Rating: 12/23 I go back and forth on Evan Williams. I can't hate it because it's cheap and totally serviceable. Still, I've never actually enjoyed it. My main problem has been that its flavor really isn't very full, so it's kind of lacking as a sipper and gets lost as a mixer. Still, I'm hopeful that this more than 8 year old, vintage single barrel bottle with a hand-written date is the refined and nuanced in a way that makes up for the weak distillate and low proof. N: It's light with some dry tartness, sort of floral fruitiness (tangerine, cherry, apple), and plenty of spice (clove, ginger, cinnamon, probably some black pepper). Some really nice mellow wood. Also a bit of sweet corn adding some (but not a lot of) fullness. This has a subtlety and some notes that I expect more from a scotch, so I'm hopeful that it will be an elegant dram. P: Light. Quite light. Not full at all. Spices backed by some overly mellow wood and corn that seems to have lost most of its flavor. There's some sour mash tartness hinting and tangerine, but not quite getting there. A faint waft of vanilla as well. Definitely some minerality, though it isn't too strong. Nothing is strong here though. Based on my experience with Evan Williams Bottled In Bond, I expected this to be light and spicy, and that certainly is the case. Some of the corn sweetness is so light that it tastes kind of young; however, there's also plenty of woodiness that approaches the level of over-oaked. F: Spice with some sour mash. Surprisingly, I get some floral tangerine here. That's actually kind of nice. I might be enjoying this a bit more than the palate. - Conclusion - Russell's Reserve 10 (15-16/23) is substantially fuller, which I think says a lot about how weak this is. Even were it not so weak, the balance here seems less impressive than that of the Russell's. This is unfortunately quite bland. It lacks the interesting character of Buffalo Trace (14/23) - and it somehow is less full than that too! At a bare minimum, the proof here is far too low. But Evan Williams also really needs to do something about its distillate to give it some actual flavor. This certainly isn't actually bad, but it tastes more like 37% ABV than 43.4%. I would take Ancient Ancient Age 10 Star (12/23) over this as well. At least the Ancient Ancient Age has something going on. This tastes like someone already added water or something. This isn't a lot worst than the Ancient Ancient Age though. I don't think I'd go so low as a 9. Right now, I'm guessing an 11. It's difficult to be confident in my rating though, because I don't normally keep bottles of such low quality around. Maybe I need to go buy some regular (more watery) Ancient Age to compare. I'm actually considering a 12 now. This is somewhere in the 10 to 12 range. I'm thinking more like an 11 or 12. There is some nuance that's growing on me, but it's just so so subtle. I'm thinking that this can have the 12. At $25, this may not be a bad buy, but I doubt I'll be buying more. It's just too weak and bland.