Tastes

Pretty damn good and not what I would expect from Beam--where's the peanuts? Deep, rich oak and sweet, thick brown sugar. I don't pick out any typical herbal notes associated with an older rye and, given in a double blind, I would probably call this a bourbon. Beam was smart to jack up the retail, but I wouldn't pay more than $70 for what it is.

About what you would expect from an extremely young malt stored in five gallon barrels: unpleasant.

Ordered Vintage 17 at a bar once and was served this. There are a few small differences between the two. Mostly that this is fairly terrible and V17 causes the clouds to part.

Brown sugar cocaine. This is quite possibly the best smelling thing on the planet. (This was an '08 bottling)

You can really taste the wagon and dysentery in this one. Would recommend.

With the label change in mid-2015 along with an assurance the age statement would remain followed swiftly by the dropped age statement and, a bit later, a new bottle altogether, Heaven Hill has really done itself a disservice. I understand they're a business, and I like Potter, but this was handled poorly. I've tried the NAS and 12 in a few blind SBS and the profile is noticeably different and not for the better. I've gone from buying a few bottles of EC12 each month to two bottles of NAS when it was released and never returning. I won’t be surprised when they “re-launch” the 12 at $50.