robertmaxrees
Booker's Bourbon Batch 2020-01 "Granny's Batch"
Bourbon — Kentucky, USA
Reviewed
April 24, 2020 (edited June 5, 2020)
Nose: This is definitely Booker's - dusty corn, light brown sugar, and barrel, with some nice char in the mix. Fresh chocolate chip cookies, peanuts. Mint, camphor. It has some of that bready quality that you'll see in most Booker's, though not as much. Apricot and lemon. Alcohol shows up, though not punishingly.
Palate: Even more of what you'd expect - sweet corn, brown sugar, vanilla, and more of that barrel character with accompanying toast and char - barrel bitter/bite on display here. Buttered toasted wheat bread. Warm dark chocolate chip cookies. Roasted, salted peanuts, mint. Tannin character, though nothing crazy. Cinnamon candy somewhere between Red Hots and Cinnamon Mike And Ikes. Apricot, strawberry, and banana sweetness, to boot. Mouthfeel is medium, leaning toward medium-light. Finish starts with a solid punch of barrel, tannin, smoke, and brown sugar. The brown sugar and barrel evolve together into a sort of burnt caramel and whipped cream, along with a swell of ethanol and fruit. The sweetness and fruit fade off and you're left with fading alcohol, barrel, and tannin. Finish is medium-long.
Other notes: I've never disliked a Booker's release. I find these to all be high quality, beautiful expressions that are very well blended. Though this does not live up to the high bar I have for most Booker's releases, this is still very good. It stretches into some pretty uncharacteristic territory for them, which I find both unusual and also pretty exciting. A solid buy, and I will likely buy another bottle to explore some more simply because this was just so unusual and warrants more of my attention.
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