Drinking this neat. Okay, so I bought this bottle last year before I knew anything much about bourbon makers and collector bottles and pretty much instantly wrote it off. It was an impulse buy at the time but little did I know a year later what was sitting on my shelf. When I realize I had 12 yr MGP, I got pretty excited to try it again! But alas, even though my knowledge changed, my pallet stayed true. The finish in Pinot noir barrels did something to the 12 yr, but I’ll do my best to sum it up. You get the caramel, vanilla, and oak as you might expect with MGP, however the oak is over powering. Finish is weaker than expect but the saving grace is a nice tobacco tone. What I’m not a huge fan of is the oak and there is an artificial flavor in there that comes off like fungus which doesn’t jive right for the aforementioned profile.. may be more a personal preference. Product of the finish? Probably. It was a fun buy and an even more fun story when my Cousin saw this sitting on my shelf. I told him I’d save the rest for him.