Booker's 30th Anniversary Bourbon

now that’s some tasty stuff! back to back with forester 2019 bday, this blows it away. the kick of proof, the pleasant sweetness... it’s all there. privileged to be able to try it.

Tasty. Extremely smooth for a 125.8 proof. This covered my entry for a couple days in the hotel’s Back Room (private cigar lounge).

I suppose this is a review for me as this is gone and anyone paying secondary better want the box for their shelf as I'm just gonna say it now. I'm not sure it's worth 200 for the liquid, let alone secondary. Nose - Brown sugar, perhaps some cherry or maybe it's just a varnish, oak, oak and more oak,. There's more here but I can't get past the alcohol. OK with water I'm getting rich heavy leather. More varnish. Vanilla but I'm not really getting caramel. Taste - So I'll leave out the opening. The mid pallet to finish are those peanuts you get at the steak houses with the shells and the oak from those barrels. The up front notes are hard to get, it's so high alcohol but it's sweet and has this shoe varnish. With water still intense, still kicks, still has that peanut and oak. The sweetness is more spread out and lasts longer. I need more water. The opening is non descriptive sweet bourbon notes, I can't get any more detailed. So I'm kinda torn here. it's darn good bourbon. I'm really a fan of oak and the peanuts and oak work well here. That said it's not that complex, it's not that nuanced, and it doesn't really have a lot of a transition. Just that sweet opening and then the rest. It's great but it's not special. 3.5 stars just because of the higher abv and it letting me really play with it. But hey the box is really cool and I hope that's worth a few hundered bucks for me cause I paid a bit too much for this. Leaving off the cost as I bought this from a good friend who sold it to me below secondary but it was still painful. But hey he got to drink it with me as I opened it the second I gave him the cash and we had a nice couple of hours to catch up.

Strong taste, but good!