There are a bunch of us old retired guys that get together once a week for breakfast at our local IHOP. I mentioned in one of my earlier reviews that a good friend of mine said I was a bourbon snob, today I asked him what he meant. He said you just don’t drink the bottom shelf like most of us who are on a fixed income. I reminded him I just picked up this bottle of Ezra Brooks and I think it’s a real decent bourbon. Well this became a pretty lively conversation for a bunch of old guys eating pancakes, but we did come to a consensus. To qualify as a bottom shelf bourbon it had to be under $15 a bottle. We felt there was an additional category that we called “great value” bourbon in the $15-$25 price range. These Bourbons are noticeably better than those that typically occupy the bottom shelf, Wild Turkey 101 is a prime example. What does all this rambling have to do with the review of Ezra Brooks? Well your perception is your reality, if you don’t think you can find anything decent on the bottom shelf... you won’t. This Ezra is a real decent bourbon, I can find this all day long for under $15. This is a daily drinker for a lot of my friends, their budget just won’t allow them to venture too far out of this price range. So as a result this “Old Dude” has decided to leave the comfort of his mid shelf and dive back into the bottom shelf from time to time. They say there’s gold in them there hills, this bottle of Ezra is proof of that.