Smoke Wagon Straight Bourbon

Assessed in a Glencairn spirits nosing glass. Aroma - Neat - Sweet corn arrival, mild marzipan, vanilla bean bordering on custard and very mild cherry. A pleasant enough, albeit typical bourbon nose. Adding a splash of water . . . This has opened up some fruit. Mild banana, green apple and dried apricot. Taste - Neat - a bit one-dimensional. Very resinous, quite sweet, young corn. Quite stinging on the palate neat even at the 46.25% ABV. Adding a splash of water . . . This hasn’t done it any favors at all, only dulling down an already pretty simple flavor. After the addition of water, I’m mainly tasting sweet vanilla. Final thoughts - All in all, I’m quite unimpressed. Smoke Wagon has garnered quite a following, but im just not getting it. Granted the favorites seem to be small Batch and uncut, so I may give those a try if I ever come across them, but as far as this expression goes, you could do a lot better for the money. If I had to compare this bourbon to another, it would be Lexington. Simple, typical corn and vanilla.

Bottle kill and final thoughts on Smoke Wagon Straight bourbon. I've enjoyed this bottle, but it really doesn't offer up anything unique. It's not available in my home state of Alabama so that's a big knock against it for me. If you can find a bottle in the mid $30 range it's worth a try, but I wouldn't pay much above that. This is a fine sipping bourbon. You may not get anything memorable from this bottle, but it does satisfies without having any unpleasant characteristics.