that was a great real introduction to bourbon. i drank the jacks and the beams before, but never actually focusing on the experience. this is something else. first of all, what a pleasant feel on the nose. super sweet, almost no pronounced alcohol. initally i was just thinking about the sugar, like cotton candy, but then the fruitiness kicks. and it isn't like real organic frutiness, i think what it really is is banana jelly beans. that's the smell. but oh, what a turnaround when you taste it. extremely creamy mouthfeel. not oily like the chivas, but creamy liked whipped cream, in the sense of its density gradually fading away. the sweet artifical fruit taste very quickly turns bizarrely spicy. not like pepper cause you don't get the actual spice taste, you just get that spiky feel in your tongue, you almost want to stick it out of your mouth. really abrasive but really good. after taste is not really smoky in the sense of woody smokiness, but really what it feels like is just having smoked a cigar, like tobacco smokiness but with that extra strong cigar-like after taste. really like this whiskey. probably the best i've had so far in this whiskey journey. i had the laddie before but it had a big ice rock and i was already drunk so that one doesn't count.