Devils River Small Batch Bourbon

Fresh river water, cinnamon, sweet oak, dark chocolate, sour fruit

Straight garbage, not even a good mixer

Tasting from a 50ml sample. This may take the cake for the most ghostly whiskey I've found yet. No age statement, sure, that's unfortunately standard practice now, but no idea where it's even from, either? But wait, we do know that this "Texas" bourbon is from somewhere in KY, sure, that makes sense. At this point, why even put a label on it at all? Kentucky should just start putting these young whiskeys in clear, plain glass bottles with a handwritten statement that says, "Guess, *******" and truly, people will still buy it. This is pretty light in color, which I expected. However, it even looks watery, but hopefully this is a factor of being so young. The scent does have a good handful of typical, standard bourbon (vanilla, rye spice, mild oak, etc), with a good balance, but again, very light overall. Every time I go back to the glass to refresh the scent, I get a very quick hint of something wet, earthy, and very shockingly unpleasant, but it fades into the above notes quickly, so I hope this doesn't stick around. The initial taste isn't really much, because the body is so light that most of the flavors take time to warm up. The first and only flavor I get initially is weak corn whiskey, with a slight hint of the earthy wetness from the smell. This is both boring and unpleasant, until the finish develops with some air, and some good rye spice starts kicking things up. At first, I thought this is where the good flavors would start appearing, but instead, the wet corn mash doesn't actually go away, and combined with the rye, just makes the previous taste seem spicy and harsh. As I try to move my gums about to see if anything else changes, the only new note I discover is a metallic tang, which I usually get from very low quality whiskeys or spirits from low quality stills. This finish continues, and unfortunately is only reset by a new taste, which only seems like a hostage situation to me. Okay yeah, this wasn't going to surprise me if it was bad, but the fact that it's bad AND chooses to hide behind so much smoke and mirror behavior is just shame on the whiskey community, and should cause any self-respecting dedicated consumer to want to shy away from the craft; I know that feeling.