good as your shit is, your shit isn't good enough that I'm going to let you pick my pocket. I have maybe 60 bottles in my collection. I'm 43 years old. I'm trying to do the math to figure out how to parcel out my current collection to last the rest of my life. Then I remember, there's still a lot of inexpensive whisky out there that's good. Take this bottle for example. It's an Arran product. When it was around it was going for $33. Unfortunately when I bought this bottle, it was on clearance and hasn't been in local stores since, and it took me too long to open it. Had I opened it sooner, I would have realized this is perhaps the best sub-$35 bottle of whisky I've ever had. A nice sherried roundness to the nose, not terribly complex but fruity. The palate is strawberries and cream and the finish is long enough to feel like I've just tasted a delicious desert. And the best part is, for the delight it gives me, it doesn't break the fucking bank. So maybe I'm not buying whisky, maybe I'm just shifting my perspective. Maybe complexity is overrated. Maybe age statements are overrated. Maybe, what I'm saying, is I'm going back to researching what the best budget bourbons and ryes and scotches and irish whiskies are (notice I've left off Japanese because frankly budget and Japanese is an oxymoron). And that's it. this might be my shortest review ever. But it's also a manifesto. If you see reviews of complex expensive shit on here going forward, it's likely because I already own it. My overindulgence is done.

Breaking Bourbon's ratings go by barrels. They do halves and full, not quarters. I like their ratings. They seem tough but fair. Dickel BiB, this one, I believe, got 3.5 barrels, which is "Well above average." 4 Barrels is "Very good." When I tasted this bottle, I couldn't help thinking very good+. Thus my 4.25 barrel rating here. Dickel BiB got a high rating on Whisky Advocates Top 20. It's also done well in getting a A on Drinkhacker. For this reason, this aggregate of solid reviews, I asked my wife to pick me up a bottle when she was in Nashville this past week. She also got me a bottle of Chattanooga Cabernet Cask Finish, but I haven't opened that yet. This one, this was the first to be opened. And it's very, very good. I'm surprised at just how much I liked this. Straight off the bat, nosing this, I get cocoa powder heavily. There's a chocolate mustiness. It's a dark chocolate rather than milk, with a red fruit sweetness. Mostly cherries. I don't have a lot of experience with Dickel so the, um, Flintstone's vitamin thing I hear associated with it is not familiar with me. Mainly the fruit flavor is cherry. What this reminds me of a great deal is Knob 12. This is a 13-year, both are 100 proof, but this is bonded and that is not. Still, there's a great deal of similarity. Underlying the cocoa powder and cherry are touches of leather and oak. It's a bourbon after all. It's sweet, very little spice. It's not insanely complex, but the flavor is full, with maybe just a little banana mixed in with the cherry, reminding you of Jack or Old Forester, and maybe that banana tinge is what makes this different from Knob 12, despite the similarities. I can't remember what I rated Knob 12 and can't be bothered to look it up now, but these are in the same ballpark where I believe what pushes this up is simply the reality that they don't sell this in my neck of the woods and thus, this is special. This was a gift, and it feels like a gift, and I'm treasuring it as if it were a gift, which it is. I'm always excited when I get a whisky gifted to me that I can't get regularly. I'm always tempted to save it. I'm always tempted with limited editions. This one says Fall 2008 as the distilling season. My wife and I first hooked up Fall 2007, so this whisky is almost as old as our union. Kind of cool. Kind of interesting. Kind of comforting to know that something this good came out of 2008 and that something that good came out of 2007. Keep it going. I'd pick this up again in a heartbeat. And I'd pick her up again in a heartbeat too. It's a good gift.

Earlier this year, around February or March, the local FW&GS got in their store picks for Smooth Ambler Old Scout Cask Strength Bourbon and Cask Strength Rye. It's odd that I've ended up getting the bourbon first, since rye is more my speed, but the rye is only available as an online order where you need $99 to get free shipping while the bourbon is available in stores for $50. I picked this up about two weeks ago while coming home from the memorial service for a couple of friends' seventeen year old son who'd passed unexpectedly on April 1st, and yes, after the service I needed a fucking drink (remember, I don't just see my notes here as tastings so much as a whisky diary, and as a whisky diary, I should note that...well, I needed a drink. I won't linger on the event that prompted it beyond that). Shifting gears to the whisky itself, this is a really odd dram. I thought that when I opened and tasted it, and I still think it now. I actually want to put this in my decanter to see how it opens up, but my decanter is currently occupied. Did I say this was an odd whisky? Usually, when you start a review by saying, "This isn't bad, but..." what you mean is that it's bad. So I can't open with that. This is odd. It's got a spice profile that's closer to a rye but there's also that bourbon sweetness mixed in, it's just in the minority of the flavors. Its rather yeasty and spicy. In fact, given that it's a FW&GS pick for Pennsylvania, the combination of spicy and yeasty reminds me of a soft pretzel with spicy mustard, which is weird. I've only really noticed the spicy mustard and yeasty profile in one other bourbon, which is the Russell's Reserve 10 Year, but it's not prominent in that so much as underlying. Here it's the main event. It's what this whisky is all about, so when I speak of sweetness, well, there's also maybe a yeasty powdered sugar thing that is akin to funnel cake. It's 60.8% alcohol, which is my math isn't off is 121.6 proof, so it's strong, and it's a 7 year age statement store pick. So I was excited, but I recoiled at the first taste before I settled into what it's doing, I'm not going to lie. It's got a long finish and the best part is probably how creamy the mouthfeel is. Is it worth $50? Certainly. Although given that Larceny BP is still $50 in my neck of the woods, I'd probably have maximized my cash if I'd gone with that. But that's also online only, and I was passing a store I don't often stop at have access to on the way home from the memorial, and this was the most unique option on the shelf at this price. So I went with it. And I don't regret it, but it's an oddball offshoot. I'm always interested in store picks and they're always unique so unless they're awful, you haven't really misspent. Eh, anyway, I usually purchase a bottle a week and this week I picked up the Lagavulin 11 Guinness Edition, which I'm looking forward to. As for bourbon, my wife is in Nashville this week, and I asked her to see if she could get me the Dickel BiB or Chattanooga Cabernet Cask, so I should have some fun things to write about soon. However, if you know of any shit I should ask her to get while she's down there that you can't get anywhere else that's flying under the radar, let me know....

Back in college, I took a class in Existential Philosophy. I was flirting with a double major (English being what I declared), and the class was taught by a prominent member of the philosophy faculty, Dr. Dyke (yes, I'm naming names here). The reading list was interesting, Camus, Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor. I maybe nineteen years old, and I was terribly excited. Yet, when it came to the class, the professor would walk in, sit on the desk rocking back and forth, mutter under his breath, and put on a movie. I saw some great movies in that class. Bergman's Seventh Seal. The documentary on Crumb. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And yet, aside from Seventh Seal, I didn't know what any of them had to do with Existential Philosophy, and I didn't know because Dyke didn't bother to teach. I mean, he taught one kid in the front row. When he introduced the class schedule, the kid had made a joke about a chess match with death, so they were on the same page, and all the rocking back and forth mutterings went to that kid. But what did Dyke care about the rest of us. He had tenure. Ah, tenure. Placing you almost beyond reproach, almost beyond criticism. Tenure, the great goal of academics everywhere. Your job is safe. You can run a grift on your student, showing them movies the whole semester and teaching them absolutely nothing. Why, you might ask, am I starting a whisky review with a story like this? Well, grift, scams. I'm not sure why these words come to mind when Buffalo Trace comes up, except, that's right, I am. Buffalo Trace is running the biggest grift in the whisky world, producing one of the most overrated bottles in Eagle Rare and allocating their higher end products so they're either resold on the secondary market for exorbitant prices or placed into a lottery so that only a select few can get them. Don't get me wrong, in my state, they have them at SRP so I enroll in those lotteries (despite my beliefs), but there are 13 million people in my state. And only about 100 bottles to go around, so it's a hope and a prayer to get selected. This distillery has allocated its stock to such an extent that we're all in a rush to get in line to taste....well, I don't know if we can go by Eagle Rare or Buffalo Trace as a measure, but people swear by these bottles, they rush to snap them up, and they just never seem to live up to... Back in the aughts, I remember the music site PItchfork, published a review of the band Jet's second record that was just a monkey pissing into its own mouth. I don't think Buffalo Trace is that bad, but based on its reputation as the budget bourbon to end all budget bourbons, I'm tempted. I don't even want to get into what this tastes like, it's a 90 proof bourbon that I got for $27 and now it's $30, and I only picked it up on impulse to see what all the fuss is about. So instead of telling you what it tastes like, I'll tell you what I'd pick up instead of this: any bottled in bond bourbon from Evan Williams to Jack Bonded; Maker's Mark; Larceny Small Batch. Do you get my point? There's no reason to kill yourself rushing to the liquor store when you hear they have Buffalo Trace because there's plenty of other stuff out there in the same price range that's as good if not better. Actually, you know what, splurge the $5 more and pick up Knob Creek 9 Year 100 Proof or Russell's Reserve 10 instead of this, and just send the good karma back to me. As for that teacher I had: I heard a story later about how the entire faculty had gone on strike for better wages, and out of the entire faculty, he was the only person who crossed the picket line and went on teaching. Well, why screw it up when you've got a good thing going. Piss off the administration and who knows, they might send an observer into your classroom to see what you're doing. Buffalo Trace is that teacher; I'm that observer. If I'd had any say in the matter, tenure would have been denied. Can we finally call it like it is? The emperor has no clothes.

This is my 100th tasting. Can't remember when I joined, don't know how long it took me to reach here. I tossed a few ideas in my mind for how to make this special. Mostly opening something new. I have two bottles opened that I haven't reviewed: Buffalo Trace (not a 100th tasting special contender) and I had this, Old Forester 1920 Prohibition Style (which is much better). I considered other bottles: various Maker's Mark special releases; Sagamore 8 Year; Talisker 10, which I haven't yet gotten to. Then, I thought, Blue Spot, which I had intended to open for St. Patty's this year, and then I saw the prices it's going at for auction and thought, do I really want to know how this tastes that badly or if I sit on it a few more years, can I make a decent profit (remember, I'm not generally a flipper, but sometimes, when you have a rarity, it's tempting). I even considered some off-kilter ideas: Speyburn Companion Cask and Robert Burns of Arran simply because they're unusual bottles for my collection. Then, in the end, I settled on this. This is another one of those bottles like Wild Turkey Rare Breed that's a cask strength deal that's always around so I kept overlooking it, and then, on an impulse, I stopped into FW&GS and it called to me. OF 86 was an old favorite in my early drinking days. OF Rye 100 is a current favorite in the budget rye category. OF 1870 was one of the better bourbons I tasted when I started to expand my price range. And so, I have a lot of affection for the Forester brand. I suppose I could celebrate 100 with something a little more out of the ordinary, but this was open already, and this is what I've got. Nose is a little spicy hot, but also incredibly sweet with cinnamon and vanilla cake and banana custard. Palate has caramel spice with an edge of tobacco, graham cracker and a bit of leather as it lingers on the tongue, going out with a spicy peppery finish that's got a decent burn, but nothing that's going to put you off if you're used to cask strength. Overall, it's a nice pour, and if the price holds at $55, I could see myself buying it again, though I'm also interested in trying the rest of this lineup. Also, I do think I prefer this with an ice cube to temper some of the heat and I usually don't need that until we're passing 120 proof. And now that it's over, my 100th tasting seems a little bit of a letdown. Like New Year's Eve. But there's more to be had, more to be tasted, and we have to remember there will be other occasions. And now, it's time for me to sign off. Tomorrow, I intend to head to the store and pick myself up a bottle of Bruichladdich's Classic Laddie, which I'm terribly excited about since that's another brand I have a fondness for. Cheers!

Ever on the lookout for an inexpensive everyday pour, I was excited to see Early Times Bottled-in-Bond on the coming soon section of the FW&GS website. When it arrived in the local state stores, however, it wasn’t local but confined to the western part of the state out near Pittsburgh. I'd have to wait and I hated waiting, but eventually, after about a month, it arrived here, too. I’d read reviews on Breaking Bourbon, Drinkhacker and Whisky Advocate that made it sound promising. On Breaking, it’s “Above Average” and touted at a nice cross-section of price meets quality when my go-to BiB, Old Tub is merely listed there as “Average.” On Drinkhacker, Early Times is granted a “B+” rating which is commensurate with Old Tub. On Whisky Advocate, they’ve given this a 91 point rating while Old Tub is rocking 87 points, and even here on Distiller, the community score for Early Times is 3.7 while Old Tub is 3.4. All of which leads me, after tasting Early Times BiB to ask, “What the f#*k are people thinking?” I know taste is subjective. But on cracking this bottle, it’s hot on the nose, way too hot for 100 proof. That’s not overall a deal breaker, but all I’m really getting off the nose is spice and cinnamon, a sort of red hots flavor that continues onto the palate where you get a little bit of caramel mixed in and a finish that’s peppery. Generally, when I want to buy a bottle, I scroll through the reviews here, filtering for text because I obviously don’t care for a star-rating that’s provided without context, and I look for people I follow to see what they thought of it (props to those of you I follow here, this shows the respect I have for your opinions). The first person I found was @skillerified who writes of it: "This bottle gets a lot of hype, and I looked for it for a year or more before finally spotting one on a bottom shelf (where it belongs), but in the end it's really just a middle of the road BIB." You, effing, nailed, it. Now, reading that would have put me off any bottle that wasn’t $25 but at $25 a liter, there’s not much risk in seeing for yourself. After all, you can always use it for cocktails, right? But now, having tasted it, I’d go further and say that this is at the bottom of my budget BiB list below Evan Williams BiB. The reason I’m leaning on Old Tub is I’ve always been able to get that for $17 here, and now it’s up to $20, and I won’t say it’s world’s ahead of Early Times BiB, but for me, it’s got a little more complexity and it’s price is in the same ballpark. Overall, I gave Old Tub a 3.25 and with Evan Williams BiB being a 3.0 in my book, I’d usually have to go with Early Times at a 2.75, but as I think it’s 3.7 community ranking here is inflated, I’m dropping that to a 2.5, which given there are almost 850 ratings (can't call those that just leave stars and write nothing "reviews," can we?) won’t put much of a dent in its 3.7, but hey, I’ve gotta do my part to bring balance to the dark side of the force (also maybe I’m a little salty that my beloved Old Tub is lower than this) I don’t really in good conscience feel I can go lower than that, because it’s not THAT bad, and I can see myself enjoying it as it decants (yes, I put it in my decanter to see what some prime-time air exposure might do to it). Now, this is tasting 99 for me, which means my next write-up has to be something special to celebrate the centennial review. Oh, what shall it be? Well, hang on. I’ll leave y’all to wait and see. P.S. This does get better if you let it sit out in the glass for a while, but who's looking to let a $25 daily sipper BiB whisky do that. The whole purpose of a daily sipper is it needs to be ready out of the bottle, not 20 minutes later, right? I want the world and I want it....NOW!

Right before the pandemic, February 29th, 2020, local FW&GS stores had a one-day flash sale. Knob Creek 9 Year was $19.99 for 750 mL; Maker's 46 was $29.99 and Dad's Hat PA Straight Rye was $35.99. You probably understand what a deal those first two were, but have little sense that the Dad's Hat is usually $54.99, so that was $20 off, which was really the only way I was going to try an unknown quantity of unknown quality that usually goes for +50. And the first sips of Dad's Hat Straight Rye were rough. I like rye but up until then my experience was Rittenhouse and Overholt. Dad's Hat is among the rye-ist ryes I've ever had in that it tastes a lot like a deli sandwich with a punch of rye and dill hitting you hard with a vanilla sweetness and cinnamon tang buried underneath. For this reason, Dad's Hat is going to be divisive. I liked it a lot by the middle of the bottle, and by the end, I meant to try more Dad's Hat products, but never got around to it. I discovered Sagamore, and as far as small rye distiller's go, they grabbed my heart with their tequila-finished rye. From there I rushed out to pick up another bottle of that as well as a single barrel cask strength and the 8 year. Now Dad's Hat isn't too far from me and I also keep meaning to visit the Distillery, but it's just far enough that I have also never gotten around to it. But I follow them on social media, and they posted a picture of their Cask Strength product a few weeks ago nothing that it was only available at their Distillery or at a certain shop in the Reading Terminal Market off Jefferson Station in Philly. Given that Reading Terminal Market is easier to get to than Bristol for me, I figured this was the solution to the fact that I coveted the Cask Strength, and on a recent trip to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, I took the opportunity to pop into the market and nab this, and it's a real treat. Though like I've said, it's divisive. What this most reminds me of is Alberta Premium Cask Strength, so if you've had that, you can get a sense of the flavor profile here. From my review of that, you also know that when the proof gets this high, I like to drop an ice cube in it as opposed to knocking it back straight. In fact, that's my preference for anything once the proof passes 120. I always try it straight first to get a sense of what the product is like in its uncut state, then I usually finish the rest of the bottle with cubes. Building upon the standard product (or at least my memory of it), this is strong with the rye spice and dill, the caramel and vanilla creaminess undergirding it, a cinnamon punch coming in at the finish. The mouthfeel is what makes it a treat. It's extremely creamy, so combing with those tastes, it's like a melted down candy of an alcoholic variety. Now this isn't for the faint of heart. I see one review here already where the guy couldn't stand it, and that's actually understandable, as I don't think this is going to be up everyone's alley. It's the anchovy pizza of rye whisky, but if you have a taste for really rye profiles, this is a treat. And if you find yourself at Reading Terminal, it's worth the $70 your gonna drop on it if this sounds good to you.