George Remus Single Barrel Straight Bourbon (2020 Release)

This is a Justin’s House of Bourbon barrel pick for their monthly bourbon club and the whiskey comes in at 121.9 proof. So lets dive in to see how their pick went. The nose starts off with baked apple crisp, mingling with orange, cherry, some medium caramel notes, then grapefruit pith and lastly spearmint. Taking a sip revels the same notes as the nose with baked apple crisp right front, medium mouthfeel with light caramel, orange zest, cherry liquor, grapefruit pith then transitions to a blast of barrel spices showing off that barrel and an alcohol bite, then cinnamon redhots, apple crisp and last note of spearmint that lasts for a while. Overall, for 40 dollars and a single barrel pick, it’s inexpensive and has interesting flavors. I don’t want another bottle of it, but am happy with the selection of this one.

Butterscotch bomb both neat and over ice. So smooth.

Cask what? Damn, it's not that hard. Too bad I don't have a clean photo to make my own (although I can see that clean photos don't mean as much to others). Liquor Barn 2020 barrel pick, barrel #498. Bottled at 121.5 proof. I've passed on this once before, as I usually try not to give any business to whiskeys that remain mysteries (great way to do business). However, with this being a barrel pick and cask strength, it did intrigue me enough to pull the trigger. The nose has plenty of ethanol, but that was expected. It is hard to get any other notes, but since I have to fill in the blanks myself, I'd say it does smell high corn, with rye making up the rest. I do specifically get some butterscotch and vanilla, leading me to the high corn assumption. Of course, the taste starts hot, but it is manageable, as are all cask strength whiskeys. It's bland, but not flavorless; it has good traditional rye bourbon flavors typical of MGP bourbons, but struggles to distinguish itself any further. There's charred oak, caramel, vanilla, brown sugar, yadda yadda, but so far it's just the proof that's different from other MGP nobodies (no hate to MGP, but decent hate for mystery MGP). Yeah, it's a good cask strength offering, but being a barrel pick was the only way it could get away being priced at what it was, and even then it was still too expensive for what I got. It will appease my friends who absolutely cannot drink anything less than 120 proof, but hopefully even they can see that this is just bourbon. Having said that, I believe this is a good standard to judge all bourbon across, as it's simple, traditional, and, most importantly, not watered down.