BeppeCovfefe
Buffalo Trace Bourbon
Bourbon — Kentucky, USA
Reviewed
December 10, 2019 (edited December 27, 2019)
Speaking of very average bourbon... yes this may come from the same distillery as Elmer and George T but no, you would never confuse this with the better labels owned by sazerac. The basic entry namesake of the not too recently named Buffalo Trace Distillery is a pretty basic bourbon, something on the level of an average black label bourbon it offers up a fairly thin number of sweet notes in conjunction with an average barrel wood finish.
No it isn't close to Blantons and the house's Eagle Rare is a pretty notable upgrade. For a low rye bill it does offer up some spicy side notes and isn't too terribly bitter from under aging, so while being nothing special it's also not repulsive. In some areas this may be easily found but for some reason gets treated as a "specialty" bourbon by the novices in the south east thus driving up the cost and down the availability. Leave it to novices to not know what they're doing!
(noting by some there might be MUCH better store picks available, this IS NOT one of them)
As said, the sugar notes are lacking in variety and the barreling embellishes practically nothing but standard wood tastes.. A bit dry, overall not bad just nothing at all to get excited about. Better for mixing than having as a straight dram. A good cheap bottle as long as the "cheap" is in play.
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@dhsilv2 I spend FAR too much time "hunting" through stores, seeing what's available in my region and price comparing, since I live near a city I can visit dozens of stores without driving over an hour in any direction. I don't do this to try and come off as a "know it all", but because the art of whiskey and particularly American bourbon are my passion. I hope that sharing what I learn with others is of value to them if not in some small way a bit of entertainment. Taking into account not everyone may have time to or can hunt for store picks, I try to offer useful info on what we can all expect to find, everyday on nearly any shelf. It's not that I enjoy giving bottles low marks, in fact just the opposite, but as I tell the liquor store sale people almost daily, if all your bottles are "wonderful" as you say, why are there so many different labels and so many different prices. I hope that explanation is of some small use, thanks and CHEERS!
@BeppeCovfefe if you can still get EHTaylor small batch you are one lucky man! But to the point of store picks, my point is when you compare it to a single barrel, well the BT is pretty consisently what it is, and imo that's a great cheap bourbon (we disagree). but ER10 has a lot of duds based on my 15 years and maybe 200 bottles I've bought of it.
@dhsilv2 yes I know ER is becoming harder to find, as EHTaylor (sans small batch)has been for years now, I've only seen 1 BT store pick and it was at a store I didn't care to patronize. Point still being (at the risk of abusing a dead pony with toe end of my boot) I AM NOT reviewing a Store Pick or any other better (or worse) BT product, just the bottle represented by the Buffalo Trace logo, which I would note is well chosen as this can remind one of a "trace" of Buffalo, if you get my drift.
mind you stagg, old charter, ehtaylor....those are also impossible to get without chasing the trucks too.
@BeppeCovfefe well, it seems you ARE lucky enough to not need to search, hunt, or pay massive secondary prices for ER10. BT store picks are actually more common for me than ER10, you know being in Kentucky.
@dhsilv2 of course Old Charter, Stagg, EHTaylor and Benchmark also come from the same bill, the point is if I have to HUNT and SEARCH for a pick of a label to qualify it as "good" then that means the average bottle of that label just sitting on the shelf is really subpar. I'm sure there are some great bottles of BT store picks, Dubz reminds me daily there are great store picks but I'm not just reviewing for those who have the luxury to go Store Pick hunting, I'm reviewing for some of us poor shlubs who have to rely on what we can pick up at the local booze shop. If Sazarac/BT want to up their game and make BT a top shelf product, fine, but UNTIL they do, I won't pretend this bottle is something it isn't. Cheers!
@BeppeCovfefe you should go on a barrel pick or perhaps hit up some of the distilleries that do single barrel bottlings. You'll see profiles that are so night and day it's shocking. Now with Eagle rare they have to search through barrels to find ones that are on profile, I'd guess 50% or more of the barrels 10 years old and of that bill don't meet their requirements and are used for other purposes. of the 50% left (and 50% is way high) there is still a massive variation. Keep in mind Buffalo Trace only has two primary mash bills for nearly all their different offerings. All the flavor differences are just from the master blender picking which barrels go into which bottles.
@dhsilv2 it's possible though I'm doubting 10 year barrels of the same mash will vary much, if you want a sure thing, go for Knob Creek SiBs, never gotten a bad one.
@BeppeCovfefe I love eagle rare, but you will get off bottles, just the nature of single barrels.
@dhsilv2 indeed, 10 year barrel poured, and far and away a higher quality. At least in my view, some people think green and red label Weller are about the same, I think they're worlds apart. Our GOVT is quickly transforming to a Red Peoples Republic where we must all think the same, but until that day we are all free to our own opinions! Cheers my friend.
@BeppeCovfefe remember those are single barrels.
@dhsilv2 sorry I've had more than a few bottles of Eagle Rare and this stuff in no way shape or form comes close to any of them.
PBMichiganWolverine I can get Old Bardstown for around 21$ and I already consider it a better drink.
@dhsilv2 agreed. An easy sipper with mass appeal at a great price.
It’s still $25 here —that’s a great price. Elmer has climbed to $100+.
I'll honestly take this over the Elmer for the price at retail. I think this is a darn good quality basic bourbon. Depending on the barrel this will oftne rival eagle rare and is often better than blatons. The thing with buffalo trace is they consistently put out a good product, well sorry THIS bottle is consistent. You can get horror stories from the premium priced single barrels.