Copper & Cask Single Barrel Bourbon, Top Ten Liquors Selection

February 24, 2022 Eric Burke

IMAGE: The front label of Copper & Cask Single Barrel Bourbon.

Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge that there are way more important things going on in the world today than talking about Bourbon. The news out of Eastern Europe is heartbreaking. And knowing that I have occasional readers from Ukraine, I just want to say that I hope you are currently, and remain safe.

Those of you who have been around the Bourbon World for a while will remember a time when Willett Family Estate Bottled Single Barrel Bourbons and Ryes were affordable, but always delicious whiskeys. They stopped being affordable so long ago now that I’m not actually sure they are still making them. When prices passed $200 in the gift shop, they fell off of my radar. But back in the day, I really enjoyed picking up a 5- or 6-year old bottle of Bourbon for $50 or less whenever I visited Kentucky. Sure it was sourced, but the people they were sourcing from make delicious whiskey. And the folks at Willett have a fantastic ability to choose delicious single barrels. Excuse me while I reminisce about the “good old days.”

Actually no. I’m of the opinion that we are still in the midst of the good old days of bourbon. Sure, the prices were lower a decade or more ago, but there was comparatively little variety. I used to be able to keep a list in my head of which bourbon was cheaper at which store. Now I have a hard time remembering all the brands that a single store carries. I mostly brought Willett up because I recently picked up a store-pick of Copper & Cask Bourbon that reminded me of those old Willett bottles.

There is very little about Copper & Cask online. The label is owned by Latitude Beverage Co. out of Rhode Island. They are an independent bottler/rectifier with an extensive wine portfolio and a few spirits brands under their belt. The bottle of bourbon I picked up was sourced from MGP in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. According to the back of the bottle, the juice inside is MGP’s 21% Rye bourbon mashbill. It is non-chill filtered and bottled at cask strength. Best of all, I got it for under $50.

This particular bottle was part of a barrel selected by Top Ten Liquors here in the Twin Cities. According to store employees, it is the best of the three barrels of bourbon that they have selected from Copper & Cask. So keep that under advisement as you read my thoughts on this particular bottle. Your mileage may vary.

Copper & Cask Single Barrel Bourbon, Top Ten Liquors Selection.

Purchase Info: $49.96 for a 750 mL bottle at Top Ten Liquors, Rosemount, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $3.33

Details: 56% ABV. Barrel number: MK-152. Filled June 2015, bottled October 2021, 6 years old. Mash bill: 70% Corn, 21% Rye, 9% Malted Barley.

Nose: Caramel, vanilla, almond, and wintergreen.

Mouth: Nice and spicy. Notes of caramel, vanilla, wintergreen, and almond.

Finish: Medium length and warm. Notes of cinnamon and oak.

IMAGE: A smile because I really like this one.

Thoughts: This is so delicious that I went back and grabbed a case for the ol’ whiskey closet. It’s a very good, cask-strength MGP bourbon. And like I said, it reminds me of bottles that you could get from Willett circa 2012: top-quality sourced MGP bottled at cask strength. That’s a recipe that is darn hard to beat.

Keep in mind though, your mileage may vary, this is both a single barrel product and a store pick. I’m looking forward to finding other bottles of this in the future just to see how the quality varies.

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George Dickel x Leopold Bros Collaboration Blend Rye

February 22, 2022 Eric Burke

I spent the entire day today getting a new batch of items ready for the online store. Looks like I should have them up sometime tomorrow if you are in the market for relatively inexpensive bourbon-themed tchotchkes. In addition to the posters and tasting journals, I’ve been getting sticker packs, lapel pins, and keychains photographed and ready to be posted for sale. Now all I need to do is get them listed.

I’ve been sitting on most of these items for over a year now, running three businesses keeps a guy busy, but I finally found a couple of days in a row where my other businesses were slow enough to allow me to get off my ass and do it. It’s a nice problem to have, I guess.

What I love about the various things I put up on the merch site is that it gives me an opportunity to flex my creative muscles a little bit. One of my day jobs is creating items, mostly junk mail, for plumbers and electricians. It pays the bills but isn’t very creatively fulfilling. With these items though, even though I hope others will like it, I’m mostly just doing things that I want to have and then ordering enough to help recoup the cost. Any extra goes to help keep BourbonGuy.com up and running.

Whoa. I just wanted to talk about creativity and it turned into an ad (BourbonGuyGifts.com if the ad worked…). Ah well. In any case, it was serendipitous that I was working on creative items today as tonight’s whiskey is a creative collaboration between two well-respected distillers. Nicole Austin of George Dickel has done an absolutely bang-up job over the last few years, introducing products such as Dickel Bourbon and the delicious George Dickel Bottled-in-Bond whiskeys. Todd Leopold is, to quote the bottle, “one of the most respected and acclaimed pioneers of American Whiskey” and a 2020 James Beard Award Nominee. I know him as the guy who’s been making the absinthe that I use in my Sazeracs since I first fell in love with Sazeracs many years ago.

Here is what the Dickel website has to say about it:

George Dickel has teamed up with the Leopold Bros to produce an innovative rye whisky offering.The release blends George Dickel’s column still rye produced at Cascade Hallow Distillery with Leopold Bros’ Three Chamber Rye to recreate a historic style. This union between column distilled rye and Three Chamber distilled rye turns back the hands of time, returning to an era that saw heavy-bodied rye whisky served at bars and saloons throughout America. The Cascade Hollow component of this blend is a never-before released traditional column still rye.

So on top of it being an interesting blend, this also contains our first taste of Dickel-distilled rye. The rye they sell now is sourced from MGP. So let’s see how it tastes.

George Dickel x Leopold Bros Collaboration Blend Rye

Purchase Info: $139.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Chanhassen, MN.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $9.33

Details: 50% ABV.

Nose: Cedar, mint, floral cherry, and baking spices.

Mouth: Floral and herbal with notes of mint, cedar, cinnamon, and caramel.

Finish: Nice and warm. Medium to long. Notes of cherry, cedar, cinnamon, and spearmint.

IMAGE: a heart because I love this whiskey.

Thoughts: I was unsupervised at the liquor store for this one. After reading about it last week, I was so excited that I ignored the price when I saw it on the shelf. Luckily, this is so good that my wife/accountant has forgiven me for the splurge. It is one of those whiskies where you could just nose it all night long. And, bonus, you also get to drink it too! This is complex in all three phases, nose, mouth, and finish. And delicious to boot. I do not regret this purchase at all.

It will, however, be placed on the special shelf so it has a better chance of lasting a while.

LAWS Whiskey House 4-Pack Virtual Tasting Experience

February 17, 2022 Eric Burke

Three Bottles of whiskey from LAWS Whiskey House

Seven months ago, I reviewed two bottles of Bourbon created by LAWS Whiskey House out of Denver, CO. One was a store pick of their bourbon and the other was a two-year-old version of their standard release bourbon that was included in the LAWS 4-Pack Virtual Tasting Experience. I said in that post “I’m going to just focus on the two Bourbons tonight and leave the rest for another day.” Well after seven months, that day has come. And while I encourage you to go back and read that post, I’m just going to post the tasting notes of the Bourbon below so that they are all in the same place.

LAWS Whiskey House uses local ingredients in its whiskeys. This package looks to have been created to show off that fact. It contains a Straight Malt Whiskey, a Straight Rye, and a Straight Wheat Whiskey along with a Bourbon that uses all three. According to the side of the box, the distillery is in Denver and all of their grains and water come from within four hours drive of the distillery. The corn is Homestead Corn sourced from Whiskey Sisters Supply near Burlington, CO. The other grains (San Luis Valley™ Rye, Centennial™ Wheat, and Henry Road™ Barley Malt) are sourced from Cody Family Farms near Alamosa, CO. How’s that for transparency?

One thing to keep in mind is that this tasting set has all the whiskeys age stated as “aged at least 2 years.” It looks as if the current releases of these products are currently three years old so there will probably be differences in tasting notes between the two releases. With that said, let’s jump right in.

LAWS Whiskey House 4-Pack Virtual Tasting Experience

Purchase Info: $34.98 for a multi-pack of four 100mL bottles of their core whiskey line at Hazel’s Beverage World, Boulder, CO.

Price per Drink (50mL): $4.37

Details: 47.5% ABV. "Aged At Least 2 Years."

LAWS Whiskey House Four Grain Straight Bourbon (Originally published 7/13/21)

Nose: Dried Grain and maple.

Mouth: Cinnamon spice, dried grain, mint, applesauce, and black tea.

Finish: Warm and on the longer side of medium. Notes of dried grain and wintergreen.

IMAGE: A Neutral face because I don't hate this, but I don't like it either.

Thoughts: This doesn't really do it for me. I'm getting better with well-constructed grain-forward bourbons, but this takes grain-forward to an extreme. I've eaten dried cereal grains before, and while it isn't an unpleasant experience, it isn't something I am looking to do for fun. This tastes like that did. Nice, clean grain flavors, but not something I am looking to have more of. Now, from what I understand, they are trying to showcase their locally sourced heirloom grains with this product. They did that very well, it just isn’t for me. But it might be something to check out if that idea appeals to you.

LAWS Whiskey House Centennial Straight Wheat Whiskey

Nose: Spearmint, cinnamon candies, a hint of dried grain.

Mouth: Nice spicy cinnamon notes along with almond and honey.

Finish: Medium length and warmth. Notes of dried grain, cinnamon, and candied fruit.

Thoughts: I like this one. Probably not enough to buy a full bottle, but I certainly don't regret letting it into my house. It tastes more mature than the bourbons did. As such I like it better than I did the bourbon. The dried grain notes are clean and not overpowering when they are present. Yep. Pretty darn tasty.

LAWS Whiskey House San Luis Valley Straight Rye whiskey

Nose: Cedar, cinnamon, ginger, sandlewood.

Mouth: Follows the nose. Spicy with ginger, cinnamon, mint and cedar.

Finish: Medium length. Notes of brown sugar, cinnamon, and dried grain.

IMAGE: A smile because this is really tasty.

Thoughts: This is really good. Kinda wish I'd have bought a full bottle of this when I had the opportunity. I might have to remedy that if next time I travel through a state that distributes it. The only hint that this whiskey is only two years old is on the finish. It shows some dried grain notes at that point, but not before. Overall it's a good, if young, rye whiskey.

LAWS Whiskey House Henry Road Straight Malt Whiskey

Nose: Cooked cereal grains.

Mouth: Dried hay, butterscotch, and cinnamon.

Finish: Medium length. Strong notes of butterscotch and cinnamon.

IMAGE: A frown because I did not like this.

Thoughts: This one is quite a bit too grain-forward for me. I don't like it at all, but I also have a known bias against malt whiskeys so take that how you will. On top of that, I’m not a huge butterscotch fan. So I guess it just hit all the wrong notes for me. Overall, I am just not a fan of this. Doesn’t mean you won’t be though if those are notes that appeal to you.

Douglas & Todd Small Batch Bourbon

February 15, 2022 Eric Burke

IMAGE: Douglas & Todd Bourbon from Panther Distillery and Phillips Distilling Company

When I first started learning about whiskey, I got it into my head that I wanted to start a craft distillery. I tried to learn everything I could about whiskey. That learning eventually led to the creation of this site…because what else was I going to do with all that learnin’ after the impulse to start my own distillery had passed? But there was one experiment that I had envisioned way back then that has stuck with me.

I wanted to take barrels of the same distillate and age it in different regions of the country for the same length of time and then sell it as a set. Just to let consumers see the effect of the local climates on the aging of bourbon. I thought it would be a neat idea, mostly because it was a product that I would have wanted to buy.

I envisioned five areas you could have barrels aging. Of course Kentucky as a control. From there I thought somewhere near the Southeast US coastline for a hot and humid climate, maybe even with an ocean breeze since we are dreaming right now. The tour I took at the Stranahan’s distillery mentioned that because their climate is cool year-round, the pressure differentials affected the aging whiskey more than the temperature swings did. So the Rocky Mountains would be a fun addition to our set of mythical bourbons. I also think that the cool and humid climate of the Pacific Northwest would be an interesting counterpoint to the hot humid Southeast. To round out the package, and as I live here, I figured that I’d find someplace in Northern Minnesota for the cold, Canada-like climate. Each of these would bring a different set of conditions, and hopefully flavors, to the distillate.

Of course, as I didn’t have a distillery, nor did I have the capital or relationships to purchase a batch of bourbon big enough for this experiment to work, the idea has stayed an idle musing. I still think it would be interesting though. If you have the resources to try it out, send me a bottle of each when you get it finished.

The reason I bring all this up is that I happened to stumble across a bourbon that was aged four years in the Canada-like climate of Northern Minnesota. In fact, last week I talked about being open to trying the one bourbon claimed on the Phillips Distilling website. This is that bourbon.

At launch in 2018, Douglass & Todd was a collaboration between Panther Distillery and Phillips Distilling Company. Though I’m not too sure how official that collaboration is anymore. The Phillips website has the following to say about the bourbon:

Douglas & Todd is a small batch, handcrafted, straight bourbon born and raised on the unforgiving plains of Minnesota. Our bourbon is aged a minimum of four hard years in handmade oak barrels that provide D&T its distinctive character. Distilled and rested in two historic counties at the first craft distillery in Minnesota, Douglas & Todd was built to be a bourbon drinker's bourbon.

Panther Distillery says that they were Minnesota’s first craft distillery. And there is a cheeky statement on their products page stating “We have another product available but due to trademark laws we are unable to have the product displayed here. Be on the lookout at your local liquor store for our mystery product!” So there’s that. But of course, what anyone says about a product isn’t nearly as important as how that product tastes. So, let's dig in.

Douglas & Todd Small Batch Bourbon

Purchase Info: $29.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Village Liquor, Prior Lake, MN

Price per Drink (50mL): $2.00

Details: 4 years old. 46.5% ABV.

Nose: Grain forward on the nose with notes of candied fruit and faint hints of mint and caramel.

Mouth: Thin in the mouth with notes of grain, mint, and baking spice.

Finish: Medium length and warm. Notes of dried grain, candied fruit, and cinnamon.

A neutral face because this isn't terrible, just meh.

Thoughts: This is a meh bourbon that has the bones to have been really good. It still tastes really young. The Northern Minnesota climate is much closer to that of Winnipeg—where they age the whisky for decades—than that of Louisville where four-year-old whiskey is mature and perfectly drinkable. Though I think it could have spent many more years in the barrel, it isn't terrible. This bottle will get consumed. Might be in a cocktail or a home blend, but it isn't one that I'll be dumping out. Unlike its cousin Cooper’s Mark which has already been introduced to my kitchen sink.

Fistful of Bourbon

February 10, 2022 Eric Burke

Back when I was first starting to get into whiskey, I was interested in trying it all. I wanted to learn the differences between the styles. I wanted to find my favorites in each style. I wanted to learn it all. Unfortunately, I quickly found out that I really didn't like most of the Scotch whiskey that I was trying. I used to say something like “It’s not that I don’t like Scotch, I just haven’t found the ones I like yet.” Well since I haven’t found it over a decade later, I’m thinking it might be time to admit that as a general rule, I don’t like Scotch whiskey. More for the folks that do, I guess.

However while I was still trying to learn everything about all styles of whiskey, I did pick up on a few of the names of the various producers of whiskey from around the world. One of those that stuck in my head was William Grant & Sons. They are the makers of Scotch whiskies Glenfiddich and the Balvenie, the Irish whiskey Tullamore Dew, Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, Hendrick’s Gin and other brands across spirit types. All of which require expertise in blending, either spirits or flavors.

So it was with interest that I heard the 2018 news that William Grant & Sons was launching their own bourbon brand, Fistful of Bourbon. I wanted to see what a big company that had built their business on blending could do using bourbon. Until recently, one of the unsung portions of the bourbon industry was the blender. Though that is starting to change. Slowly. Most of the old bourbon companies still don’t like to use the term blend, whether as a noun or as a verb, due to the quirks of US law surrounding that particular term when it comes to whiskey. And it isn’t like William Grant & Sons didn’t have experience with American Whiskey, they bought Tuthilltown Spirits, makers of the Hudson Whiskey brand, in 2017.

And then I read the reviews at launch. The nicest one I remember said it was bland. There were others that were worse. So I initially passed. As much as I like letting everyone know what to avoid, I’d still have to find something to do with the rest of the bottle if I didn’t like it. Even a guy who takes photos of bottles or glasses of bourbon every week can only use so much prop whiskey. But then my wife noticed last month that our local liquor store had 50 mL bottles of Fistful of Bourbon on sale for ninety-nine cents each. For two dollars, I could ignore the reviews and find out for myself without risking the need to dump out a $25 bottle of bourbon.

Fistful of Bourbon

Purchase Info: $0.99 each for two 50 mL bottles at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $0.99

Details: "A Blend of Straight Bourbon Whiskies Aged a Minimum of 2 Years." 45% ABV.

Nose: Grain-forward. Delicate bubblegum and mint notes.

Mouth: Light in flavor with a thin mouthfeel. Bubblegum, cinnamon, and dried grains.

Finish: Short and sweet. Notes of dried grain and cinnamon.

IMAGE: A neutral face as this is really meh. Not bad, but not terribly good either.

Thoughts: This is very grain-forward. What's there tastes fine, there just isn't very much there. If this were a Canadian Whisky, I'd say that it could be the starting base of a nice blend once they add the flavoring whisky to it. As a bourbon, however? It's ok, I guess. I'd rate it very meh.

Cooper's Mark Small Batch Bourbon

February 8, 2022 Eric Burke

My wife was wandering through a liquor store the other day. In and of itself, this is not an unusual occurrence. But on this day, she was looking for something that might be interesting for us to review, which is pretty unusual since I am the one who tends to handle that. I like when she is the one buying, and not just because she is buying. No, I like that she comes at things with a different perspective than I do. I tend to look at a shelf full of whiskey and think about what I could buy that will taste good. She looks at a shelf of whiskey and thinks about what she can buy that is inexpensive.

I mean, she likes good whiskey too. She is just more apt to take a flyer on an inexpensive one that she’s never heard of than I am these days. But since you guys are almost as frugal as she is, these flyers do tend to lead to some interesting posts. Which is how a bottle of Cooper’s Mark Bourbon landed on our kitchen table.

So what is Cooper’s Mark Bourbon? That, my friend, is a very good question. The brand has no website. Which is more than a little weird. A Google search brings up a couple of reviews, but mostly serves up results for Brown-Forman’s Cooper’s Craft Bourbon and Beam Suntory’s Maker’s Mark bourbon. So I turned to look at the bottle. A bottle that looked was a close match to the shape of Brown-Forman’s Woodford Reserve bottle. Not much there either. In fact, almost half of the 112 words on the label came from the government warning. And a lot of the words that were on the label were repeated, see below.

Front label:
Cooper’s Mark Bourbon Whiskey
Small Batch
Charcoal Filtered • Extra Smooth
Uniquely hand crafted from specially selected barrels for a superior smooth flavor.
45.5% Alc/Vol (91 proof)
Genuine Cooper’s Mark small batch bourbon whiskey
750 ml Net Cont.
91 proof

Left Side:
Genuine Cooper’s Mark small batch bourbon whiskey is carefully hand crafted for a complex balance of flavors & aroma.

Right Side:
Government Warning
Produced & Bottled by Cooper’s Mark Whiskey Company, Princeton, MN 55371

To be honest, I’m more than a little surprised that I haven’t seen an article about Cooper’s Mark being sued for trademark infringement for this bottle. When most of the search results that come back are about other products, and your bottle looks like a third’s? That seems to be the definition of market confusion. In fact, there was another product a while back, Bison Ridge Canadian Whisky, that was sued by Sazerac for trademark infringement. So it wouldn’t be unheard of.

Anyway. This made me wonder who made this particular bottle of whiskey. So I decided to do more in-depth searching. Doing a COLA search with the TTB gave me the name of the company that is selling the whiskey, United States Distilled Products Co. in Princeton, MN. Of course, I still had no idea who that was, but after checking out a few job postings on LinkedIn, I found their website www.usdp.com which forwards to the Phillips Distilling website.

Being from Minnesota, I should have known. Until we finally got our craft distilling laws worked out, we had only one beverage alcohol distilling company: Phillips Distilling. They are the biggest liquor company in the state. They, or their parent company, United States Distilled Products Co., own Johnson Brothers Distributing, a multi-state alcohol distribution company; Prestige Beverage Group, the owners of Bison Ridge Canadian Whisky mentioned above; and others.

So, I can easily say that I am not a fan of a lot of what is in USDP’s portfolio. There are a lot of vodkas (high-end, low-end, and flavored), flavored whiskies, Scotches, liqueurs, ready-to-drink cocktails, and Windsor Canadian. Though I haven’t had Windsor Canadian in over 20 years, I still remember what it tasted like. I feel no need to try again. I do, however, like a few of the wines in their portfolio and I’d probably give the one bourbon they list on their portfolio pages a try.

I came into this just wanting to know who produced the bourbon I was tasting. As you might notice, when I want an answer I’ll spend a stupid amount of time trying to find it. So now that we know who is selling Cooper’s Mark bourbon (no mention of the state of distillation so who knows who actually distilled it), let’s see how it tastes.

Cooper's Mark Small Batch Bourbon

Purchase Info: $22.48 for a 750 mL bottle at Marketplace Foods, Menomonie, WI

Price per Drink (50 mL): $1.50

Details: 45.5% ABV. No age statement.

Nose: Caramel, wood, mixed nuts, and delicate red fruit.

Mouth: There is almost nothing to this. Hints of caramel and vanilla and a touch of eucalyptus.

Finish: Warm and of medium length. Notes of caramel, cinnamon, and something super funky that I cannot place.

IMAGE: A frowns face with it's tongue out because I did not like this.

Thoughts: I do not like this. It was a very "meh" bourbon until the finish. Then it fell off of a cliff. My wife summed it up best when she exclaimed "it tastes like a cinnamon red hot that went bad!" It's just…not good. I'd give it a very wide berth at the liquor store.

For my future tastebud’s sake, I hope that the bourbon Phillip’s claims online is better than this one. Maybe there’s a reason that the company doesn’t talk about Cooper’s Mark Bourbon.

Stellum Black Rye

February 3, 2022 Eric Burke

Going to be a short one tonight, I’m actually not here. Well, I’m not here when you are reading this…probably. This time travel thing is confusing sometimes. Anyway, at the time I would normally be writing this, I will be bringing supper to my Grandmother who I don’t get to visit very often. But since I’ve been missing a lot of time lately due to family and illness, I wanted to bang something out early.

Tonight we are looking at the last entry in the Stellum lineup that I have access to. We haven’t covered a single-barrel rye, but I think this should cover the brand for a while. Here is what the producer has to say about the brand on their website:

Stellum Black Rye is an evolution of the Stellum Rye flavor profile. Think of it as Stellum Rye in high-def. We used a meticulous blending approach to layer older reserve barrels into the original Stellum Rye blend. The result is a surprisingly mellow cask-strength rye whiskey combining iconic rye spice with a deep complexity that reveals new facets with every sip.

I was impressed, but “priced out” on the Black Bourbon, let’s see how the Black Rye does.

Stellum Black Rye

Purchase Info: $93.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $6.27

Details: Distilled in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 57.13% ABV.

Nose: Cedar, cola, ginger, clove, and herbal mint.

Mouth: Very warm in the mouth. Notes of cedar, honey, mint, and cinnamon.

Finish: Warm and dry. Medium to long. Notes of oak, cedar, mint, cola, and cinnamon candies.

A hand-drawn smile to show I like this one.

Thoughts: Another very tasty offering from the folks at Stellum. I probably won't be spending the money on this again. Mostly because I really liked how the standard Stellum rye prominently featured the MGP-Style 95% Rye flavor profile. This is more of a balance of the various flavor profiles along with the addition of mature oak notes. Like I said, very tasty. I just happen to like the more inexpensive offering better.

For once, my bank account will be happy with my taste buds.

Stellum Black Bourbon

February 1, 2022 Eric Burke

I got the following comment from ZX when we took our initial look at the flagship offerings in the Stellum lineup:

Bit the bullet on these this morning before your review posted. $50 each at the Kroger. Total Wine wants $63. Huge fan of Barrell before they priced me out of the market. Excited to try these!

So what are we looking at tonight? Why a Stellum offering that is priced roughly the same as the Barrell bourbons, of course! I thought I’d just take the one thing that ZX was most excited about by the brand and completely ignore it.

I’m going to let you know right off the bat that I was pretty excited to try this guy. I really liked the standard release and the single barrel was good enough that I’m going to be grabbing another for the closet here before too long. I wasn’t thrilled with the $100+ price tag, but I wanted to at least give it a try to see if the “more mature” bourbons in the blend would justify it.

Let’s dig in.

Stellum Black Bourbon

Purchase Info: $104.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per drink (50 mL): $7.00

Details: Distilled in Indiana, Kentucky & Tennessee 54.61% ABV.

Nose: Cinnamon candies, caramel, chocolate, mint, and just a hint of smoke.

Mouth: Very spicy. Cinnamon, chocolate, oak, and mint.

Finish: Medium to long and warm with notes of cinnamon, mint, and after a while, cedar.

Thoughts: This is a very lovely bourbon that I will not be buying again. It was a nice one-time splurge but at over $7 per drink, I just can't see myself getting a second bottle. The standard Stellum Bourbon is a very tasty pour and is within, though at the high end of, my usual price range.

Blog

Copper & Cask Single Barrel Bourbon, Top Ten Liquors Selection.

George Dickel x Leopold Bros Collaboration Blend Rye

LAWS Whiskey House 4-Pack Virtual Tasting Experience

LAWS Whiskey House Four Grain Straight Bourbon (Originally published 7/13/21)

LAWS Whiskey House Centennial Straight Wheat Whiskey

LAWS Whiskey House San Luis Valley Straight Rye whiskey

LAWS Whiskey House Henry Road Straight Malt Whiskey

Douglas & Todd Small Batch Bourbon

Fistful of Bourbon

Cooper's Mark Small Batch Bourbon

Stellum Black Rye

Stellum Black Bourbon