Larceny Barrel Proof, B521

I’d like to thank Heaven Hill for providing this review sample with no strings attached.

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I am smoking a couple Waygu Ribeye steaks tonight so you better believe that I’m going to be making this quick. They are on the smoker right now and I am keeping one eye on the probe temp as I type this. I got them online, the company had sponsored a barbecue YouTube channel I enjoy watching and I wanted to support him and I wanted to try these crazy expensive steaks.

I’ve found over the last couple years, that while I don’t mind splurging on the occasional overpriced whiskey (because they are almost always overpriced compared to how they taste), i’d much rather splurge on a novel food experience.

This may have contributed to my expanding waistline…

But in any case, I’d much rather sit down to a nice meal than I would sit down to a nice bourbon these days. Some of that is because I’m a pretty good cook so even a nice meal is usually cheaper because I’m making it at home. But most of the switch is my growing disillusionment with high-priced Limited Edition bourbons. If I ever give up this site, I’ll probably be hard pressed to justify the expense. Especially when there are things like Maker’s Mark 101, Knob Creek 12-year-old, Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, and Larceny Barrel Proof that are available in my market from $35-$65. Even Booker’s is pushing the price limit of what I’d like to spend on bourbon these days.

And good for the companies that can get that kind of cash for their products. I wish them the best. But eventually I’ll give this up and will be voting with my dollar like the rest of you and I won’t feel like I need to buy these overpriced bottles to help others decide whether they should pass or splurge on them. I’ll be splurging on the best sub-$60/$70 bottles I can find, with most purchases coming in the $20 to $40 range.

Luckily, I’ll still be happy to buy bottles of tonight’s whiskey. At a suggested retail price of about $50, it has a pretty good price on it if you can find it.

Larceny Barrel Proof, B521

Purchase info: This was graciously provided by Heaven Hill for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $49.99.

Price Per Drink (50 mL): $3.33

Details: 60.5%

Nose: Caramel, vanilla, mint/eucalyptus, and a dusty cocoa note.

Mouth: Thick and rich with caramel, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chocolate.

Finish: Warm and on the longer side of medium. Lingering notes of nutmeg, vanilla, and oak.

Comparison to A121: Very similar on the nose. These are both fairly spice forward, but A121 is a bit sweeter and hotter in the mouth. But, honestly, there are only minor differences between these two batches.

Thoughts: I really liked batch A121, so I'm pretty happy with this batch as well. There is a bit more caramel and a bit less chocolate, but I really like both of those flavor notes so I'd be hard-pressed to pick one over the other. In fact, when tasting notes were done, I just mixed them together. Spoiler alert: it was still really good.

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Evan Williams 1783 Small Batch Bourbon, 90 proof

I’d like to thank Heaven Hill for providing this review sample with no strings attached.

I’ve been having a rare string of good luck when it comes to timing lately. I recently upgraded my tired 2015 MacBook Pro to one of the colorful new iMacs. In the process, I got a much larger internal hard drive, allowing me to free up an external hard drive. Not 30 minutes after that external drive was reformatted and freed up for use, I got a notification that my aging backup drive had just failed. I'll never be happy a drive failed, but the timing of that failure saved me days of waiting for an Amazon shipment to bring me a new hard drive. I’d been planning to fill the newly free drive with the contents of a different rickety old hard drive and usually, I’d have had the failure right after I’d spent hours copying that data over.

And the other example of my good timing is exemplified by tonight’s bourbon review. Quite a while ago, I got a reader request for an If You’ve Had… post centered around the various forms of Evan Williams. I started planning this post back in December, but one thing led to another and I finally had it scheduled to be published this week. 

Well, until this bottle of Evan Williams 1783 arrived on my doorstep from Heaven Hill. At first, I was pleased because I’d get updated packaging for the article’s photo. But then, as I read the press release, I noticed that the revamping extended to the whiskey inside the bottle as well. What used to be 86° proof was now 90° proof. I like seeing proof bumps for low-proof whiskeys so I figured a full review was in order. Especially since I haven’t done a full review on the expression since 2013. 

Evan Williams 1783 Small Batch Bourbon, 90 proof

Purchase Info: This bottle was supplied by the distillery for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $19.99 for a 750 mL bottle.

Price per Drink (50ml): $1.33

Details: 45% ABV.

Nose: Like the smell of the Angel's Share in a rick house. There is wood, caramel, vanilla, and nutmeg.

Mouth: Sweet and bursting with baking spices. Strong cinnamon and nutmeg notes hit first, followed by caramel, tangy fruit, and oak.

Finish: Medium length and warmth. Lingering notes of cinnamon candies, oak, and mint.

Comparison with the 86° proof it replaced: The 86° proof version shows a few more dried grain notes on the nose. The mouth is thinner on the 86° proof version and once again shows more grain at that dilution level.

Thoughts: This is a better bourbon at 90° proof than it was at 86° proof. The added dilution of the previous 86° proof (small as it is) really seems to have dropped the richness of the bourbon. The 90° proof is brighter and richer in flavor and shows much less grain in the mouth.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.

Leopold Bros. Bottled in Bond Bourbon

I just cannot be trusted on my own. Not three hours after my wife left to care for her mother during cataract surgery, I was trying to bandage my own finger after needing to do a little minor surgery of my own. While trying to pick up something from the kitchen counter, I somehow got a fingerful of wood shoved under the nail on my right forefinger. Getting the wood out involved prying on my fingernail and cutting it way too far down until I could grab it with tweezers. Needless to say, it is hard to type with a bandaged and sore finger. Luckily for me, the company website has a lot of things to say about what makes their Bottled in Bond bourbon interesting. So I hope you’ll forgive me if I let them do the talking tonight.

• 50% ABV / 100 Proof

• 64% Corn

• 21% Malted Barley

• 15% Abruzzi Heritage Rye

• Open fermentation in wooden tanks with both house-cultured and indigenous yeast strains. Pot distilled and unfiltered.

• Aged five years in new American white oak charred barrels on earthen floors in the distillery's unheated dunnage-style bonded warehouse.

• First release: 2020

• Availability: Year-round

• Available bottle size: 750ml

Leopold Bros. Bottled in Bond Bourbon

Purchase Info: $62.99 for a 750 mL bottle, Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $4.20

Details: 5 years old. 50% ABV. DSP-CO-15014. Mash bill: 64% corn, 21% malted barley, 15% rye. Uses both cultured and indigenous wild yeasts in fermentation.

Nose: Grain forward with nutty Wheaties cereal notes along with dried grass and a faint note of wintergreen.

Mouth: Spicy with ginger and cinnamon. Wheaties cereal and wintergreen.

Finish: Medium length and heat. Very nutty finish. More of those Wheaties cereal notes with some cinnamon.

Thoughts: This is a very nutty bourbon. I'm guessing that is from the high quantity of malted barley. I like this. My wife is less enthusiastic but doesn't hate it. This is certainly not your stereotypical bourbon and that's probably the point.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.

Obtainium Light Whiskey - Zipp's Liquor pick

You have the recommendation of a very good friend to thank for tonight’s whiskey. Because, when he recommended it I knew nothing about the brand and i would have looked right past a bottle with Light Whiskey emblazoned crossed the label. Luckily for me, I trust this guy’s taste in whiskey and immediately ran out and bought a bottle.

Now why would I have walked past a light whiskey? What even is a light whiskey? Well, let’s consult the Code of Federal Regulations/Standards of Identity and see what they have to say.

(3) “Light whisky” is whisky produced in the United States at more than 160° proof, on or after January 26, 1968, and stored in used or uncharred new oak containers; and also includes mixtures of such whiskies. If “light whisky” is mixed with less than 20 percent of straight whisky on a proof gallon basis, the mixture shall be designated “blended light whisky” (light whisky—a blend).

So in essence, light whiskey distillate is made from a grain mash and is somewhere between straight whiskey (distilled lower than 160° proof) and neutral grain (distilled at 190° proof). There is some grain flavor left in it, but not as much as you’d have in a bourbon. Which is why I probably would have passed this by. I like flavor. It is one of the reasons I like bourbon and rye more than vodka.

So what do we know about this particular light whiskey?

Well the brand name is Obtainium, a new label here in Minnesota. Obtainium is a line of sourced whiskey from the Cat’s Eye Distillery in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the five Quad Cities that span the Iowa/Illinois border (yes, there are 5 cities in the Quad Cities…I’d make an Iowa joke, but I’ll just leave it at that). In any case, these guys seem to be doing the sourced whiskey thing right. Printed right on the side of the bottle is “Distilled on 12/13/2006 by Lawrenceberg Distillers Indiana.” It isn’t very often that you see a sourced whiskey call out their supplier. And I, for one, really appreciate that. So since LDI was the former name of MGP, we know that this is a 14 year old MGP Light Whiskey. And because we know that, we know that the mash bill is 99% corn and 1% malted barley. We also know that this bottling doesn’t have the up to 19% straight whiskey blended into it as this particular bottling was a store single barrel pick by Zipps Liquors in Minneapolis.

So, a 14-year-old single barrel MGP whiskey at barrel strength? I’m very glad that i got this recommendation.

Obtainium Light Whiskey-Zipps Liquor Pick

Purchase Info: $54.99 for a 750 mL bottle, Zipps Liquor, Minneapolis, MN.

Price per Drink (50mL): $3.67

Details: 69.7% ABV. 14 years old. Barrel#: SC-00094. Distilled by Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana (now MGP) on 12/13/2006. Bottled on 2/5/2021.

Nose: Beautifully sweet toffee and chocolate.

Mouth: Hot and sweet. Toffee, chocolate, nuts and nutmeg.

Finish: Hot and long. The heat fades quickly though leaving behind notes of nutmeg, ginger, mint and toffee.

Thoughts: I really, really like this. It reminds me of some of the really good Canadian whiskies that I've had. It is super sweet and dangerously drinkable when served neat. A little water brings out even more sweetness and lowered the heat levels a bit. I'm going to have to take a look at some of the other offerings from this brand. Stay tuned.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.

Cedar Ridge Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon

It has been two thousand, eight hundred and twenty-two days since I last reviewed anything from Cedar Ridge Distillery in Iowa. At the time it was a single barrel of their bourbon. This time around, I found a Bottled-in-Bond version of their bourbon. I disliked that first bourbon so much, that this is honestly the first whiskey of theirs to pass my lips since that bottle was emptied. Here are my thoughts from the 2013 review:

I'm not a fan of this bourbon. It misses almost all the notes I look for in a bourbon. It has almost no vanilla or caramel and very little spice. It does showcase the corn very well. And maybe being from the middle of corn country, that's the point.

I know that I didn’t care for the barrel of bourbon that my previous bottle came from, but I had readers comment that they had mixed results with theirs. Some they loved and others they really did not like. This being a batched product gives me hope that the product is better than it was almost 7 years ago (well, 8 if you go by the purchase date of my previous bottle). Well that and they’ve had 7-8 more years to build their craft. And since they’ve only been around 16 years, a decent portion of the time they’ve been open has happened since they sold me that first bottle. All that is to say that I had a good feeling that I would like the bottle I purchased.

I mean, why would I have purchased it otherwise?

Cedar Ridge Bottled-in-Bond

Purchase Info: $48.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Atomic Liquors, Eagan, MN

Price per Drink (50mL): $3.27

Details: 50% ABV. DSP-IA-15001. Release 2.

Nose: Dried corn, raisin, cinnamon, vanilla, and mint.

Mouth: Sweet custard on entry tranistioning to a spicy cinnamon, dried fruit, corn, mint and black tea.

Finish: Warm and of medium length. Lingering notes of cinnamon, black tea, and dried fruits.

Thoughts: I like this, though it tastes kinda young, even at four years old. I will say it is a lot better than that bourbon I bought 8 years ago. I'm not a huge fan of the raisin/dried fruit notes in here. But luckily for me, that note is much more pronounced in a Glencairn than it is in my usual rocks glass. I’m not sure if I would buy this again. Not sure I like it at a $50 level, but it does make it more likely that I will be giving other whiskeys of theirs a look in the future. I’m raising the rating on Cedar Ridge Bourbon from a dislike to a like.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.

George Remus Single Barrel - 2020 Ace Spirits Selection

Store Selection Spring continues with a Single Barrel version of George Remus. This particular bottle was purchased at Ace Spirits in March of 2021 and was selected in 2020.

For years, MGP Ingredients was the source distiller behind many of the brands that consumers would see on the shelf. They make a ton of whiskey and made their business selling that whiskey to other people to bottle. And since they make damn good whiskey, they helped launch numerous labels across the country for other companies. Eventually they bought one of those labels, George Remus, and released it themselves. At that point, George Remus became only the second whiskey brand released by MGP in its own right. Along the way they expanded the lineup to include Remus Repeal Reserve, an annual limited edition release.

In January of 2020, I got a press release detailing that they were opening a George Remus single barrel program to retailers. They would be pre-selling barrels from January through March and that the bottles would start to arrive to retailers in August or September. This would be an annual offering to retailers and would only be open to participation for a limited time each year. There would be two mash bills to choose from, 21% Rye/75% Corn/4% Malted Barley and 36% Rye/60% Corn/4% Malted Barley, though it doesn’t seem that there was a space to specify which mash bill was in a particular bottle. And the offering would be sold at barrel strength. It all sounded great. But as the whiskey wouldn’t show up for eight to nine months, I promptly forgot about that press release until I saw the bottle pictured above sitting on the shelf in Ace Spirits.

Let’s see how it tastes.

George Remus Single Barrel - 2020 Ace Spirits Selection

Purchase Price: $63.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN

Price per Drink (50mL): $4.27

Details: One of two MGP mash bills (21% Rye/75% Corn/4% Malted Barley or 36% Rye/60% Corn/4% Malted Barley) which of the two is undisclosed. 62.75% ABV.

Nose: Caramel, vanilla, cotton candy, and citrus.

Mouth: Nice and warm. Sweet. Follows the nose with caramel, vanilla, cinnamon, and a touch of citrus.

Finish: Long and warm. Lingering notes of cinnamon, cotton candy, caramel, and some oak.

Thoughts: This is really good. I had expected that a barrel-strength MGP bourbon would be good and I wasn’t disappointed. It is warm, spicy and sweet with just a touch of fruit. Very good. Water brings out more sweetness which you may or may not prefer. I prefer it neat (in small sips to avoid burning out my palate on 125.5° proof bourbon), my wife prefers it with water. This is yummy enough that I will certainly keep my eye open for other stores that might have done a barrel pick of this to see any differences. If I find one, maybe I’ll report back.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, Batch B521

I’d like to thank Heaven Hill for providing this review sample with no strings attached.

I’m getting another tattoo tomorrow. A year ago, if you’d have asked me if I would ever have one tattoo, I would have told you no. That I was too big of a pussy to handle that.

As an aside, have you ever wondered about the practice of calling a weak person a nickname for female genitalia? I mean those things are tough, you can shove a baby through one whereas the male counterpart can be injured by a sharp look…

Anyway back to the tattoo. I don’t like pain, but I’ve always been a fan of tattoos. I have a fine arts education and love art of all kinds and this seems to be one of the most personal expressions of art appreciation that is possible. So if I was going to put up with the pain, I wanted to be sure it was something that I would never end up regretting. And so my first tattoo was the paw prints of my first two dogs. I wished I could have them with me forever, and now I kind of can. I’ll probably put my current two there with them once they pass on as well.

So what sort of special, heartwarming thing am I getting tomorrow. Well, honestly, it’s kind of a charity thing. The artist gives 40% of the proceeds of these predesigned dog-themed ones to a local animal rescue. And since I really like dogs, I’m willing to once again put up with something that feels like I’m being cut with an X-Acto knife (the story for how I know how that feels is a story for another day).

So how does that have anything at all to do with tonight’s Bourbon? It doesn’t. Not really. I mean, the editions of Elijah Craig Barrel Proof could usually be considered works of the distiller and blender’s art. I appreciate them the same way I do a piece of fine art. I just get to put these works of art in my mouth and I’m pretty sure most traditional artists would not look kindly upon me tasting their works.

But, hey! Would you look at that, it’s time for the tasting notes. I’m going to leave the uncomfortable intro behind and get on to talking about the second of Heaven Hill’s three annual barrel proof releases of 12-year-old Elijah Craig.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, B521

Purchase Info: This bottle was provided by the producer for review purposes. I have found previous editions locally for as low as $69.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine.

Price per Drink (50mL): $4.67

Details: 59.1%. 12-years-old

Nose: Cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, mint.

Mouth: Oak, chocolate, cinnamon, ginger, and muted caramel, followed by a juicy apple note as you swallow.

Finish: Long and warm with the juicy apple, cinnamon and oak notes.

Thoughts: This is just a damn fine bourbon. I really like it. It's almost completely a stereotypical Heaven Hill bourbon. Rich, caramel notes paired with baking spice and oak. There is more oak influence on this batch than I remember from previous batches. If I hadn't known, I would have guessed this was older than 12 years. It is very nicely done though. This doesn't taste like an old stick you found in the yard. The oak expresses itself as a wonderful chocolate note.

Comparison to last batch: B521 is more refined on the nose than A121 was. A121 was a bit of a toffee bomb on the nose by way of comparison. This follows on the mouth as B521 is more refined there as well. B521 is just a damn fine, well-aged bourbon. A121 was very hot and quite sweet by comparison.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.

Tattersall Distilling Pre-Made Cocktails

It is May and I am officially “almost ready” to put the shovel away and bring out the deck furniture. It isn’t quite planting season here in Minnesota, at least not for things that can’t handle frost. But we are getting oh, so close. My wife has her greenhouse up and the plants are at least outside, albeit with a heater to keep them warm at night.

We are so close to travel season too. Well for me at least. I try to take two vacations per year. One is to Kentucky in September. The other varies. Sometimes I escape the winter cold in February. Sometimes I head to the beach. And other times I do something crazy like visit the desert in the summer. That’s what is planned for this summer. I take all of my nieces and nephews on a road trip of their choosing when they turn 7. My niece however has had to wait until she was 10 due to a combination of her family being busy, my finances and then Covid. But this year, now that we are both vaccinated, we head to Utah to show her something new. It should be a great time.

Once we get through Iowa and Nebraska.

In any case, when you are traveling to places off of the beaten path, getting a good cocktail can be challenging. I’ll often just pick up a bottle of bourbon somewhere and call it good. But if I wanted something a little more complex, my options would be limited to what I wanted to bring with. Do I want to bring three bottles along to make a Manhattan? Probably not. But I could be convinced to grab a few small bottles of a pre-made cocktail to throw in the suitcase?

Well that just depends on how good the cocktail is.

Tattersall Distilling Pre-Made Old Fashioned

Purchase Price: $4.99 for a 100 mL bottle at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $2.50

Nose: Malted rye, dried fruits and spices.

Mouth: Sweet with a nice thick mouthfeel. Dried fruit notes are the star of the show here and are supported by the baking spice notes of the bitters.

Finish: Sweet with notes of cherry and baking spices.

Tattersall Distilling Pre-Made Manhattan

Purchase Price: $4.99 for a 100 mL bottle at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $2.50

Nose: Delicate with notes of brown sugar and baking spice.

Mouth: Baking spices, dried fruit and brown sugar.

Finish: Notes of cherry, baking spices, and vermouth. After a bit, a menthol note appears.

Thoughts: Both of these are very good. I think half the fun of drinking cocktails at home is making the cocktails, but if I was traveling I'd happily grab a few of these to toss in the suitcase. They would make a wonderful nightcap after a day of driving, exploring, or hiking. This is something I may have to consider for that upcoming summer trip.

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Did you enjoy this post? If so, maybe you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee in return. Go to ko-fi.com/bourbonguy to support. And thank you, BourbonGuy.com is solely supported via your generosity.

Of course, if you want to support BourbonGuy.com and get a little something back in return, you can always head over to BourbonGuyGifts.com and purchase some merch. I’ve made tasting journals, stickers, pins, and more.