Rating: 14/23
Bottle kill. This has had close to a year open and has been on average maybe 50% full during that time. It's gotten a lot of air, which I think has improved it, but it's not such an absurd amount of air that I feel like this tasting isn't representative.
N: Wood that toes the line between bitter and sweet. Ever so faintly varnished. The faintest oily orange peel and also vanilla. There's a mineral layer as well. This comes across as kind of light, but not super light. The presence of the minerality is sort of another aspect that's toeing the line here. There's a bit of corn in the woody backbone here, but it's not easy to pick out. I get a bit of barrel spice, but it's mellow and melds with the wood as well. Overall, this is super balanced. Its complexity is solid, but it isn't really impressing me. It's eminently approachable though.
P: Sweet and light with light caramel, oily orange, clean creek water and corn. But there's also that mellow woody maturity, which is not a small part of the character here. There are layers to the wood, really building out the depth. There's also a nice vanilla note lingering throughout. Some nice barrel spices come out of the wood just enough to add some extra character here.
F: The light caramel, orange, and wood persist. A little bit of the spice remains as well. The wood manages to keep some of its depth even at that stage, which is impressive. An underlying corn flavor comes out on occasion as well. This is actually quite a solid finish.
- Conclusion -
Super mellow and approachable. Given enough air, this really opens up and builds some nice complexity while maintaining its ease of drinking.
This doesn't have as much oomph to it as Heaven's Door Double Barrel (14/23) does, but it has more nuance for sure. I would take this over Heaven's Door Tennessee Bourbon (12/23) though, which is more youthful and less nuanced, though it does have some characteristics that stand out more on a tired palate.
Comparing this with another more subtle bourbon, my immediate impression is that Elijah Craig Small Batch (15/23) is better than this.
Early Times Bottled In Bond (15/23) also beats this, so this definitely is not a 15. This is still pretty good though.
Currently, I'm putting this in the 13-14 range and I'm leaning toward a 13. This is very approachable and not a bad buy at $23, but it's also far from a must-buy. I wish I had some things in the 13-14 range to compare it with, but I've (sadly?) succeeded in clearing most of the drams rating below a 15 off of my shelf at this point - aside from a few that are just in no way reasonable comparisons to this. This seems to be right about in the middle between Ancient Ancient Age 10 Star (12/23) and Elijah Craig Small Batch (15/23), though going one way versus the other, I'd palace this a bit closer to the Ancient Ancient Age right now.
Ah! I have a little Old Tub (14/23) left! It's honestly quite close in quality to this, though the Old Tub does strike me as a little better. In a final twist, the Old Tub holds its own against the Elijah Craig, so I think all of that extra oxygen it got really helped it. Based on that revelation, I'm actually going to award this 14, though it's barely reaching that level.
23.0
USD
per
Bottle