Rating: 17/23 Eagle Rare always baffles me because depending on the state of my palate, it will either be mature and fruity with a bit of smoke or lightly fruity with bland minerals. Weirdly, the latter case is what I normally get when I have what I would consider to be a pristine palate. Bottle kill tasting here, with a sneak peek at my next bottle at the end. This bottle is almost comically low and it has seen a lot of oxygen. So glad I have a couple more in the bunker. Next time I find this for $30 or less, I need to buy half a case (unless this tasting makes me hate Eagle Rare or something). N: This is a really interesting nose. I'm getting the smoke and nice cherry this time along with some marzipan, mellow-yet-mature wood, and acceptable minerals a la Russell's Reserve 10. This seems richer than Russell's Reserve 10 though, going more toward hedonism than edgy cleanness. There's perhaps a hint of savoriness left over from the distillation, but after 10 years, it's mostly gone. P: Sweet, ripe cherry that at times borders on candy, mixed with some clean minerals and a rich, mellow, nutty wood layer that gradually brings in a little bit of candied orange peel and rich vanilla, then some light smoke to round it out. There's a layer of spice that is just a bit of pepper and cinnamon, keeping this from tasting watery. It's a nice balance of very nice flavors that all stand out and while the flavor is a bit light in a couple of areas, it does come across as mature and smooth. F: The fruit really remains, along with some wood richness and a dash of creosote bitterness that ties the wood to the smoke nicely. The spices include some clove as well here and the minerality remains, but does not overly detract from the core richness. This is a darned fine bourbon. While there are moments when I find the minerality to be a bit much, it's very mature with some delightful flavors to it that balance well. At $30, this is a steal! I'm putting this in the 17 to 18 range, but I haven't quite made up my mind yet. So how does it compare with my next bottle? Well, I have to say that I do not like the next one's neck pour all that much. It's a solid bourbon, but it's vastly inferior to this one. It has a lot more mineral, its cherry is more youthful, and the alcohol is a bit more biting. It has a bit of that metallic element that annoys me in WTRB. Side-by-side, Russell's Reserve 10 is a fuller and more complex. I don't have enough bottles in this range on hand at this moment to compare my new bottle with to establish a rating I really trust, but it seems fairly similar in quality to Elijah Craig Small Batch. Based on what I do have available and my recollections of other bourbons, I would guess that the new bottle is currently in the 14 to 15 range. Not a bad buy at $30, but for about the same price, I'd lean toward Russell's Reserve 10. As disappointing as this may sound though, I actually interpret it a likely good news! I haven't heard complaints of Eagle Rare batch variation, so my interpretation is that while the new Eagle Rare tastes immature, the one that's been heavily oxidizing for something like a year now has improved substantially. This makes me hopeful that the Sazerac that I recently opened and was disappointed by the immaturity of will improve similarly. It also makes me hopeful that my Russell's Reserve 10 will improve similarly with age, eclipsing Eagle Rare 10 so that I don't need to keep hunting for this stuff as its price heads skyward. It will be interesting to compare my new Russell's Reserve Single Barrel with the incredibly heavily oxidized one that I'm about to kill to see if I notice a development of similar character. If so, this also suggests that Wild Turkey Rare Breed could continue to improve with age! So, yeah, that's a 14-15 for the neck of the new bottle and a 17-18 for the old one. I'd kind of decided that Wild Turkey Rare Breed (116) was a 19 and this was about halfway between that and Russell's Reserve 10 (a 16), but I wasn't sure whether I'd be calling it a high 17 or a low 18. Side by side with a Wild Turkey that's had a good 20 minutes to breathe, I have to say that the gap in quality between the two is more than I'd expected, so I need to go with a 17 for this.