Boone County Small Batch Bourbon

Not a lotta smell or taste, but it ain’t skunk.

Visited the distillery today. Fairly typical of the very small craft distilleries. They produce about 60,000 gallons a year and have been sourcing their product for the last five years but are now packaging their own distillate. The young lady that was our tour guide even doubles in the labeling operation as one of the "ghosts" of productions. Nice touch!! About three years ago, I was fortunate enough to get a bottle of their 1833 single barrel, 12 year old barrel proof. It was fabulous, one of the best bourbons I've tasted. It was sourced from MGP and the label showed the mashbill and Indiana heritage. There is still a relationship between Boone County Distillery and MGP and some product on their shelf from MGP. The current small batch is very small batch as only 8-10 barrels are used. I suspect there will be fairly significant variation between batches more like single barrel. The nose was strong on oak mostly covering the sweet caramel in the background. Ice might change that a lot. On the palate it is sweet corn forward with limited burn. There is no balance. The nose says over oaked, the palate says more barrel time is needed but the lack of burn says it might settle down in a year. We were told that a six year old release will be available next year. They also have a 95% rye that was quite good, so I bought a single barrel (Number one labeled by our tour guide) release but will wait a year on the small batch.

So, I'm fairly certain that this is finally Boone County Distilling's actual product, whereas the 1833 was confirmed to be their sourced product. Looking through the Distiller results, I was very surprised to see so many different age variations, most of them only a year off from each other. I remember loving 1833, and went crazy for their (not sourced) rye new make, but I suppose we are still waiting on the latter product. This is already a pricey offering from what I've seen (I'm tasting a 50ml), so not sure how the price of higher age bottles would hold up, but that all depends on how the base thing tastes. That's got much more of a depth to the scent than I thought there would be. It's got notes from unfiltered barrel strength products, even though the proof is quite far from it. Huge sweet corn cues, combining with classic barrel vanilla and caramel with just a tad of tobacco, but it's all hidden under a really tame cloud, like it has a lot of careful age behind it (how much, I wonder?). Okay, now it makes sense that the corn was so strong on the nose. Usually it's a blend of grain that gives away that a bourbon is young, but this one was harder to detect. Sure, I could be wrong, but at the end of the day, it TASTES young, and at that point no number makes a difference. Lots of raw corn and a bit of rye, with the good news being that there is nothing else here to complicate it. The finish has a robust bite like it's a higher proof than it is, but this is all in a good way. This really has great potential, and I can't wait until a few more years down the line. So, so many craft distilleries have no patience and release these young bourbons with high price tags, but who can blame them when there are people who will literally buy anything. Again, this is not bad in any sense, it's just premature and young, and should be marketed as such, to avoid disappointment like I just experienced. Had I of bought a full bottle, that would have turned to anger; just put the damn age statement on the bottle again. Unless you're specifically looking for a young bourbon, keep going with 1833.

Day 16 of #30daysofbourbon for the #30daybourbonchallenge #bhm Boone County Small Batch 90.8% ABV 75% Corn 21% Rye 4% Barley No legs to speak of. golden amber Nose: Sweet corn, vanilla cream, light oak Palate: Pretty mild flavour. sweetness, very mild spice. Finish: Not much flavour. This is a mild easy sipping whiskey. It's not anything special but has nothing horrible. Its men. 3/5

Smooth and sweet. Not much nose. Not overly complex. Could be proofed up a bit. Overall though, a smooth easy drinker.