Tastes

The nose starts with Hershey’s milk chocolate syrup leading to fruits of caramelized bananas, maraschino cherry sitting on top of vanilla ice cream with toasted marshmallow, walnuts, and light leather with a light ethanol bite. On the taste, the mouthfeel is light and starts with notes of caramelized bananas, vanilla wafers, maraschino cherry, walnuts, light barrel spices and espresso before a light ethanol burn finishing short with notes of cherry, toasted walnuts, banana bread, leather, barrel spices and espresso. I think this is pretty good for the money. I wish they bottled it at a higher proof, but I feel that way about almost every bourbon bottled under 100 proof. This one is an easy sipper for people that aren’t ready for cask strength as I found I made it through a quarter of the bottle in just a week.

Being a big fan of Prisoner wine and Bardstown bourbon, I was very excited about this collaboration from them to see how the wine and bourbon would combine. On the nose: it starts with freshly baked pie with cherry, blackberry, blueberry, raspberry and plums jumping out of the glass in this huge baked fruit explosion then leading to a rich caramel gelato and then raisins, leather and baking spice before a medium ethanol burn. On the taste: it has a rich velvety mouthfeel and a big Hawaiian Punch fruit explosion with all the fruits on the nose coming right at your tongue, then baked pie crust, caramel gelato and a high oak tannin bitterness with leather and barrel spices leading to a medium ethanol bite that finishes with medium length notes of cherry, caramel gelato, almonds, leather and barrel spices. Overall, this is seems like grown up Hawaiian Punch. That little fucker has apparently grown up from my childhood and is now Cobra Kai alumni and is knocking back Bardstown Fusion all day before he goes around karate chopping people’s tongues. The wine influence here is big and I think most people that don’t like wine will not like the mixture of the wine flavors with a bourbon, but for me this works and I like the combination Bardstown has managed to come up with.

This one has been on my list to try for a while now, but it’s been very elusive, that or I just can’t seem to go to the right liquor stores or bars to finally get a taste of this. Luckily @ctbeck11 had a bottle of it and was kind enough to share a sample with me. With excitement on finally getting this one, I open up the sample, pour it in a glass and leave the room for a few minutes to let it rest. I came back to the glass to take my first smell and instantly start thinking someone accidentally spilled tea in my bourbon. After a quick interrogation of my wife and daughter, and browse through distiller, it seems my glass was not accidentally tea spiked as I’m not the only one with those tea notes. Anyways, back to the glass, the nose starts with a tea that’s between green and black, but I’m leaning more towards an earthy powdered matcha aroma along with evergreen pines or mint, then comes some candied ginger, licorice, cherry and apple fruits with light nutty flavors into caramel, leather and light barrel spices with a medium ethanol burn. The taste starts with a medium mouthfeel and notes similar to the nose with those matcha green tea notes up front, then cloves, evergreen pines, leading to cherry and apple, candied ginger, nuts, medium oak tannins with leather and light barrel spices before a medium ethanol burn and finish that is long and lingers with caramel, cherry, apple, burnt pie crust, leather and light barrel spices. Overall, I like this whiskey for its uniqueness as I’ve never once thought of a tea steeped bourbon before this one. I looked to see what a bottle would cost me now and best I could find is Whiskey Exchange for over 200 and would much rather use that money towards a few bottles of OF1920 or Bookers.

When I was notified I was going to be getting a bottle of some new distillery in Kentucky that I had never heard of and can’t get my hands on other than being in Kentucky, I was pretty excited to find out more about this one. The bottle just arrived and upon further review this is a 6 year 2 month old single barrel # A83 from MGP that comes in at 119.4 proof. Time to crack this one open and find out if it was worth my excitement. On the nose it’s it doesn’t smell hot at all very light starting with notes of poached pears, peaches, apricots and caramelized banana leading to fresh bandages then roasted chestnuts, light oak, leather and barrel spices with light nail polish ethanol burn. On the taste it’s a very light mouthfeel with similar notes from the nose of poached pears, peaches, apricots and caramelized banana with fresh bandages, before some roasted chestnuts, light oak spices and medium nail polish ethanol burn flavor that finishes short with the same notes as the taste. So this is a disappointment, I poured it next to my George Remus single barrel that cost 40 dollars compared to this that cost 80 and it destroyed this. Hopefully this distillery does better with their own distillate in the future but I would pass on this high priced MGP barrel selection.

I’ve heard some great things about Booker’s Little Book series and my brother is always raving about them, so I jumped on this bottle when it came out, opened it with him and some friends then forgot about it until recently. On the nose it starts off with freshly baked cinnamon rolls then some fruit of sour cherry, candied orange peel, before leading into dark chocolate covered roasted peanuts, cola, and finally those barrel notes of leather, dusty oak and barrel spices with a medium ethanol burn. The taste starts with a medium mouthfeel of creamy peanut butter caramel rice pudding, then cinnamon rolls with those fruits of sour cherry and candied orange zest, again leading to dark chocolate, barrel notes of leather, dusty oak and barrel spices before a medium to high ethanol bite. The finish is medium length with cherry cola, caramel peanut butter rice pudding, leather and lots of barrel spices lingering. Overall, this has a lot of nice flavors in it and I like the addition of the rice whiskey that gives me this rice pudding flavor. I’m happy that I got to try this and drink with some friends but wouldn’t chase another bottle.

This is a Four Roses Elliott’s Select from 2016 of which there were 8000 bottles produced and this one comes in at 120.2 proof from warehouse QN, barrel number 53-4C. I have heard a lot of good things about Four Roses, but don’t think I’ve been able to taste one of their single barrels from them before now. Here’s hoping this one lives up to the legend of these. The nose started off with a ton of ethanol burn when I opened my sample but then after a few minutes that alcohol blast calmed down and started to open up. On the nose the first note I get is a big blast of caramel covered pecan clusters, then came fruit notes of stewed cinnamon apples, peaches, vanilla ice cream, milk chocolate, finishing off with barrel spices, leather and old polished oak with a light ethanol burn. The taste is very viscous and mouth coating with those caramel pecan clusters wrapping around your tongue with milk chocolate and back to those fruits of stewed cinnamon apples, peaches, vanilla ice cream leading to leather, old polished oak and finally barrel spices with a medium ethanol burn before finishing off with a long caramel pecan hug, stewed cinnamon apples, peaches, milk chocolate, leather and old polished oak that lingers for minutes. Wow, this one was incredible!!! The flavors just flow harmoniously together with not one overpowering the other. At 14 years old and with that 120.2 proof, this is a something that was aged just right and bottled at the right proof to get all those great flavors and viscosity. After I finished my tasting notes I had it do a trial by fire against my other 5 star whiskeys I have in stock (Garrison Cowboy and Old Carter Batch 4) and it basically punched out their teeth and crushed their skulls. This one is a monster that I would like to have in my cabinet, but the secondary has gone nuts with the only place I found that had it wanting almost 800 pounds for a bottle. So I’ll be happy with my sample of this and look for a single barrel from Four Roses in the 120 proof range to add to my collection in the future.

Sometimes you just happen to be in the right place at the right time. I was in a Total Wine picking up a Garrison Brothers Cowboy when I saw this 2020 wooden coffin in the aisle, decided to go for it and brought it home. I had tucked it away and forgot about it until recently, so now that I’m half a bottle into this, let’s see what I’ve managed to find in this one. The nose starts with cinnamon churros, fruits of cherry and orange zest, grape must, cloves, leading to light cognac influence, dark chocolate-covered raisins then dusty oak, leather and finishing with buttery caramel popcorn, almost no ethanol on the nose. On the taste: medium-thin mouthfeel starts with light caramel covering over cinnamon churros, then to fruits of cherry, orange zest, grape must, some spice of cloves, then light cognac notes, dark chocolate covered raisins leading to barrel spices of dusty oak and light ethanol burn. The finish is medium length cinnamon churros coming back covered in caramel then fruits of cherry, orange zest, grape must, leading to those cognac notes, dark chocolate-covered raisins with barrel spices, dusty oak and a last note of buttery caramel popcorn that lingers for a few minutes after each taste. Overall, I think this is a great sipper but I wish it was a higher proof. I think what happened is that the blender was able to work towards creating something incredible and after all that time and energy had something near perfection. Then when the work for the blender was done, marketing came in, took a few drinks, cause it’s a bad ass bourbon, then checked the proof and dumped a bunch of water to make it fit their blood temperature requirement of 98.6, bottled it up, put them in coffins and shipped them out. The mouthfeel is very thin and picking out notes from this was hard. As an experiment for comparison, I watered down my Peerless bourbon proof from 112.8 to 98.6 and had the same issue as the flavors became more muted. Hopefully one day Lux Row will decide to either get rid of this gimmick and release cask strength versions or do an Ardbeg style of Committee bottlings at higher strength and a standard bottling for the wider release. If this had been cask strength, I think this would have easily been a 5, but watering it down brought it to 3.5 for me.

This is a Justin’s House of Bourbon single barrel pick that comes in at 112.8 proof, a barrel date of August 26th, 2016 and the label says that the barrel had a name of “The Birthday Barrel”. So, let’s see what this birthday barrel has to offer. The nose starts sweet with rich caramel, peanut brittle, cloves, dark chocolate, following into some fruits of orange, cherry, then finishing off with some of those barrel spices of polished oak and leather. The taste is very much the same as the nose with a very rich caramel blanket mouthfeel, peanut brittle, cloves, dark chocolate, leading back to those fruits of orange, cherry then barrel spices of polished oak and leather with a moderate alcohol bite from that high proof before finishing with a long caramel hug with peanut brittle, cloves, cherry, orange, polished oak and leather mix and linger for minutes after the sip is over. Overall “The Birthday Barrel” is a great pick and as the bottle is less than a quarter filled now, a great one to drink during a snow day.

A friend of mine came over and brought with him this whiskey from his trip to Arizona. So let’s see how this one goes. The nose starts with light caramel, fruits of banana, lemon, apple, followed by poppy seed muffins with toasted walnuts and an off smell of nail polish remover. The nail polish remover is very light though, kind of the smell that you get when you’re in another room and can smell down the hall that nails are being worked on. The taste is very much the same as the nose with a very light watery mouthfeel, light caramel, fruits of banana, lemon, apple, followed by those poppy seed muffins with toasted walnuts leading to that light nail polish remover and a mild alcohol bite leading to a short finish of all the same flavors of the nose and taste. Overall for a 27 dollar price, this one isn’t great. It’s just an inexpensive whiskey that you can open for a party and not care how anyone drinks it.

The nose on this starts out very fruity with Meyer lemon, green apple, blueberry then comes floral notes of lavender and finishes with the barrel notes of cinnamon, pie crust, caramel, and ginger. Tasting is a very creamy texture with Meyer lemon, green apple, blueberry, lavender, orange seed, ginger, grapefruit pith, caramel and pie crust leading to pepper spice with a mild alcohol bite followed by a long fruity finish with lemons, green apples, blueberries, caramel and light spices. Overall, I’m really impressed with this one and VFM is up there since this is well structured, balanced and cost is 60 dollars in my area.