Tastes

A lovely sweet/spicy scent that gives you a great insight into some barrel flavor to come. The taste is hot spice up front, and the entire mix will bring out the oils of the barrel if moved around the mouth. The finish takes a while to come down off the spice, but it's a great rounded choice.

The smell is absolutely fantastic, full of cinnamon candies and potent barrel wood. The initial taste is a bit disappointing, as I'm not getting a 100 proof vibe, nor is the rye immediately obvious. However, after letting the whiskey move over the tongue, I can now tell that, although the double barreling gave a huge boost to the oak and caramel flavor, it really mellowed out Knob Creek's rye product. Now, instead of bright grass and cinnamon, I taste deeper spices, like clove and anise. Given the amazing smell and the strong wood finish, this is a good unique bottle to have to compare other rye bases to.

Typical sweet Scotch smell, with perhaps a bit of smoke lying in wait. Leaving a sip in your mouth brings out the smoke, even infuses it into your taste buds. Swallowing immediately leads to a mellow finish, while opening for air allows an explosion of honeycomb to come to life. Overall a great Scotch balance.

Smells like a typical rye, but then bourbon sweetness notes come into a very light play. The initial taste is very refreshing, with the rye being light and building. Bourbon sweetness punches you right in the middle, and finally the proof becomes apparent with a spicy, full finish. Great versatile rye, so long as you're not craving that incredibly spicy, 100% rye flavor.

The nose is full of rye spice and for sure the familiarity of Canadian whiskey. The initial taste is Canadian rye, with just a hint of dusty oak (hint is relative, since there's supposed to be a 40 year old whiskey in there), with the finish being very weak for the proof. I would not be happy owning a full bottle of this for the price tag.

The nose is ethanol heavy, but not quite from the proof, and instead perhaps the age. Otherwise, a dusty and wood strong scent takes over. The taste immediately begins to be reminiscent of the "warm" feeling achieved by most batches of Booker's. Sure, the finish is very quick and weak, but the intense oak notes that you get make this bottle an extremely good value. I would purchase this again any time I saw it, and I would definitely drink this myself or recommend this to anyone who is looking for thag Booker's taste but doesn't have the dime for it.