Rating: 11/23 N: Light mineral with some rye spiciness. And of course that unavoidable Jack Daniel's banana. I get some traces of wood but also of alcohol. It definitely smells young and in need of some help, but there's some decent complexity and it doesn't smell actively bad. P: It's sweet and light with banana in the usual Jack Daniel's style. Not to introduce time travel to this tasting, but I did take a sip out of the mini bottle before nosing it, so despite writing about the sweet lightness and banana on the nose (which I'm sure I will be doing once I smell it), I was quite surprised. Now, I say "quite surprised", but I also say "usual Jack Daniel's style". For some reason, I was expecting a lot more rye and really not much to indicate that it was Jack Daniel's. There wasn't a good reason for me to expect this, but I did. So, yeah, it's actually not an awful palate, but it is quite sweet. It's clear that there's not a ton of rye in this, but despite being overbearingly sweet and on the light side, this isn't bad. Now, it isn't good either and I certainly would not substitute it for a rich bold rye like Pikesville or Russell's, or for a dry spicy rye like Whistlepig. Side by side, both Jim Beam Pre-Prohibition and George Dickel Rye are better by a fair margin. OK, so it's definitely not that great. There's plenty of mineral and also some bitterness that hints a bit at mint and licorice, but also has a bit of some other herbal element and bleeds into alcohol. That banana is really present throughout unfortunately. F: Minerals, banana, light hints of toffee and wood, faint bitter herbal notes, including crushed mint. Not great, but not awful. I might prefer this to regular Jack and I definitely like it better than Gentleman Jack, but that's about the level we're talking about here. Ultimately, I think it's about on par with Jack Daniel's bourbon, so an 11 seems about right. I might bump this up a hair, but the banana here really is a bit much for a rye.