Full disclosure: my experience with Barrell products is limited to Seagrass and Vantage. I’ve never had the regular bourbon. However, with that out of the way, my experience with those two whiskies reminds me of that band that everyone else loves that I can recognize is talented but for some reason, they just don’t hit me the same way they do other people. Or it’s like that critically acclaimed film that I recognize is taking on an important issue and is beautifully shot, but it just kind of leaves me cold, like doesn’t touch me in an emotional way. To some extent my problem is also what I like about it: the proof. These are robust and tasty whiskies underneath some strong alcoholic fumes. You know how some barrel proof whiskies don’t come off as drinking their proof. In both cases, Barrell’s nose definitely reflects that. Which means after you pour, you absolutely have to let it sit for a while to let them cool off, waft away. You can, of course, dive straight in because I’m not seeing that it makes much difference on the palate, but with the nose, I’m getting little initially aside from the fumes and some muskiness, some dustiness, some earthiness. As I nose this one, the Barrell Vantage, more, I’m getting nuttiness but it’s not a clearly defined nut, such as almonds, but a more general nuttiness. The nose, once the ethanol dissipates, is largely fruity and sweet, more along the dried apricots and orange marmalade vein. This carries through to the palate which is also tart and oaky and strong. Even with time in the glass, the spicy punch in the face remains and it’s a nice punch. It’s not bitter or biting so much as just the kind of hot where you showed up at a Indian restaurant and they didn’t alter the spice ratings for an American palate, and you don’t want to show that the heat is bothering you, so you drink like ten glasses of water while you’re eating your curry just to survive the night. Thing is, I’ll share a secret: I love that. I love spicy and I love the flavors that come with the heat, so I’m that guy in the corner of the restaurant with sweat dripping down my forehead and the waiters laughing at my ass like they just played a big joke on me. As I go along, the tartness does take on a cherry quality, and there’s even a mintiness in the finish on the back end, but again, the finish is also hot. I’m not sure if what I’m describing here sounds good or not, but I have a bottle of Blue Run High Rye Bourbon open, and this is better than that. I also have a bottle of Larcey Barrel Proof A122 open and this ISN’T as good as that. It is, however, a unique experience, much as the Seagrass was, so again, my hat is off to Barrell as this is a quality product, and I’m open to the experience they provide in the future despite the odd fact that they never seem to give me as much pleasure as they give others. To that end, actually, I think the appropriate simile is they’re like a modern hip-hop act. You can stop reading now if you dislike rap. But I came up in the 90s when rap produced bangers. Wu-Tang records. Rawkus. There was a lot of hard-hitting stuff that made you bob your head. You just felt hard when you put it on your headphones and walked down the street, even if you were a white boy from the suburbs. It was difficult not to walk down the street playing Onyx’s Bacdafucup without a strut in your step. Nowadays, people are like, have you checked out the new Earl Sweatshirt, and I give it a listen, and I’m like, it’s a sad kid in his bedroom with protools mumbling his diary entries over a synthetic beat. I mean, there’s obvious talent there, but I don’t want a sad kid in his bedroom with protools mumbling diary entries. I want “Poisonous paragraphs smash the phonograph in half it be the Inspectah Deck on the warpath.” And that’s kind of how I feel about Barrell. Barrell is the sad rapper mumbling diary entries over protools in his bedroom. It’s not really what I’m looking for when I want a bourbon, but I’ll give it a spin if it’s what you’re offering up these days. And I'll give it some thought and take it seriously, but in the end, if you've got Larceny, I'd much prefer that. Yeah, I know that one took a turn there at the end that you didn’t see coming.