Benchmark Single Barrel Bourbon (95 Proof)

Sweet caramel and spice to start and my wife and I both noticed a cherry/sweet taste that lingered after finish. Good juice.

Given what I know about people being hyperbolic and overrating the things they like and underrating the things they don't, a community ranking of 3.5 makes perfect sense for Benchmark Single Barrel. What you're getting here is a lower-end single barrel bourbon priced about $29. It's rare these days that I drink bourbon in this range (your standard Maker's Mark, Larceny, Knob Creek offerings), so I don't have much of a point of comparison. I would venture that Knob Creek 9 Year Bourbon is the better buy but it's about $10 more. I'd be interested in picking up a bottle of standard Maker's as a comparison, but truth be told, I'm always buying their Cask Strength or Wood Finishing if I'm buying Maker's these days. So my closest point of comparion is Evan William Single Barrel, which I'm really glad has reemrged in wider markets after it went distillery only for a while. That too is about $8 more than this, but I think it's worth it, since it's better. But that said, Benchmark isn't a bad budget bourbon. You get a swirl of caramel and vanilla on the nose like you're expect from a bourbon. It's not the wildest most complex nose, but it gets the job done, and I probably would have loved this as an option when I was in my twenties, especially if you're deflating the currency and a bottle of this might have been 15 bucks then. To that end, it's close to Evan Williams BiB in terms of value and I know a lot of people would swear by EW BiB over this but I've never been a huge EW BiB fan. The palate is more of the same, unassuming but also inoffensive with a bit of an apple note as well. It doesn't really evolve beyond that, but on the finish there's some cinnamon, again nothing to write home about but there's also nothing really awful here either. No youthful overly saccharine flavors or bitter oak. Benchmark seems to have found a niche in the budget category and as such, they deliver. I'm interested in trying the other products since they're promoting them at the local stores, Top Floor, Bonded, Full Proof, but I've been trying to avoid too high a proof lately just because of how hard hitting they are and the ways they can limit your enjoyment of the night. But I don't think you're going wrong if you're picking this up, given that it's probably got enough character to work in cocktails as well, but that's just venturing a guess because my wife it the cocktail drinker in the house and hasn't weighed in. I give it a 3 because it's pretty average, and a 3.5 seems to me the rating of someone who's thrilled to discover you can get something that doesn't taste like piss for under $30. I already know that, so I'm not astonished.

Lightly sweet, vanilla, brown sugar, charred oak. Fairly long finish

Glass: Glencairn, rested 15 minutes. Color: Medium amber. Nose: Caramel and vanilla notes with a hint of spice. Palate: Clove and baking spice with some mild cinnnamon. Finish: Low heat that lingers longer than expected. Splash: No new flavors are revealed. Overall: 5/10 - Overall, this is just average. It was my first time seeing it, and at $35, I figured I'd take a chance. At only 95 proof, it's a poor substitute for Eagle Rare at a similar price and proof.