Yellowstone Kentucky Straight Bourbon 7 Year (2020 Limited Edition)

Nose: fresh baked yeast rolls with honey butter drizzled over them, cherries, leather, thick scent of oak, baking spices that are reminiscent of thanksgiving. If you go in close and take a deep breath you get quite a heavy ethanol burn on the nose. So much so I would say this is more than a 101 proof bourbon. Palate: bitter unsweetened chocolate hits me right away, the kind used in cooking purposes only. Reminds me of when I was a kid and I begged my mother for some unsweetened chocolate that she was using for baking... boy was that a shocker!! Oily and coats the mouth nicely, now getting cherries, black pepper, leather, tobacco, and a slight sweetness from honey. Very complex palate! Finish: long and complex... Wow!!! This really sticks with you. A lot of the same flavors keep circling back and punching me right in the back of the throat. One of the best finishes I have ever experienced with bourbon. Definitely drinks hotter than 101 proof. I would say this was more if not as much as some barrel proof bourbons. P.S. I waited to grade this until after I wrote the review. If I were to grade it initially after my first taste it would have been much lower, but now after letting it settle it is clearly one of my favorite offerings of 2020 after finishing my first dram, and this is a neck pour! Don’t sleep on this one. Give it a few minutes and take a couple of visits to capture all of the notes. Amazing bourbon! I will buy another if I can find it.

Really really great. Sweetness abounds in this one. Now in my top 5. Good stuff.

This is the first of these LE's I've bought. Their core offering has been pretty meh, but with word Nancy Fraley has been working with them, I'm excited. Nose - The first thing that really jumps out is a dusty corn and nutty element, very much making me think of a younger beam, perhaps a bakers or a knob creek 9ish year (well actually those NAS ones). Or you know bookers if bookers weren't terrible :) Then comes a very pleasant sweetness that I would without knowing there's finishing associate with really well aged older bourbons. That antique food finishing and intense brown sugar and candied oak. But more nosing starts to bring out almost a fresh rain over fall leaves with baking spices and rock candy. if not clear, there's peanuts on here as well. There's a pie crust here, heavy cinnamon and brown sugar on it, but yet balanced with the dough not letting the cinnamon bite the nostrils. Taste - While the nose is really something the taste takes a bit of a step back towards 7 year old bourbon. It's sweet but not deep or rich. The mouth feel isn't much to speak of. It however is explosive in total flavor. That sweet a bit thin upfront then gets spicy and oaky and peanuty and it bites pretty nice and hard on the finish. That finish mind you is really long and lingers. It's so much of a beam or perhaps a really nutty heaven hill kind of experience, but those armagnac casks are adding depth to finish, adding more sweetness and adding more mellow fruits. The armagnac is also responsible for a sweetness up front big time. But it seems that this one needed 3 more months in the finishing casks and another year or two in the bourbon barrels. 100 bucks? I have to say, yeah this is worth about that, but you'd want it for 75. Overall I'm at a 2.5 here. But I'm debating going a lot higher. There's just something off for me. I think this just needs more age or more proof. But it's honestly pretty dang good as it is. And thus 2.5, this is about an 85-86 in my book. And at 100 bucks that's not bad.

Greatly enjoyed it