Retasted tonight and I get orange notes on the nose and palate that I didn't get first time around. there's also a new vitamin/mineral note on the nose. I'll bump it up a 1/4 point. Not a bad offering by any means, but I don't know how the won whiskey of the year. Then again, I'm not a huge Tennessee whiskey fan in general.

Abunadh is another. BTW, wine enthusiast whisky reviews seem crazy. They like everything. lol.

Dickel seems to be relaunching themselves and this is a nice whisky but it seems they are pulling out all the stops with this one. I expect the quality to go down in the future and they ride the award for all its worth. It seems that a lot of brands are doing that through choice or because of lack of stock. See Glendronach, Macallan, Highland Park, etc. Tamdhu batch seems the worst offender but there are many others that launch to great praise only to allow the products to become inferior over time.

@PBMichiganWolverine Agreed. Was surprised to see that that too, initially. Then I started thinking about the potential alterior motives

@Richard-ModernDrinking I saw that...was surprised at first. But then made sense : BiB; 13yr old ; major producer; great value. I think award was a firing shot raise standards across the board

@Richard-ModernDrinking I'm sure there was something I enjoyed more than Dickel BIB this year, but I'd have to consult my notes here because nothing stands out as better. That being said, there was a heck of a lot of whisky that I didn't taste this year. I could see Best NEW Whisky, maybe? Or best American Whisky? Or best value? I stockpiled a couple bottles just in case this happened, by the way.

@Richard-ModernDrinking that's interesting, pretty high praise. I will have to revisit this one and see how my initial tasting notes hold up.

What do we think about this being named top whiskey of the year by both Whisky Advocate and Wine Enthusiast? Seems to have only so-so reviews here.