Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage

Awesome daily drink that hits vanilla, caramel, toffee, with a light and lasting spicy finish

Opened 3 weeks ago, 2nd pour neat in glencairn. A: amber, light copper, very good legs N: moderately heavy and complex but still pleasing. Caramel, butter, allspice, orange, vanilla. P: starts a bit peppery, but smooths out quickly with orange, vanilla and some cinnamon, butter, glazed sugar, and caramel. F: low burn with mostly pepper and hints of other palate notes This is a full, tasty and complex SB for a great price.

First of all, I can't believe that I haven't put in a rating on this yet. For a good 2-year span when Buffalo Trace and Eagle Rare started becoming almost impossible to find this was my go-to daily sipper. Putting in a rating without associating the vintage, but I've had at least a half dozen bottles from all years between 2008 and 2012. This is the first I've had of 2013's Pale golden straw in color, medium speed legs of an average number. Leaves a nice ring on the glass. Shows noticeable rye contribution on the nose, with lots of caramel and vanilla frosting. A hint of mint/eucalyptus sneaks out, along with light baking spice and a hint of fruit... Maybe dried pineapple or apricot Well balanced across the palate. Soft and sweet up front, with a hit of warmth at the midpoint... Mostly from those baking spices, as it's definitely not high proof. Gives way to a fairly long finish of vanilla buttercream frosting, fresh oak and a dry almost herbal note on the way out. Overall, this is a bourbon I'm always pleased with. And for now, couldn't be more delighted that it's still consistently available.

The expert review ranking of 96 here strikes me as hyperbolic. If it wasn't a single barrel, I'd even go so far as to say that ranking is absurd, but I'm not drinking from the same trough as the expert reviewer here, so I'll try to show some humility. Maybe an excellent single barrel of this is worth a 96? As is, I think I got a very good barrel. If I was ranking by the expert metric here, I'd be tempted to go 88. Thing about this is, Evan Williams Single Barrel, at least my bottle, represents everything you'd want from a bourbon. There's a good balance on the nose of oak and sweetness, leather and vanilla, spicy cinnamon and cotton candy, and what follows on the tongue is much of the same with maybe a bit of milk chocolate and cherry pie thrown in. You get a decent finish, and overall, it's about as complex as you're going to get from a $30 bourbon. Truth be told, if you offered me this or Eagle Rare, I might go 50/50 on it, half the time choosing Eagle and half the time choosing this. Of course, the question then becomes, is this really so much better than other $30 bourbons like Knob or Elijah Craig or even Wild Turkey 101 that are more widely available? Are we elevating the Evan Williams Single Barrel because of its relative scarcity and single barrel credentials? Well, we likely always elevate something we can't get our hands on as easily, and it's probably better than Wild Turkey 101 and Elijah. I've always had a soft spot for Knob, especially now that it's back to having an age statement. But Evan Williams, being a single barrel and being more difficult to come by, feels like more of an occasion bottle. But then, sipping it, you also can't help but wonder, what would this taste like at a higher proof, and the answer I come by is that it would actually probably taste more like Old Tub. In the end, you can't help but feel that a higher proof would benefit this whisky, and having tasted Evan Williams 1789, you get the sense that, while the single barrel is more interesting, the higher proof with the 1789 gives the umph you're looking for with this for $10 less. In the end, this is the best Evan Williams I've had, but with the availability of 1789, the new proofs of 90, and the fact that it's $10 less, that's the one I'm likely turning to more often. And the comparison between that and this makes me glad that 1789 exists and that they've tuned it up as well as they have. Still, if I see this out there, I'm buying it, and I'm enjoying it. Is it a 96? Hell no. But it's a damn fine lower proof lower price option. So even if I disagree, I can maybe see where the expert is coming from.

2014. Pretty nice for an EW

Light golden color N - brown sugar, cherries, leather, P - light mouth feel, orange, lemon, pine, apple F - long finish, mouth waters, medicinal, burns hotter than the proof I’m not sure how I feel about this one. The low proof puts me off in the beginning, and it doesn’t have that smack you in the face complex profile, but it’s sweet and sippable.