Batch 113. Turns out that little number matters, more on that later. Nose is caramel, oats, dust, honeysuckle. Lemon zest. Body is lemon, maple syrup. Honeydew melon. Brine. Tea leaves. Oat milk. Super creamy mouth feel. Finish is chocolate, milk. Very faint cherry. I like this a lot. In fact, a while back this bottle impressed me enough to launch a Blackened collecting spree, which I’m finally getting to drinking through now. In doing so, I wanted to be able to say that for Blackened, the batch number doesn’t matter. Bad news y’all: it really does, at least at this stage in their business model. I’m trying batch 113 back to back with batch 124, and there is a distinct difference. These two batches are as distinct as two different single barrel store picks. On the bright side, if you had a bad experience, there’s always a chance you could find a better batch later. On the flip: you could recommend this to a friend and have them scratching their head in disappointment. Batch 124 isn’t bad, but for me it’s a solid star lower. My approach to Blackened going forward: I will likely always have a bottle tucked away somewhere. It deserves that. I will not continue collecting them. Blackened doesn’t deserve that yet. And I’m not convinced they deserve to sell anything that costs more that $50, but I will wait to try the Blackened/Willett collab before I say that definitively.