Tastes

Not as tasty or smooth as I would expect from price ($60-65 USD) and the expert reviews. It smells very smooth and a little toasty, woody turpentine and oak and slight hints of sweetness and vanilla. My palate is pretty coarse so I can't smell or taste much more than that. But the overall taste is very harsh. More harsh than Balvenie Caribbean Cask 14 year (matured in rum casks--guessing by taste, El Cheapo Bacardi), which I call overpriced (~$70 USD) based on its harshness. That and Auchentoshan Three Wood fall into in a similar taste category for me (with Aberlour 12 and Glenmorangie Lasanta 12), although Auchentoshan is far more woody with a complexity, the details and range of which I can barely sense, but is far beyond my ability to taste!

In summary, which I will do at the beginning as well as the end of this review, this is a stunning, fun to drink, juicy and sweet bourbon. I am generally not a fan of Bourbons perhaps because of the mash bill that emphasizes a spiciness and the Char of white oak barrels. But this one, along with Maker's Mark could be daily drinkers for me. LOL, if I could afford this one. I honestly don't know the price because I bought it as a 3-pack of 200 ml. bottles-- rye, bourbon and one other whiskey I don't recall at the moment. Hell, it was a weekend of Chicago Whiskey Fest in March 2018, how much of that could I possibly remember?? All were excellent! Right off the bat, and a 47% ABV bottling, there's the usual bourbon turpentine, furniture polish, cherry wood furniture stain... All of this adds to the complexity and delights, not making it gross or chemical-smelling (other than wafts of bourbon-tainted ethanol) in any significant way. Certainly the alcohol is strong. But I have no desire to dilute this, the flavor is intense and delightful! It must be the corn and Millet together, I wish more Bourbons or whiskeys of any sort used this mix. It would vastly enhance the taste and probably increase the customer base. (Women tend to enjoy sweeter drinks-- and cinnamon flavored whiskey, as well as brandy like Hot Damn is a hot seller among women, I hear.) On to my review of the taste, which will be grossly insufficient due to my infamously coarse palate: There is a richness and sweetness that does not resolve into specific tastes, though dates, mangoes and mild citrus fruits like kiwi come to mind. Certainly the sweetness bears a resemblance to toffee and for some reason I want to keep on drinking and drinking and drinking this. They have done *something* right, although I cannot pinpoint the exact dimensions and contents and methods of their incredibly wiley alchemy, expressed as bourbon distilling perfection! Let me admit this as a final perhaps fatal flaw in my taste buds, if only to entertain bourbon aficionados: I gave up my Chicago Whiskey Fest tasting pour, (the booth towards which hundreds literally ran!) the remainder of the Pappy Van Winkle 23-year old Family Reserve to my friend--because it essentially did *nothing* great for me. I knew he would enjoy it and for a whiskey that sells currently at $2,800-$4000 a bottle, my lack of appreciation was almost a crime! In praise of Koval, I would trade, if based on taste alone (certainly I would make an investment calculation in the real world!) that 23 y.o. Pappy for half a bottle of Koval bourbon! That's how damn freaking good this stuff is! Okay, it may be faint praise for Koval from an (evident) "sherryhead" with only three to four years intensive whiskey tasting experience. Be that as it may, should this whiskey gain a widespread audience, it could surpass Maker's Mark as THE entry level whiskey for bourbon beginners, and perhaps help create an entire new, expanding market for bourbon that omitts rye and adds varying levels of complexity, variation and sweetness, based in this case on millet, grain I find far more appealing (mostly because it's sweeter) than the rye portion of the mash bill in most bourbons.

For a low to mid-priced off-the-shelf Bourbon, this stuff is worth buying again and again. (I can't figure out why it gets a 90, when Bowmore 15-year Darkest Islay gets 86/100 here--WTF!!?? The Darkest is one of my favorite whiskeys EVER! About $75 in Michigan and very well worth it!) Maker's doesn't accentuate the overly woody, harsh, strong alcohol/medicinal/furniture stain taste, steeped in burnt barrel char ( I honestly believe a small, obviously derangedly drunken few barrel-tenders have thrown raggedy old chair legs in some barrels for "character"), that so many bourbons highlight. NASTY! That is not to say there isn't *some* furniture polish, wood stain, turpentine ... after all it's not a top-shelf whiskey. What the hell do you want for affordable whiskey! One can't reasonably expect perfection out of a whiskey aged only four years, when many whiskeys I favor are aged 10 years or more-- and a few in my collection are well over $75, and one is a Laphroaig 25 year! It's the red winter wheat replacing the rye that does it for me, I think. Sweetens it up over most bourbons. (But... check out my review on Koval bourbon! Now that's a great bourbon!) Though I can barely taste a smidgen of what's listed in the review (sadly, I'm equipped since birth with a coarse palate), there is an overall sweetness, fullness and fruitiness to this whiskey that makes it one of my favorite, off-the-shelf, almost daily choices. When I really can't decide what I want to drink, Maker's Mark is an old standby for American whiskey (usually bourbon, the most common American whiskey) bourbon along with Tullamore Dew and Jameson for Irish whiskey (both $25-28/750 ml.) and Ardbeg 10 year for mid-priced (about $53/750 ml.) Scotch peated whiskey. Solid 87/100, and that's a *great* value for a whiskey costing only $28 or so for a fifth, $17.50 for 375 ml.

This bourbon (50 ml. airline/sample bottle) really isn't my thing although some people I talked to recommended it because I tend to like sweeter, sherry-casked whiskeys. It's bottled at 45%, but I added water to dumb it down, I didn't measure, maybe to 40% or less, but it's still pretty damn harsh with a lot of woody, polyurethane furniture and charred barrel taste. It promised sweetness in the nose at first, but that doesn't pan out because the barrel char and the wood is so predominant. Tastes like it sat in a bucket of old furniture wood, with a teaspoon or two of turpentine, and some of the wood had caught fire, not in a good way. With a small ice cube this tiny pour gets better and better... the sweetness is highlighted and the barrel char and polyurethane and slightly turpentine taste disappears. So if it's cheap enough in a pint or fifth, I suppose I'd get it as a stop-gap whiskey if I can't find Maker's Mark.