Tastes

Mashbill - 75/13/12. My obsession with Hunter S. Thompson is what drove me to pick up a bottle of 101. Coming out of undergrad where I chugged cheap vodka, this was a breath of fresh air that started my obsession with whiskey which quickly snowballed into hours spent reading about it and cases filling my closets. 101 will always hold a place in my heart, but today's profile is a far cry from what it once was which I will indiscriminately blame on the French and the Italians before them. Bring back the 8 year & low entry proof. Jimmy, remember your old tagline: 101 proof, 8 years, no compromises. p.s. the new bottles look ridiculous.

This is fantastic. (27.1% - 30yr Caol Ila), (24.1% - 20yr Clynelish), [10.3% - 7yr Highland Malt (Teanich and Dailuaine)], (38.5% - 14yr Caol Ila)

Batches: (#1 Fall '13:134.4), (#2 Spring '14:128.7), (#3 Fall '14:132.1), (#4 Spring '15:132.2), (#5 Fall '15:129.7), (#6 Spring '16:132.5), (#7 Fall '16: 130.0), (#8 Spring '17 129.5), (#9 Fall '17 131.9), (#10 Spring '18 126.4) Batch 1 & 2 were terrible. Everything after that is great.

About what you would expect from a KC rye.; that nutty beam yeast dominates the profile.

Biggest qualm I have with this is weird interpretation of Magritte best described by /u/zephyrtr: "They've missed the point of Magritte's painting. He was saying that, truthfully, it is not a pipe, but a representation of a pipe. Because it's a painting, not a functional tube of wood you'd use to smoke tobacco. So if you write "this is not a luxury whisky" on a bottle that is in fact a luxury-priced whisky, I'm not sure what you're trying to say or prove here except that maybe you took an art history class in 1977 and kind of remember what your professor said. I get that they're trying to say "luxury whisky is now defined as a collectible and tradable commodity, and this whisky is for drinking" but that in no way parallels with Magritte, and how art represents life. Edit: Maybe if they had instead written "This is not a collectible"?" Anyhow, this was quite good but I much preferred the seductive smokiness and price of Flaming Heart 15th.

mashbill - 63/27/10: same as OGD, OGD BiB, Basil Hayden. Entry proof is lower than the others, sitting around 115 or so (vs. 125 in BH+OGD/BiB)

mashbill - 63/27/10: same as OGD, OGD114, Basil Hayden. 125 entry. Uncertain why people pay what they do for Basil Hayden when this is better, higher proof, and half the price. Perhaps it's that fancy smock.

A little bit of dirty bananas. Perfectly acceptable for the price.