Heaven's Door Ascension Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Thanks @timross33 ! Happy birthday @jdjmad !

The nose smells of vanilla, caramel and buttery pastries. Upon deeper whiff, you pick up some dried apricot and a little herbaceous licorice. The palate begins innocently enough, as a bourbon should. Softly sweet caramel and vanilla that was present on the nose. The back of the taste becomes drier, spicier. Cinnamon, rye spice and pepper all carry that taste to to the finish. Surprisingly enough, the finish swirls that vanilla and caramel from earlier with some anise-like herbaceous qualities and is actually not a bad finish in and of itself. For an inexpensive, readily available new core offering from Heaven's Door ( I read it was a new core offering, please correct me if I am wrong ), this one is a solid sipper if not a little soft and one dimensional. Recommended for sure.

This is a great bottle to have on the shelf! On the nose it is sweet caramel and butterscotch. The first sip it is very oak forward however it then is a Caramel butter taste

Sweeter nose than taste. Almost a rye spicy taste. Long finish when neat.

My original review for the new Heaven's Door Ascension on 8/12/23 was full of hope and I really wanted to give this juice the benefit of the doubt. However, I have deleted all that and am changing my review and rating... I do not like this stuff. I tried, but its got a heavy "medicinal" flavor that is very off-putting. It is quite seldom that I don't like a bottle enough to want to dump it down the sink... but this, unfortunately, has earned that fate. However, I'm instead going to try to pawn it off on a fellow bourbon enthusiast to get his take on it. If he likes it, awesome! If he has the same reaction as me, then HE can dump it. LOL! Sorry, Heaven's Door. I had such high hopes for your first KY Bourbon, but you totally missed the mark on this one. 2.25 final rating for not being the worst I've ever had, but definitely nowhere near even a "bottom shelf" status. I'll buy Old Grandad 100 BIB, or Evan Williams 1783, before I touch this stuff again. Those are far better bourbons for much less $$$!