This review is for my soon-to-be ex-wife and her attorney, whom I’ve recently learned are monitoring my reviews to track “depletion of assets.” Not kidding. Enjoy, ladies! This one’s for you. I’ll address the financials in due course, counselor (and client). But if you’ll accommodate once again this intractable hard-ass for a few brief moments, I must first provide my five-man audience (up from four yesterday!) with a proper review. Bright copper orange color (Pantone 152—thanks for the help, sincerely, Home Depot paint associate). Cornbread, dark peanut brittle, chocolate-covered cherries (Godiva, of course), oak, vanilla, orange oil, and that sweet-ink smell of newly minted Benjamins, which is not off-putting (and let’s face it, not surprising either given the three glasses of 2005 Rochioli West Block pinot I pregamed with Tom Rochioli himself on FaceTime beforehand). The palate is smooth and lush (fertilized, shall we say, with that Russian River terroir); there’s honey sweetness, and the oak and vanilla reappear on the back end. The 100 proof is well integrated—not so much a Kentucky Hug as a Bardstown kiss—with cinnamon stick and a pungently sweet and dark Kopi luwak espresso note on the medium-length finish. Ah, Bali, and that weekend with my…strike that. I digress. I bought this bottle for $629.82 all-in, according to my records (counselor, you’ll never find the blockchain ledger). While my drinking buddies gift me bottles of bourbon regularly in lieu of the cover charge for all of the college football bacchanals that I host—Pat McAfee dropped by for the last one—this bottle was not derived from that bribing provenance. I paid cash money. I’d been searching high and low for this über-rare three-quarter liter of bluegrass sweetness for months. Unable to locate it amongst the dozen or so local shops I haunt—I know each manger on a first-name basis, have them in my contacts, and use a special ringtone for their inbound calls in case I need to briefly exit a meeting (“Excuse me, but that’s my son calling from his school”)—I was coerced to pay inflated secondary prices to an opportunistic vulture in one of the 27 whisk(e)y groups I’m a member of on Facebook (10 bourbon, 17 scotch). The seller, a pleasant but persnickety businessman in Shanghai who insisted I negotiate the complicated details of the transaction on his 4:15 PM “Baiju break” (GMT+8!, i.e., 3:15 AM EDT), charged a 3% convenience fee, a 4% f/x fee, a special “import tax,” and a modest (his words) insurance derivative through his brother’s startup on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong, in case the bottle was damaged in transit. And he talked me into paying overnight shipping, of course. What’s a bourbon hunter to do? Let’s face it: this is a rounding error compared to the wine deliveries I have shipped to my friend’s house. Would I buy it again? Hell yes I would. Plus another for inventory! 4.25 on the Distiller scale. 100 proof. 7-year age statement. Appears to be chill-filtered, because I just brought it out from my barn where it’s around 40°, and the bourbon is clear, with no cloudiness. N.B.: All spirits tasted neat in a Glencairn glass (forgot $29 upcharge from seller’s glassworks).