Baker's Single Barrel Bourbon 7 Year

Taste: 1.5 oz in glen cairn, neat. Side by side blind tasting with Baker's 13. Sample from Dave John. Nose (4.25): Vanilla, caramel, cashews, and more vanilla! This is a delicious bourbon nose, and is truly indicative of sime of the amazing bourbons that come frim Beam. Palate (4.5): Caramel turns to a delicious butterscotch, and oak starts to come through. This oak is a little more raw There is some spicier notes that hit you mid palate. I detected a little bit of nutmeg and allspice in that mid palate and a burst of chocolate rounding it out. Finish (4.75): Finish is super on this one. A sweet, creamy, buttery french vanilla is a punctuation point on a fantastically good whiskey. Overall: I loved Baker's 13. It was one of my votes for best new whiskey release this year. What I didn't like was the price of Baker's 13. Although it is in a really cool box, has a really sexy metal bottle-neck tag, I hate to feel that some of my dollars are lost on needless packaging (I have bemoaned WT Master's Keep offerings for same, yet I love them!) Baker's 7 keeps the cool neck tag, get's rid of the industrially cool silver box, and is 6 years give or take tje junior. Although I clearly and successfully identified B13 and B7 after a few tastes of each, and had a slight (very slight) favor to B13 for being a bit oaky and spicier, if both bottles were in the shelf and price played a factor I would go with B7. The $30 or so less for B7 does not translate to $30 less quality, or taste. The less time in the wood doesn't prove a problem at all, and this really hots the sweet spot. Either way you can't lose, but I always like having an extra $30 toward my next bottle. Cheers!

8 years 6 months. Good nose, with sweetness, some astringent wood, and a whiff of bananas. Pleasant. On the palate, the nose carries over. Sweet, astringent, fruit, a bit of cinnamon spice that lingers. Hint of leather. Pleasant dram but not too smooth, when you want a little extra. The wood note is a bit too much for my liking, but I can see people liking this. 1/17/20