Tastes

Nose: Bananas Foster with Spanish peanut garnish, cotton candy, caramelized sugars, hints of browned butter, dark honey and stone fruit, whiffs of honeysuckle or black locust blossom. Palate: Sweet honey and brown sugar with baking spice and rye/white pepper mixed in. The honey found on the nose darkens and gets deeper. Barrel char shows up in the finish and balances the initial sweetness. Oak lingers softly toward the back of the finish with a soft accompaniment of dusty peanuts. At sub $40, even at the 700ml bottling, this knocks it out of the park. I haven't had a JD offering this intriguing since the single barrel barrel proof. Score: 9.256 out of 10

JJ Barrel strength, Nose - brown sugars, vanilla (slightly bright) deep tart cherry (dark and chocolate). 45-60 seconds in the open hints of butter toffee oaky popcorn. It was very enjoyable to have the nose evolving as the glass opened to the air. On the palate - more oak presence in the front than the nose would have suggested. Caramel is more present on the tongue than in the nose. The heat of barrel proof is present, but not to the point of being off-putting. Initially, the finish is not as long as I would have expected, but it is interesting how and when the cherry began to show. DIstinct cherry, but as if it were diluted (imagine cherry kool-aid mixed with too much water) showed itself a full 60 seconds after the swallow and hung out in the aftertaste; the hazy ghosts of cherry and vanilla dancing together in a dimly lit ballroom long after the music had faded.

If I could find who was in charge of this blend, I would kiss him/her full on the mouth. A nose of black currents and molasses, sorghum, and dark fruit. Followed with the vanilla and caramels. Sweet and inviting. The mouth did not disappoint. Initial sweetness in harmony with higher spice notes. The dark fruits in the nose showing themselves in the pallet as well. The finish followed in hand with a 45-60 second pause before that delicious fruit note made its encore appearance.

A wheated offering which allows the sweetness of the corn to present itself. Not nearly the sweetness of, say, Hudson's Baby but still much less spice than rye would present.