Elijah Craig 18 Year

Bottled: 8/6/2021 Barrel: 5573

Aroma is rather mild, but filled with lots of sweet wood. Pine tar balanced with caramel flan; pencil shavings mixed with vanilla pudding. A little Bing cherry if you dig for it, but not much else going on. I honestly didn’t think it was possible for any whiskey to have this little ethanol, but yet here we are. But I must be honest and not let the price or rarity cloud matters; the nose is decent but not spectacular. Palate is soft and delicate as can be with caramel, vanilla, orange, pipe tobacco, and a hint of cinnamon with the subtlest, sweetest, mildest oak riding underneath the whole time. This is a bit hard to describe why this is delicious but I’ll try; it’s not that any one thing wows you or that this presents anything remotely resembling unique, it’s how well things are integrated and how the flavors are balanced that provide the wow factor. Finish morphs into black pepper, barrel char, leather, and a fantastic plum/black cherry note that comes out of nowhere, along with the flavors from the palate continuing to last throughout. Amazingly long for 90 proof. Mouthfeel is light, airy, and very dry, but fits nonetheless. Needless to say I enjoyed this very much. Low proof? Yeah. Do I wish it was higher? Sure. Does the low proof make it a bad whiskey? Not even close. I paid $199 for this in the wild which I know is a little high, but I wasn’t going to pass it up and I have no regrets. As a value, it offers a high quality for a high price therefore very hard to rate because as good as it is, now that I’ve had it I’m not certain about rebuying it at the same price. So I will leave you with this: if you have never had it and you find a bottle and have the means, I’d recommend grabbing it for the experience. A staple in my cabinet? Probably falls short of that. 4.5 rating.

I believe that I've already reviewed. But I can't tell since my beloved friends at Distiller have really taken a huge step backwards with this App/site. I can no longer quickly see if I've reviewed or immediately see my review. Ugh, please fix I used to love this app. Anyway, I know I've had EC18 before and thought it was good, but nothing special. This time it was borderline magical. Deep Rich coconut, caramel and even some chocolate. Delicious

Lots of oak/barrel char, vanilla, berrys

Nose is oak and caramel coffee. Vanilla initially then some Smokey oak to finish