Yellowstone Special Finishes Collection, Rum Cask

I’d like to thank ByrnePR and Yellowstone Distillery for providing this review sample with no strings attached.

I’ve sung the praises of the folks over at Yellowstone more times than I can count. Well, that’s not true. I can count pretty high. But more times than I care to count, how about that? And because I enjoy their connection with their namesake park and the ways they give back, at the end of the post, I’d like to share the press release for a fun contest that the brand is running. It happened to land in my mailbox as I was getting ready for tonight’s post, and since I’m talking about Yellowstone anyway, I thought you guys would be interested.

So first, the bourbon. Last fall, Yellowstone released the first edition of its Special Finishes Collection with a Toasted Stave-Finished bourbon. Exactly a month ago, they released the second edition, “Rum Cask.” The bourbon is exactly what you think it is. It is four-year-old Yellowstone bourbon that has been finished for nine weeks in casks that previously held rum. In fact, I think I’ll let the press release writer take over at this point. I’d just be summarizing it anyway.

The new release starts with Yellowstone’s traditional bourbon mash bill and then is aged for nine weeks in casks that previously held rum distilled using molasses from sugarcane grown in the rich, fertile soils and tropical Caribbean climate of Cuba. The resulting bourbon features a flavorful blend of spice and tropical sweetness; a medium body with notes of toasted marshmallow, crème brûlée and toffee toasted oak; and the finish is highlighted by tobacco, clove, cocoa seasoned oak and honey.

“Rum has the sweetest notes of all the casks we’ve used for secondary finishing, and it was an ideal choice for the next adventure in our Special Finishes Collection,” said Beam. “Rum is an exceptional compliment to bourbon, and they come together to create subtle notes of sweetness and brown sugar, which are soaked up and stored within the staves and perfectly complement the vanilla, caramel and rye flavors of Yellowstone. Our four-year bourbon is a classic Kentucky bourbon and makes for a fantastic base. This allows me to go in many directions with the finishes while remaining true to or original profile.”

Let’s dig in and see how it tastes.

Yellowstone Special Finishes Collection, Rum Cask

Purchase Info: This sample was sent to me at no charge for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $49.99.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $3.33

Details: 4 years old. 50% ABV. Secondary aging for nine weeks in former rum casks.

Nose: Brown sugar, oak, vanilla, and a touch of cinnamon.

Mouth: Cinnamon spice, toffee, vanilla, oak, allspice, marshmallow, and a touch of molasses.

Finish: Medium in both length and warmth with notes of brown sugar, tobacco, molasses, and oak. There is a final dark chocolate note that shows up after the rest have faded.

Thoughts: If you’ve ever had Angel’s Envy Rye, you will know that Rum finishes can sometimes take over the whiskey base. This is not one of those times. This is a bourbon, and you wouldn’t have guessed otherwise if you had tasted it blind. The secondary finishing adds some sweetness and undernotes that are a little unusual for a bourbon. Molasses and marshmallows are examples that I don’t usually find. However, they aren’t unheard of either. There is more oak than I expected in a four-year-and-nine-week-aged bourbon, which is very nice. Overall, I’m quite enjoying this one. I’d give it a shot should you see it.

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Yellowstone Bourbon Launches Once-in-a-Lifetime Getaway Contest

Iconic bourbon brand shares its connection to America’s first national park with consumers through new adventure experience opportunity

 ST. LOUIS (April 8, 2024) – Yellowstone Bourbon announced a contest for consumers to win an all-inclusive trip to Yellowstone National Park in 2024. Consumers can enter the Yellowstone National Park Getaway Contest now through July 15 by submitting a photo and a writeup about their love for the great outdoors – a hiking story, poem or another kind of written expression.

The three lucky winners and their plus-one will experience the ultimate national park adventure September 5-8, 2024, including hiking, horseback riding, sightseeing, curated meals, private accommodations and round-trip airfare. In addition, four social media influencers will join the winners for this trip of a lifetime:

• Dean Unglert, reality TV star and outdoor explorer

• Adam Glick, celebrity chef and adventurer

• Holly Johnson, travel and outdoor content creator

• Patrick Duke, adventure photographer and filmmaker

“For more than 150 years, Yellowstone Bourbon has shared a bond with the majestic Yellowstone National Park,” said Kelly Panzitta, Yellowstone Bourbon brand manager. “This contest gives people the opportunity to experience that connection firsthand and win a one-of-a-kind adventure. It’s part of our commitment to always keep the park within reach.”

Since 2018, Yellowstone Bourbon has donated nearly $500,000 to National Parks Conservation Association to preserve national parks. In 2023, Yellowstone became one of NPCA’s largest annual corporate donors at the $250,000 level.

Yellowstone Bourbon partnered with World Playground to plan the contest itinerary and Under Canvas for the winners’ and influencers’ private accommodations in West Yellowstone. For more information about the contest including official rules, please visit Yellowstone National Park Getaway Contest or YellowstoneBourbon.com. For updates about the contest, follow Yellowstone Bourbon on Facebook and Instagram.

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In honor of Canadian Rick: Canadian Club Chronicles “The Icon” 45-year-old Canadian Whiskey

It isn’t often that I look at something this expensive, so I thought I’d give a little backstory on how it ended up on my shelf.

It was 2013, and my wife was planning the yearly trip she takes with her mother. Usually, it is somewhere local, like the North Shore of Lake Superior or Door County, Wisconsin, but this time, my mother-in-law wanted to see Niagara Falls. She’d never been and wanted to see it before she no longer could. Normally, the trip is just the two of them, but I’d never been out of the country and asked if I could tag along. They were driving, and I didn’t have enough vacation time to spend the entire week with them. So it was decided that I would fly out, they would pick me up in Toronto, we’d do some sightseeing, and then I would ride back with them.

Want to raise the suspicions of a Canadian customs agent? Fly in on a one-way ticket. She asked a lot of questions about what I do for a living, why I was there, who I was meeting, and why I didn’t just ride along with my wife when they drove in. The defeated way I admitted to not having enough vacation must have done the trick, though, because that was the last question before I was allowed to go.

But anyway, back in 2013, I was chronically online—like all the time. Twitter was my jam at the time, as it was still a few years away from becoming the total cesspool that I abandoned for my own mental health a few years later. I met a lot of really cool friends based on a combined love of all things whiskey. And when I mentioned online that I’d be in Toronto for a couple of nights, well, that was when Canadian Rick took over.

He didn’t go by that or anything, but that was how my wife and I thought of him.

Rick was very possibly the nicest guy I’d ever met. He set up an entire meet-up for local whiskey lovers at our hotel room. But before that, he surprised us at the Forty Creek distillery. He’d found out that we were going to be taking a tour and sat in the parking lot waiting for us to show up so that he could introduce himself to us and welcome us to Canada. And he did that by flirting with my mother-in-law and giving my wife and I the heel portion of a bottle of a very old Alberta Premium. I think it was about 30 years old. There was just enough left in the bottle for a pour for each of the two of us.

It was delicious. It literally sent a shiver up my spine as I sipped it. Until very recently, it was the oldest whiskey (or whisky since it is Canadian) that I’d ever tasted.

The next night, everyone showed up at my hotel room, and we had a lovely tasting. They tried their best to get me to enjoy Scotch the way they did, to no avail. I gained an appreciation but not a liking. (For context, it was sincerely said of one of the samples: “It has the aroma of Band-Aids and candle wax, mmm, delicious.” I did not think that sounded delicious…) Luckily for me, they also brought a bunch of Canadian whiskey along. Now that I liked. Enough so that we had to stop at a couple of LCBO locations on our drive home, even though I was massively hungover and working on very little sleep as my wife drove us back.

After our trip, Rick made sure to keep in touch. We visited on Facebook, via email, and, of course, Twitter. We even shared whiskey samples back and forth. He’d ask for Bourbon and, in return, send Canadian. Eventually, I pretty much gave up social media, and we drifted apart. I know I’m not doing justice to just how nice Rick was, but you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Right as we were starting our brackets last month, we received word from a mutual friend that Rick had passed away. And as you do when you learn that a friend that you’d drifted away from is gone, I wondered why on Earth I hadn’t tried harder to keep in touch. Even though I know there were some lovely whiskeys, I have no idea what we tasted that night in Toronto, but I remember the joy that we all had in tasting them together. There is a lesson there somewhere.

So, what does all that have to do with the bottle of Canadian Club that we are talking about tonight? Well, it was on that trip that I fell in love with good Canadian whisky. I’d been seeing this bottle of 45-year-old Canadian Club just sitting in the case for almost a year. And when I thought of Canadian Rick and his heel of 30-year-old Alberta Premium, something tugged at me to buy it. And when my daughter gave us a $150 Total Wine Gift Card for Christmas this year, I knew exactly what I wanted to put it toward. $300 is a lot for a bottle of whiskey. I’ve never spent that much previously, and it is very likely that I never will again.

And I’m very glad I did. It was the perfect bottle to open to toast Rick’s memory with when we heard the news of his passing. It was the only pour out of the bottle before we did the tasting notes for this post, and it will be a while before we pour another, I’m sure. But maybe someday, when there are only a couple of pours left in the bottle, I’ll need to pay it forward and pass that heel along to a friend newly met.

Canadian Club Chronicles “The Icon” 45-year-old Canadian Whiskey

Purchase Info: $309.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $20.67

Details: 45 years old, 50% ABV.

Nose: Delicate, pleasant oak, along with cinnamon and floral vanilla.

Mouth: Creme brulee, marzipan, oak, and cinnamon.

Finish: Refined, balanced, and of medium length. Lingering notes of vanilla custard spiced with cinnamon and a gentle oak.

Thoughts: This is delicious. The first descriptor that popped into my head was" refined." It is extremely well-balanced, with neither the proof nor oak overpowering anything else. A few years ago, my wife and I tasted a vintage bottle of Canadian Club from the 1970s. It was very floral. Much more so than the currently produced product. You can still taste the floral 1970s Canadian Club roots even at its advanced age. This is definitely something that will live on the special shelf and only be poured on special occasions or for special people.

I didn’t get a chance to tell you anything about this whisky, but if you’d like to learn more about it, Whisky Magazine had a nice write-up when it was released in late 2022, and of course, here is the original press release.

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High West Cask Collection, South Lyndale Liquors Selection

Happy Friday! Yeah…about that. I had a tax appointment last night and completely forgot about writing anything. Sorry about that.

Next week, we start one of my favorite series of the year: The BoubonGuy.com Brackets. While I was out picking up all of the contestants from around the area, I also kept an eye out for other tasty treats that I could write about. This is how today’s bourbon ended up in my cart.

I was at South Lyndale Liquors in Minneapolis, picking up a couple of inexpensive items, and noticed this sitting on a barrel near the checkouts. Having noticed that I hadn’t covered anything from High West in a while—yes, I picked this up prior to the High West sample from the last post arriving on my doorstep—I picked it up. Especially since I tend to really like the store picks that South Lyndale gets. I don’t have much information about this one. All I really know is that this particular bottle of whiskey is a bourbon finished in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels.

But despite that, let’s take a look at it. I’ve seen barrel picks of High West Cask Collection, Cabernet Sauvignon Finish in a few of the local liquor stores, so it might be nice to see if it is worth picking up.

High West Cask Collection, South Lyndale Liquors Selection

Purchase Info: $64.99 for a 750 mL bottle at South Lyndale Liquors, Minneapolis, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $4.33

Details: Blend of Straight whiskeys finished in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels. 50% ABV

Nose: Floral vanilla, brown sugar, red fruit, and oak.

Mouth: Cinnamon, nutmeg, sweet red fruit, vanilla, tobacco, and oak.

Finish: Spicy and medium length. Notes of red fruit, baking spice, and tobacco.

Thoughts: This is good? The wine cask accentuates the red fruit and tobacco notes. It has a bit of dryness to it, which is balanced by sweet, floral vanilla notes. All in all, I'm very happy with this purchase.

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High West Bottled in Bond Rye

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

It has been a long damn time since we took a look at any products from High West around here. And it’s not because I didn’t like them when we last looked. No, this has to do with shelf placement.

The liquor store that I frequent most often is a small place packed to the gills with wonderful libations. It has narrow aisles and high shelves. High West sits on the top shelf at the end of the whiskey aisle. Below it are Wild Turkey and Russell’s Reserve, 1792, and Four Roses. Good company if you can get it—well, if you are a normal consumer.

I am far from normal.

I go in looking for things to write about, and, in my mind, that end of the aisle is filled with wonderful things to drink, but nothing to write about, so High West tends to get forgotten about on my local shopping trips. This is really too bad because they make some delicious whiskeys, and some of them are even decently priced at around $30 for a 750. So when their PR person reached out to me offering me a taste of their first ever Bottled in Bond Whiskey, I jumped at the opportunity to reexamine the offerings from this company that I had neglected. And boy, am I glad I did.

But before I get ahead of myself, let’s run down a few interesting items they included in their press release. This bottled-in-bond whiskey is four years old, having been barreled in the Fall 2018 distilling season. As a bonded whiskey, it is 100° proof. The mashbill is made up of 80% rye and 20% malted rye. It was distilled by High West in Wanship, UT. It was released in February 2024 and will be available “across the nation” for a suggested retail price of $79.99 (though at the time of writing this, it is currently sold out on the High West website).

So, onto the most important part: how does it taste?

High West Bottled in Bond Rye

Purchase Info: This was sent by the producer for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $79.99 for a 750 mL bottle.

Price per Drink (50 ml): $5.33

Details: 50% ABV. Batch: 23L19 H218. Mashbill: 80% rye, 20% malted rye.

Nose: Honey, vanilla, cedar, and mint.

Mouth: Cedar, allspice, vanilla, honey, mint, and oak.

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

Thoughts: Bright and vibrant with good spice. This is delicious. It reminds me of an MGP rye with depth and a nutty under current. And even though I’ve long thought that I didn’t like malted rye in my whiskey, I really like this one. It must be that I only disliked the ones that I tasted first. This is why I try not to write off an entire ingredient’s usage. It also makes a killer Sazerac cocktail. Though at $80 per bottle, this probably won’t be going into many cocktails in most peple’s homes. All in all, I really like this one.

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If you want to support our work at BourbonGuy.com, please consider a one-time donation at ko-fi.com/bourbonguy or paypal.me/BourbonGuy. Or you could buy some merch that I’ve designed and/or built (tasting journals, t-shirts, stickers, pins, signs, posters, and more) at BourbonGuyGifts.com. Use code BOURBONGUYREADER at checkout for 5% off any order of $50 or more.

Bernheim Barrel Proof, A224

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

I had my weekly allergy injection this afternoon, and it is knocking the shit out of me tonight. So, let’s jump right into the review, shall we? Luckily for all of us, tonight’s whiskey is another of Heaven Hill’s Barrel Proof series of whiskeys, and since we’ve covered the other two during the last couple of weeks, we should all be up to speed on them. Or at least close enough.

Bernheim Barrel Proof is, as the name suggests, a barrel-proof version of Heaven Hill’s Bernheim Wheat Whiskey. The mash bill is 51% wheat, 37% corn, and 12% malted barley. This batch was aged between seven and nine years before being bottled at 125.2° proof. The A224 designation means that this is the first batch (A) of 2024 (24), and it was released in February (2). The suggested retail price is $64.99.

Let’s see how it tastes.

Bernheim Barrel Proof, A224

Purchase Info: This bottle was provided by the producer for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $64.99.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $4.33

Details: 62.63 ABV. Mash bill: 51% wheat, 37% corn, 12% malted barley. Aged 7-9 years.

Nose: Nutty and floral with caramel and oak.

Mouth: Spicy, floral, and nutty with cinnamon, caramel, mint, cherry, and oak.

Finish: Hot, spicy, and on the longer side of medium length. Notes of toasted nuts, cinnamon, and cherry.

Thoughts: Hot, spicy, and nutty are the three words I would use to describe this. It's quite good, but not quite as good as the Larceny or Elijah Craig Barrel Proof whiskies. This doesn't have the same level of richness that they do. But if you like a nutty whiskey, then this is one for you.

Comparison to B923: A224 is much more vibrant on the nose. A224 is nuttier and hotter in the mouth, but B923 is much sweeter. I'd personally pick B923 if given the choice because it is a little gentler if such a thing can be said about something that is over 120° proof.

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If you want to support our work at BourbonGuy.com, please consider a one-time donation at ko-fi.com/bourbonguy or paypal.me/BourbonGuy. Or you could buy some merch that I’ve designed and/or built (tasting journals, t-shirts, stickers, pins, signs, posters, and more) at BourbonGuyGifts.com. Use code BOURBONGUYREADER at checkout for 5% off any order of $50 or more.

Copper & Cask Singel Barrel Bourbon, Toasted Cask Finish: Top Ten Liquors Selection

It’s March again. And around here, March means brackets. Not those silly basketball or hockey ones, but Bourbon ones. Which means that last weekend, I needed to get my butt out of the house and go buy a whole mess of bourbon. Now, most of those have nothing to do with tonight.

I mean, I haven’t even started looking at the bracket bourbons yet. That will start this weekend.

But you don’t expect me to go on a cross-Metro shopping trip to four different liquor stores without picking up a few extra things, do you? Yeah, luckily, my wife didn’t either. Because I did find a few goodies that will pop up both before and after the upcoming Madness. The first of which is the bottle of Copper & Cask Toasted Barrel Finish shown above.

Copper & Cask is a Non-distiller producer (NDP) of sourced bourbon. I like two things about them. The first is that they are very transparent about the fact that they didn’t make what’s in the bottle. The second is that they actually tell you who did. As a big fan of transparency, I love that. Most of their whiskey is sold as single barrel store picks so unless you are buying a bunch, every time you see a bottle it will be different juice inside it. This is one of the reasons I bought a case of one that I particularly loved a couple of years ago.

As far as I can tell, only one store chain sells Copper & Cask in the Twin Cities, and that is Top Ten Liquors. That said, I haven’t been to every liquor store in the country, so you will need to do that legwork on your own. They do sell limited quantities on the Copper & Cask website from time to time, though.

The last time we looked at this, I was looking at both an MGP 95% rye whiskey and an MGP 21% rye bourbon. Tonight’s bourbon is the same 21% rye MGP mashbill, but this one has been finished in toasted barrels as well. Let’s see how it tastes.

Copper & Cask Singel Barrel Bourbon, Toasted Cask Finish: Top Ten Liquors Selection

Purchase Info: $59.96 for a 750 mL bottle at Top Ten Liquors, Chanhassen, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $4.00

Details: 59.5% ABV. Barreled: July 2016. Bottled: Sept 2023. 7 years old. Distilled in: Lawrenceburg, IN. Mashbill: 75% corn, 21% rye, 4% malted barley.

Nose: Cinnamon, nutmeg, caramel, and oak.

Mouth: Spicy cinnamon, caramel, almond, citrus zest, and tobacco.

Finish: Warm and long with notes of cinnamon, oak, citrus zest, and mint.

Thoughts: This is delicious, which I sort of expected. Seriously, I've never had a bad bottle from this brand. If the chain of stores that regularly carries it here in the Twin Cities had a store closer to me than 30 minutes away, I'd consistently have at least one bottle on hand. And this toasted barrel-finish version is no exception. It's deliciously spicy with strong cinnamon and nutmeg notes throughout. Big fan. Not so big that I’ll be buying a case for the whiskey closet, but still a big, big fan.

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If you want to support our work at BourbonGuy.com, please consider a one-time donation at ko-fi.com/bourbonguy or paypal.me/BourbonGuy. Or you could buy some merch that I’ve designed and/or built (tasting journals, t-shirts, stickers, pins, signs, posters, and more) at BourbonGuyGifts.com. Use code BOURBONGUYREADER at checkout for 5% off any order of $50 or more.

Penelope Tokaji Cask Finish Rye

I’d like to thank ByrnePR and Penelope Bourbon for providing this review sample with no strings attached.

Fun story. Until I sat down to write this, I had no idea tonight’s whiskey was a rye whiskey. I hadn’t read the press release yet when I did the tasting on Saturday afternoon, the bottle was in another room, and the company is referred to as Penelope Bourbon. Toss in a healthy dose of not paying attention, and in my small, smooth brain, that meant that the whiskey I was tasting was a bourbon.

My original thoughts on this were weird. I liked it but felt that the “bourbon” would be divisive among people who were expecting typical bourbon flavors. I really gave a lot of credit to the influence of the finishing cask in the flavor profile. All in all, it made me feel like a real dumbass when I started reading the press release at the start of my research tonight. Especially when I read, “Distilled in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, aged eight years and bottled at 106 proof, its two-grain mash bill consists of 95% rye and 5% malted barley. The rye whiskey features…”

That was a pretty big hint that I had no idea what was going on. So, let’s start over and learn together, shall we?

The Penelope Bourbon Tokaji Cask Finish Rye Whiskey (see why I was confused?) is an eight-year-old version of MGP’s 95% rye recipe. According to Whisky Advocate, after aging for eight years, it was then finished in Hungarian tokaji wine barrels for an additional eight and a half weeks before being bottled at 106° proof.

So you might be asking, what the heck is tokaji wine? I know I was. Based only on the name, I thought it was a Japanese drink. The spelling looks very Japanese. But no, it is Hungarian. The style is named for the Tokaj wine region, which is spread across the border of Slovakia and Hungary. The region is known for its sweet wines, primarily those made from grapes that have been infected by the Botrytis cinerea fungus. If the infected grapes are treated correctly after infection, they can produce a sweet wine with very concentrated flavors.

Ok. Now that we know what this is (for real this time in my case), let’s get on to how it tastes, shall we?

Penelope Tokaji Cask Finish

Purchase Info: This sample was provided by the producer for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $89.99.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $6.00

Details: 8 years old. 53% ABV. Tokaji Cask finished. Mash bill: 95% rye, 5% malted barley.

Nose: Honey, spearmint, oak, sandalwood, and a faint bubblegum note.

Mouth: Sweet and spicy with floral sandalwood, cinnamon, honey, and oak.

Finish: Sweet, warm, and of medium length. Notes of honey, oak, spearmint, and cinnamon.

Thoughts: This is a really nice twist on the traditional MGP 95% rye flavor profile. It is much sweeter, but still spicy and delicious. We all know by now that the 95% rye from MGP is one of my favorite styles of rye whiskey, so it is not surprising that I really am enjoying this. The cask finish seems to amplify the sweetness, add a very nice mouthfeel and bring out even more cinnamon and sandalwood notes than are normally in the base rye. Bottle that at over 100° proof and, well, “chef’s kiss” is all I can say about it. It’s quite tasty.

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If you want to support our work at BourbonGuy.com, please consider a one-time donation at ko-fi.com/bourbonguy or paypal.me/BourbonGuy. Or you could buy some merch that I’ve designed and/or built (tasting journals, t-shirts, stickers, pins, signs, posters, and more) at BourbonGuyGifts.com. Use code BOURBONGUYREADER at checkout for 5% off any order of $50 or more.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, A124

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

You didn’t think I would leave you with just a promotional post for the rest of this week, did you? I wouldn’t do that…again…so soon after the last one.

No, you got a quick-to-write promo post because I got to leave the house yesterday and visit one of my favorite record stores while waiting for my wife’s two-hour hair appointment to finish. To say that I jumped on the opportunity to leave the house is an understatement. Dogsitting is a 24/7 business, and we are a one-car household. So the confluence of events leading to having no pups around and actually having our vehicle available while the stores are open is rare and looked forward to.

Today, we are looking at the latest Elijah Craig Barrel Proof release. You guys are passionate about these releases. I’ll tell you that. The last two posts garnered negative feedback, the earlier one yelling at me for not liking it enough, and I was accused of never even doing the tasting last time. I don’t do this for accolades (I just like telling stories), but honestly, some of ya’ll are getting silly. It’s just whiskey. Even delicious whiskey isn’t as important as the people you drink it with.

So, let’s dive into this before I piss off anyone else.

This is the first Elijah Craig Barrel Proof release of the year. At less than eleven years old, it is also the youngest they have put out since removing the 12-year age statement. The suggested retail price is $74.99.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, A124

Purchase Info: This bottle was sent by Heaven Hill for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $74.99.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $5.00

Details: 59.5% ABV. 10 years, 9 months old

Nose: Very “stereotypical bourbon” on the nose: Oak, cinnamon, caramel, vanilla, and maple.

Mouth: Oak, maple, brown sugar, leather, caramel, red fruit, and baking spice.

Finish: Medium to long and warm. Spicy and sweet. Notes of tobacco, mint, and cinnamon.

Thoughts: Delicious as usual. Sweet and spicy with rich barrel notes. Nice heat, but not overly so. I am really enjoying this one.

Comparison to C923: C923 got a heart from me. I loved it so much. So take this with that in mind. C923 is much sweeter on the nose. A124 is not nearly as hot, but C923 is much sweeter. Both are delicious, but if forced to choose, I'd go with C923 just because it's a bit more vibrant in the mouth. I like A124 a lot but as I said, I loved C923.

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If you want to support our work at BourbonGuy.com, please consider a one-time donation at ko-fi.com/bourbonguy or paypal.me/BourbonGuy. Or you could buy some merch that I’ve designed and/or built (tasting journals, t-shirts, stickers, pins, signs, posters, and more) at BourbonGuyGifts.com. Use code BOURBONGUYREADER at checkout for 5% off any order of $50 or more.