Balcones Brimstone

Rating: 8/23 N: Youthful. A hint of meat hits me first, along with some smoke and a light sweetness. Swirling it a bit more and giving it a minute, the meat drops out, but some big, tannic over-oaking emerges. There's some vanilla behind it, but it smells positively acrid. Smelling it some more, I do start to get a bit of corn, but the burnt wood is substantially stronger. This smells like far too many wood chips that were cooked at too high of a temperature for too long were dumped into a young corn whiskey. I am getting a little bit of some fruit now (blackberry?), but it's faint and too little to make much of a difference. P: Charred wood. Like way too charred. There's also a layer of sweet corn, but there's a lot of ethanol behind it and it's an uncomplex base distillate. It's sort of like Mellow Corn mixed with some fairly over-cooked American oak wood chips - well into the acrid range, with lots of tannins. The char brings some smoke, but nothing here is complex and aside from a bit of nice corn and smoke, the ethanol and acrid wood char are the most prominent. I do get that blackberry from the nose and it's actually sweeter and more substantial than I'd expected. A touch of something herbal with a touch of mint even at times, but mostly this is just a few loud flavors, with the loudest ones being bad. Some prickling spice (black pepper) and heat that surprisingly isn't harsh. F: Tannic and bitter with some light corn sweetness and blackberry. More ash than smoke, really. Not a ton happening here and it isn't that good, but it's better than the palate I suppose. At least the ethanol isn't as loud. - Conclusion - Side by side, I'd take Ancient Ancient Age 10 Star (11/23) over this. The Ancient Ancient Age is more complex and balanced, which says a lot. I don't have Mellow Corn (9/23) here to compare with, but I'm inclined to think that this is worse than that. This isn't terrible because - thankfully - it lacks sulphur, but it's certainly no better than a 9. I don't think I'd go below a 6, but that acrid wood is really bad. I'm getting a little blackberry from the Ancient Ancient Age right now and I've never gotten that before. It actually has a stronger blackberry character than this does, so maybe I should nix that from my tasting. I only added it when I came back for the second half of the sample and I tasted no trace of it the first time, so I'm inclined to dismiss it. It was a nice improvement though. I'll give this the benefit of the doubt and give it an 8 because of that blackberry, but that's it. It might be a good mixer in a smoky cocktail though. Thanks, @ctbeck11 , for sharing this one. It seems I'm the odd man out in my dislike for it. I'd be interested to try an older version though because although I'm not a huge fan of the way this is smoked, Balcones usually does quite a nice job with their blue corn whiskey.

The nose is crazy! Like whiff of the oak smoke off a brisket being smoked on my Weber…but there’s a sweetness reminiscent of pipe tobacco. The flavor is more of the same with some stone fruit and vanilla. Really really good stuff.

Nose: Lots of syrupy corn sweetness, dark cherries, and an unusual smoke. Palette: Much drier than the nose. Turns to smoke, ash, and leather. Nice and thick. Finish: Releases a little bit of sweetness at the end again while the smoke also lingers. High and low notes at the same time. Super interesting and a very unique and fun whiskey to sip on. I could return to this one often.

I love peated Scotch and some Mescal's, but this was just too far off base. Only bottle of whiskey I could not finish. It overpowers anything you put it with.

It tastes like a barbecue peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Love it!

Sweet with an oak aftertaste with some smokiness. Very sweet on the nose