Requested By
arcorey15
Benchmark Full Proof Bourbon (125 Proof)
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BeppeCovfefe
Reviewed October 27, 2021 (edited May 15, 2022)So after trying the BiB and deciding it to be a worthy, if low end, "poor man's Eagle Rare", next in line for me is the full proof. Off the top there is a load of richness, it shouts high proof from the nose, more of the sweet caramel vanilla in this than the cherry centric BiB. Hints of dry rye and barrell. A very inviting nose indeed. All that sugar comes rushing in at the front along with a great deal of the heat you should expect with the proof, very in your face with the high corn notes, a bit Stagg Juniourish? I can't argue. The bite of Stagg Jr certainly comes to mind. Through the middle comes the harsher notes, but cinnamon and barrell tannin are there. The finish isn't lasting and surprisingly mellow for the short rough ride you get. In fact this does remind me a lot of Stagg Jr, much more so than any other BT product, obviously it's the same mash, and if it isn't from that line I'd be highly surprised. Considering this runs well under half the price of what a Stagg Jr typically gets in demand markets these days, this is certainly another "deal" in the Benchmark special release line, and depending on your affinity of the short Stagg bottle, will appeal to you in kind. As a fan of the stout little bottle, I'm going to be socking a few of these away, just for when I feel like some Stagg on a not so special occasion. Another good effort from BT, hoping this becomes a trend. Cheers!26.0 USD per Bottle -
trentoniousmaximus
Reviewed October 25, 2021 (edited January 10, 2022)Benchmark Full Proof (125 Proof) [Neck Pour] Screw Top: I had a hard time getting this sucker opened. The lack of perforation made things harder than they should have been. I am usually fan of screw tops, but this one was definitely cheap. The lid is there. Rests atop the bottle with an apathy beyond that of most nihilistic 19 year olds. ISO cork. Nose: Very Buffalo Trace. Smells like EHT Small batch with more sweet caramel, and way more ethanol. Cherries, werthers caramel chews, and oak. I was surprised at the nose. Woah just came back and nosed it after 5 or so minutes and it is very caramely (and doughy?) Taste: Full caramel! Oily cherry entrance. High heat. Very sweet and sugary. Not very complex and a little rowdy, pretty thin, but fun nonetheless. Finish: Quicker to finish than most, but although hasty in its exit, it is intentional with the Kentucky Hug it leaves behind. This is where the price point shows, but it really isnt terrible. This has me all over the place. Disappointing lid. Incredible nose. Sweet palate. Short finish, but long hug. For the price, I rate it 3.75. Gonna give it more O2 and see how it develops. Delicious treat from BT. All in all incredibly high VFM. FOR THE MONEY: This is a great time for anyone who loves high proof whaskey. Just buy this and enjoy it for what it is; barrel proof BT for under $20!19.96 USD per Bottle -
dhsilv2
Reviewed August 29, 2021 (edited October 17, 2021)If I don't make it through this pour, tell my family....I kinda sorta don't hate them. Nose - This is interesting. Fruity notes come through, vanilla candy, sweet but not rich...it's good. But it's as if there's just something missing. Did they chill filter this? Starting to get earthy elements, corn, oak...touch of smoke. This has really all those nice buffalo trace notes but there's something off here. Taste -This is heavy corn stagg jr with a missing layer or 12 of depth and there's this sweet almost what I'd want to say malt but I guess corn whiskey deal. Bit of chocolate, not good chocolate. Everytime I start to get wonderful bourbon...I get that corn and muted weird sweetness. Good spice (wood). Good light chocolate chew notes. Ethanol is here and there but it isn't unruly. Slight metallic note. This is surprisingly well put together and well made bourbon at what is likely 4 years old. You can completely tell there's a lack of age here, but it doesn't drink any younger than some bad bottles of blantons. It holds water reasonably well. All and all for cheap go for it. But why go this cheap? I'm torn on what the point of this is for geeks here, but if you're looking to save some bucks. I can't lie. It's good for that purpose. 1.5 stars. For those not used to my reviews, under 1 star is my way to say it's complete trash. 1 star is not bad. 2 is average. 4 is epic. 5 is in that upper tier of the best whisky I've had, and I've had a lot, but I need to adjust it. I'm debating going higher. Really truly didn't think this would score this high. I'm scoring this with a lot of massive disappointments for 100, this is 17-25 bucks (up to 30 for some secondary). This is much more lacking complexity, depth, and has some meh elements but it isn't bad at all. Other whiskies like this have bigger bolder more impressive elements combined with complete failures in my review database. -
Bourbon_Obsessed_Lexington
Reviewed August 23, 2021 (edited January 3, 2022)Whiffs of corn, vanilla, cinnamon, honey and possibly sweet, brown tobacco come out of the glass. It’s a nice golden orange color. And while none of that sounds crazy or unusual, get this - a Buffalo Trace product at 124 proof for <$20. This is an anomaly. It honestly lacks about as much VFM as possible into grams of ethyl alcohol, and actual flavor, for anything short of everclear. That alone is an accomplishment. But is it any good? That is sadly not the question people will ask because as @Milliardo pointed out this is some cousin, twice removed from George T Stagg. Never mind that this likely 4 years old instead of 17. It does however have some of the “Mexican fried ice cream” notes that I attribute to the elusive Stagg Jr though. Hot and thin but tasty. The oak is young and splintery hot aside the proof. There is plenty of vanilla, cherry, red hot candies, bit of honey, nuts and again a faint sweet tobacco note to go around. The finish is instant fire in the throat and chest with muted vanilla, cinnamon, cayenne and oak in that order and does lay several minutes. This is not GTS, Jr, Bookers, ECBP or JDBP but it is pretty attractive for proof hounds. I can’t think of a single thing this flavor packed at this price point that will so instantly destroy your GI tract. Well done Benchmark, we’ll done. Instant re-buy? Possibly. For the proof and age it honestly is on par with say a Hubers Starlight 4 grain - but that runs around $40-50. Ok, at $20 I’m absolutely sold. Eat tour heart out WT 101. Except that I can have you any time, anywhere and this is still a bit elusive. This could be less brash, more balanced, more interesting but hell - it’s probably worth at least $24.99 on the secondary. -
Milliardo
Reviewed August 21, 2021 (edited June 4, 2022)“Whiskey Credit Score.” It’s a concept a buddy and I came up with to describe what you’d be willing to drop on a new bottle you knew nothing about, purely based on the distillery. For example, for me Rare Perfection has a very low WCS. I don’t care if you claim to have sourced your juice from Willett. Don’t believe you. Don’t care. On the other hand, Bardstown has a very high Whiskey Credit Score with me. They could finish their magic juice in horse dung barrels, and I’d still probably buy one to crack and one more to save for later. Similarly, Buffalo Trace has a horse-dung- tolerant WCS. So there’s the scene. Enter Benchmark, stage bottom shelf. Out of thin air, one day my local liquor store had 5 new Buffalo Trace products on display that I had never seen. Thankfully, they were all under $20, because I just sold my last barrel of horse-dung to Bardstown for $100, and I had not a penny more. The question was not “which one will I choose,” but “how do you describe the choice using python?” def choice(benchmarks, my_shelf, wallet): —for bottle in benchmarks: ——my_shelf.append(bottle) ——wallet = wallet - 20 —return home_a_happy_man So here’s the Benchmarks: Benchmark 8 (80 proof) Benchmark Top Floor (86 proof) Benchmark Small Batch (90 proof) Benchmark Single Barrel (95 proof) Benchmark Bonded (100 proof) Benchmark Full Proof (125 proof) These are all made using Buffalo Trace mashbill #1, which is BT’s low-rye mashbill. People that are smarter than me think it’s about 10% rye, 5% malted barley, and 85% corn. They think this, but I don’t think anyone outside of BT actually knows. I wanted to do a true mashbill #1 round robin, so I threw in: Buffalo Trace (90 proof) EH Taylor Small Batch (100 proof) Eagle Rare (90 proof) Stagg Jr. Batch 13 (132.3 proof) 10 mashbill #1 bourbons. 45 blind taste tests in glencairns. Only one can be the best. 10th place: Benchmark Small Batch 9th place: Benchmark 8 8th place: Benchmark Top Floor 7th place: Benchmark Bonded ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 6th out of 10: Benchmark Full Proof. This is the one that turned me on to the Benchmark line. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “poor man’s Stagg Jr.,” this is the guy they were talking about. And without even taking a taste, it’s worth praising the existence of a 125 proof bourbon for $17.59. Nose is sweet, sugary, desert-themed. There’s powdered sugar, honeysuckle, lemon zest, oatmeal, tart cherry, walnut. Really pleasant nose. Body hits hot, but not as hot as other drinks at this proof point, like high-proof Knob Creek, Bookers, or even Stagg Jr. It’s that sweetness that tones the heat down. There’s oatmeal, cinnamon, sugar, lemon, leather, praline, salt. I can get strawberry. The desert theme carries through here. The main takeaway for me is cinnamon oatmeal. The finish is lingering cinnamon, with hints of the sugar. This drink transitions pretty evenly from sweet to salty, and by the end it’s mostly spices and salt. I’m not a huge Stagg Jr. fan, but for those that are, this bottle could justify a road trip to my local liquor store, where it still sits for under $20. I don’t care where you live. At the price Stagg Jr. moves for these days, you could get a case of this and have a fill-in until the supply/demand curve with BT juice flips. Gas is cheap compared to Stagg Jr. I popped this guy into an old fashioned just now, and if you fit into that mid-section of the Venn Diagram for “folk who like high proof bourbon in old fashioneds” and “folk who like sweeter/juicier old fashioneds,” this is a no brainer for you. It’s delicious. The sweet notes interact with your sugars and cherries, and the salt/cinnamon notes interact with your bitters. It hits that sweet spot of quality/cost that makes it near-perfect as a mixer. 6th place is misleading. It lost only to the non-Benchmarks and Single Barrel, which I recognize was less about quality and more about proof for me. If you like high-proof bourbons, this is the Benchmark for you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have 1 more Benchmark, so if you want to play along next time, feel free to skip the intro. However, I did just acquire a fresh barrel of horse-dung to peddle, so I may be able to afford some fresh material next time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fun new discovery about mashbill #1: If this is “poor man’s Stagg Jr.” and Stagg Jr. is “poor man’s Stagg,” then by the transitive property this is “broke-as-hell man’s Stagg,” and I’m going to encourage us all to start referring to it that way.17.59 USD per Bottle -
Ian-Young
Reviewed July 23, 2021 (edited December 16, 2021)Nose- vanilla and green apple Body- bright rock candy sweetness upfront quickly fades to honey toast and a hint of green apple Finish- honey toast gives way to buttery corn that suggests that this is a younger bourbon (3 years or less) This is a huge improvement over the original Benchmark. It’s hard to be mad at this for the price point. -
theboyonthebike
Reviewed July 20, 2021 (edited December 11, 2021)It’s actually startling that such a bright, sweet, full-proof head-turner could be at this price point. Lookout for this one.
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