Tastes

Wonderfully dark color. Surprisingly light in flavor for 15 years. Tannic and not sweet. Significant barrel spice, surprising for the low rye mashbill. Well rounded - floral, nutty, fruity, and of course trademark mineral bite. Incredible value - 15 years, single barrel, barrel proof. If it didn’t have mineral after taste it would be allocated and cost twice as much. An excellent bottle to keep on hand, but not exemplary.

Good, but falls short of greatness. Wonderful nose - sweet and fruity, excellent. Palate has a good mouth feel and strong classic bourbon flavors. But, the spice and proof overpowers the finish. Still a steal in today’s market and would readily buy again, but can’t measure up to B521 or A122. Notes from a previous tasting: more spicy. Barrel spice and cherry. Trends a little bitter on the long, drying finish. Tasty, hard to believe how much variation exists in profile between batches. Definitely less sweet, but still damn good.

I would challenge anyone to find a better Irish whiskey under $50. As mainly a bourbon drinker, anything 80 proof just tastes flat. But, until you get to more than $45, everything is 80 proof. Except this. 92 proof, and NCF. For under $30. The only other Irish under $50 I would drink is Teeling and Three Swallows, but those are closer to $40-45. I admit it, the finish is disappointing, but the palate is creamy- great mouthfeel and nice sweet malty-ness. Bourbon cask shines through in the vanilla finish, but it’s too short with a twinge of young ethanol. But much better than any other <$40 product, so I’ll keep it on hand.

Pretty un-impressed. Tastes hot, young, and mono-tone. Sure, it's sweet, it's a wheater. Yes, lots of bread and caramel, but really lacking a wood backbone. I don't understand the hype here or why it is allocated like ECBP. ECBP is infinitely better. To be fair, I don't like regular small batch Larceny, so maybe it is a profile problem. But to me it is short and sharp. At this price point, Rare Breed is every bit as good. And for a cask strength wheater, Maker's Mark Cask Strength is cheaper and not allocated. Won't pick up again, except to use as trade capital.

Interesting move from Beam, raising the proof on their SiB. Makes for a crowded lineup with all the same mashbill. Knob Creek, 100, 9 year - $29 Beam SiB 108, NAS - $37 Knob Creek SiB, 120, 9 year - $54 Bakers SiB, 107, 7+ year - $68 NCF and a screwtop makes me think this bottle can't decide what it wants to be. Nose: A lot of grain and toasty bread, with some sweet undertones. Some solid heat on the nose as well Palate: Nutty with some rising spice and cherry with a really nice mouth feel. Finish: A little light here, not much wood, but a good amount of cinnamon and pepper. For being a pretty low rye mashbill (13% rye) this has some serious heat on the nose and back end. The nose heat feels more like ethanol, and less flavorful. Both price and proof wise, this seems to be right in the middle of the Beam offerings. It’s a perfectly serviceable bourbon- a solid array of flavors but just too hot and not polished. Clearly young. For a few bucks less I’d stick with Knob Creek 9 year or even OGD 114. Probably won’t buy another bottle of this. Unimpressed.

First - the Distiller website may have an error, or Whistlepig has evolved. The 12 yr bottle I have says on the back and the front that the whiskey inside is from Canada. Presumably Alberta distillers. Distiller says it is MGP - this is not true, at least for my bottle. It may be that the newer bottles are from Alberta. Either way, I think the Alberta flavor profile is much better than the MGP 95/5 so I am grateful. I got this bottle as a gift from my brother-in-law as a generous gift. Gifting me whiskey is a hard task - but this is a hit. It is a bottle that I had never had and would never buy on my own. The nose has the classic canadian rye profile: more fruit than spice, with grape soda/cola/jolly rancher flavors abounding. It is notably more fruity and sweet than other Canadian ryes I have had, so I attribute that to the wine cask finish. The palate turns a touch more spicy and earthy, but clearly not a pepper/dill that many american ryes tend to have. It's again more of a root beer/cola profile: sweet, almost syrupy, and complex. The finish is pretty short, but some of the jolly rancher/sugar raisin flavor does linger. This is a really solid bottle - however, to me, the cost is prohibitive. Single barrel selections of their 10 year offering can be up to 15-17 year old Alberta juice, bottled at cask strength, for about 30 bucks less. Sure, it doesn't have the wine cask finish - tasting the two side-by-side, the 12 is noticeably sweeter and fruitier. If money was no object, I would buy it especially to keep on hand for newer whiskey drinkers. It is lower proof, sweet, complex, and an excellent intro to Canadian rye. A similar profile would be low proof, low rye content mashbill ryes. With a fruity side, JD rye comes to mind, but that has more barrel influence. Michter's rye would be a good comparison, but does miss on some of the fruit. Barrell does offer a lot of Alberta rye products at barrel proof - Barrell Seagrass is pretty similar on the nose, overall much better and cheaper, but clocks in at higher proofs. I guess I'm trying to say: good, but too expensive to earn a 'buy' recommendation.

Agree completely with the floral notes, but a lot of brown sugar and cinnamon on the nose. Palate delivers exactly and peanuts and rye spice dominate the finish. Rumored to be sourced from Heaven Hill, which is definitely believable based on the nutty finish. Not a bean peanut funk, but a distinct peanut brittle like some Elijah Craig SiB picks. I think that’s the closest comparison - an EC SiB, with the proof cranked up. It tastes older than 7 years and is mellower than 117 proof, but admittedly does lack quite a bit in finish. In 2019, this was a $45 bottle. And it was a steal when you could find it in the shelf. The price has gradually snuck up, in to the $65 range. Back at $45, this could stack up favorably against all-stars like Rare Breed. Now at $65, it leaves quite a bit to be desired. It’s a classic bourbon - serviceable and strong with a good array of flavors. But in that price range you can also get JDSiBBP, KC 12, and Russels Reserve SiB picks. All of those will beat this by a sizable amount. I have always had a sweet spot for Ezra Brooks products, largely due to their value for money. But as this price keeps going up, it’s hard to whole-heartedly recommend. However, with all that being said, I’ll probably pick it up once I see it. So it *barely* pulls a 3.75

Picked up more than a year ago while in KY. SiB picked by Chuck’s liquor named “Chuck’s dessert bomb’. 104 proof so relatively weak for barrel proof. Really nice dark color for only being 4.5 years old and 104 proof. Nose is pretty sweet with some decent notes of rich butterscotch and sweet berries. The palate brings a relatively thin feel despite the NCF, and immediately brings a nutty heat that isn’t as musty as a Beam product, but similar. Sweeter Peanut brittle, with the rye heat growing quickly. A tiny bit of wood shows, but not much. The finish is dominated by the souring the heat that drys the palate as it fades. The final feel and notes are sticky thyme which I personally don’t enjoy. Given the heat, age and price, this isn’t my favorite. I generally don’t like young bourbons or bourbons with more than 20% rye, so maybe that’s why I don’t like this bottle. I’m very excited for what they do in the future, and think that 6-7 year stock from them might be excellent. But for the regular 4 year SiB picks, I’d suggest you pass for $50. Much better can be had with a similar high rye profile. This has a good bit in common with some of the 4R SiB 100 proofers I’ve had (35% rye and 6-8 years old), but is all around worse. Also similar would be 1792 BiB, which is a little lighter on rye in the mashbill and palate, but pretty close. Hell, even a Jim Beam SiB 107 is pretty similar in character with a lower rye content. All of those are cheaper and debatably better than this. But I am excited for the future of New Riff and will try some of their future offerings (if they’re ever offered here in TX).

Fruity is accurate - bananas, my fiancé confidently says. I would have thought that the barrel finish would have added more depth, but it didn’t. It’s just cranked up the sweetness. Given (like almost all Jameson products) there’s no age statement, it’s quite dull. And at $35 it doesn’t feel like a great value. It’s hard to tell if the finishing burn is pot still spices or the meager 80° alcohol. Overall, I don’t think this is worth the extra money compared to regular Jameson and wouldn’t recommend as a buy.