Begin disclosures: 1 - I am a bit of a Buffalo Trace fanboy. I do not own a giant bronze Buffalo, retailing at around $400 at buffalotracegiftshop.com, but as you might’ve guessed, I’ve considered it. 2 - Once one enters the “BT fanboy refreshers tent” and drinks the Kool-aid, one discovers sub-genres of fandom. Inside the BT tent, I am 100% a BT mash bill #2 fanboy. Elmer T Lee, Rock Hill Farms, Blanton’s, Hancock’s, and (you guessed it) Ancient Age. The other 4 on that list range from “I like this” to “this is one of my all time favorites.” Although this is NAS, word on the street is that this juice is aged around 3 years. This makes sense on a few levels, so I buy it. 3 - I am firmly on team “cost should factor into a rating”. A whiskey can be objectively better than another and still receive a lower score because most of us aren’t that asshole who posts Facebook videos where he mixes Pappy with Surge. Value matters. 4 - No stores near me carry this, which is absurd given some of the obscure stuff they do carry. I paid $15.99 + tax + $10 shipping to get this 1 liter from an online liquor store out of CA. I do not regret this decision. End disclosures. Nose is bitter and sour. I get almonds, walnuts, and lemon. I can understand why one might say cherry, but I’d stick with lemon personally. A bit of yeast and cedar, but those notes aren’t as intense as they are in Jack, Beam, or Woodinville, to name a few. Body has orange, maple syrup, caramel, and powdered sugar. That orange to powdered sugar has a sweet tarts vibe that I am really enjoying. It’s juicy, sweet, and delicious. I could see how one might say apple on the body, but I’d stick with orange. Finish is yeast, pepper, and banana. This is the first place where it really becomes obvious to me that this is necessarily younger juice. Could do without the finish, but that’s okay. I’ll just drink it faster. I mean, it’s like $0.50/oz, so why not? This whiskey is simple, young, and tasty. It’s on my shortlist for best whiskey under $20, and it’s my current favorite whiskey in an Old Fashioned. You can mix this with no regrets, but you can also drink this neat. I can see the connections to the other whiskeys in mash bill #2, and perhaps a good bit of my enjoyment here comes from the fact that this is a study piece for me. In particular, I can see the relationship to Blanton’s gold (the nuttiness and sweet tarts bit) and Hancock’s (the juicy and fruity bit). I know that I’m biased towards this whiskey, but if you’re a fan of BT mash bill #2, I don’t know how you could avoid appreciating this on some level. This shouldn’t be anyone’s favorite whiskey, but it deserves better than the community rating here, especially when the world is flooded with craft distilleries making inferior juice at 4 times the cost. Would recommend to any friend who’s into mash bill #2, BT in general, lower cost bourbons, or good mixers for an Old Fashioned.