Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Bourbon Batch A120

The nose is hot at first, which is not surprising given the proof. There’s cinnamon and other baking spices, vanilla frosting, a little cut grass, a dark caramelized fruit note, corn, maple syrup, cola and some leather. The palate is sweet, thick and oily with the tongue and cheeks drying out leaving you with a sort of lingering chalky feeling. There are dried dark cherries, a ton of baking spices, oak, leather, cola, and a little bit of that cut grass comes through. Its very interesting how coating and oily this one is, while also giving you that drying chalky effect in your mouth, especially the longer you let it hang out before you swallow. The Finish is very long with an initial pop of spiciness, cola and sweet corn that fades into light vanilla and oak, with some barrel char that rises to the surface after a while. This one is great. I love how viscous it is and how there are some fruit notes that made its way into this batch. Even though there is some grassiness/earthyness that comes through, (I get that in a lot of these) its not as dominant as in past batches, which is a welcome change. On a side note, I know there are a lot of people that swear by batch C919, but this one wins for me, even though it comes off a little hotter, it’s just better.

Best batch since the 139.4 squat. This has notes reminiscent of the glory days of ecbp.

It's no hidden fact that this is one of the most highly sought after barrel proof bourbons, and it's got great reasons to back it up, too. Back when Heaven Hill was the number one media target, you could forget about finding this (enough people always ruin everything), but I ran into it while doing some shelf shopping, and since it was fully stocked at this store, I felt it was a good time to properly acknowledge and revisit it. It's obvious that ethanol is going to be a huge part to the nose. Once you realize this, you'll go past it to find a healthy fistful of fresh rye spice, and that well known number 4 barrel char, but with even more depth, like you scraped some of the wood actually off of the barrel into your glass. Like regular Elijah Craig, there's not much more to the scent; as I've said before, simple, uncomplicated bourbons and whiskeys usually yield the best results. First few tastes immediately let the caramel shine, which is to expected. My second phase tasting (swish, swallow, don't open mouth for air) was definitely pretty tough to get through, as the ethanol and rye spice almost murdered it's way through my nostrils. Once I was able to let it breathe through the third phase and beyond, the rye can be tasted very well. It goes back to what I said before, where this is a simple recipe to begin with, and if it ain't broke... All in all, this is certainly one of the most memorable barrel proof bourbons I've ever had. I remember having it years ago at the distillery and certainly craving it since then. However, the media boom killed that craving really quick. Now that that is over, I find this extremely dark, full, billboard impression of a true bourbon to be something I'll try to continuously buy and happily display in my collection.

Flavor explosion. Fruit and spice and everything nice. For almost 70%... cmon.