Overall takeaway from my first taste of the Van Winkle line up: Solid. Smooth. Satisfying. Like others have pointed out, the cinnamon hits first, both on the nose and on the palate. Not overpowering or overly spicy, but noticeably present. Next, what some have attributed as an ‘earthiness’, I translate as a note of tobacco, as in the kind of pipe tobacco I occasionally smoked back on college when I thought I was cool. (I wasn’t.) Only towards the end did I pick up on a nice cherry note, which helped to balance out the oakyness nicely. The finish is sweet and reminds you of it’s wheated mash bill, as it goes down effortlessly smooth. Is it some kind of magical elixir, deserving of its ludicrous scarcity and secondary price tag? Heavens no. But is it an incredibly solid, smooth, and satisfying example of what bourbon whiskey is suppose to be? You bet your ass it is.