Yellowstone Limited Edition 2022

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

It’s fair to say I’m in Vacation Mode already. By which I mean I’m having a hard time giving two fucks about anything.

Which kinda sucks because I’m not actually going to be on vacation for a couple of weeks yet. But man, do I need it. I haven’t taken a day off since September of last year. And the burnout is starting to show. The ‘ol fuse on the temper is shorter than usual. Which is weird, what with the “give-a-shit meter” also being at an all-time low. I never realized that those two things could happen simultaneously.

“I couldn’t care less about that, but I’m probably going to get angry anyway…”

So yeah. Let’s just take the easy way out for this special release and let the producer describe this one for us.

Limestone Branch Distillery Master Distiller Stephen Beam announced the upcoming release of 2022 Yellowstone Limited Edition Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. Featuring a delicately balanced blend of 7-year, 15-year and 16-year aged bourbons hand-selected by Beam and aged in Marsala Superiore casks, the latest expression of Yellowstone Limited Edition will begin to be available in September with a suggested retail price of $99.99 per 750ml bottle.

Since 2015, Beam has produced a unique, limited-edition bourbon annually under the Yellowstone brand, which celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2022, along with its namesake national park. For this year’s Yellowstone Limited Edition, Beam selected Marsala Superiore casks to finish select barrels of 7-year-old-bourbon to provide unique tasting notes to complement the extra-aged bourbons comprising this year’s Limited Edition.

And now you might be asking yourself: “so what exactly is a Marsala Superiore cask?” Well, luckily for me and my lazy ways, the producer was happy to answer that question too.

Marsala Superiore is a dry, sweet wine produced near the Italian city of Marsala in Sicily and aged at least two years. A fortified wine similar to Sherry, Marsala imparts tangy flavors of dried fruit and citrus and is often used in cooking or served as a dessert wine. 

But at the end of the day, the real question is how does it taste, and is it worth the asking price? Let’s find out.

Yellowstone Limited Edition 2022

Purchase Info: This sample was sent by the producer for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $99.99 for a 750 mL bottle.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $6.67

Details: 50.5% ABV. A blend of 7-year, 15-year, and 16-year-old bourbons. A portion of the bourbon was aged in Marsala Superiore casks.

Nose: Brown sugar, vanilla, fruit, baking spice, leather, and almond.

Mouth: Salted caramel, leather, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and oak.

Finish: Spicy and warm with notes of bubblegum, oak, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Thoughts: Delicious. Spicy but not overly hot. It has a nice subtle fruitiness backing up the oak, leather, and spice notes. I'm really digging this one. I will have to keep my eyes open for it for sure. And if I see it for near the suggested retail price, I’ll probably splurge on it.

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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.

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My Wandering Eye: Plantation O.F.T.D. Overproof 69% Rum

My Wandering Eye is an ongoing series reacting to the rising prices in the bourbon world. We’ve reached a place where even average products have hit the range where they compete price-wise with other types of aged spirits. If I’m going to be asked to drop $40 to $70 on a mid-range bourbon, I might as well see what else I can get for that money. I hope to see if another spirits category offers something downright tasty in that price range. The goal isn’t to find cheap spirits but to maximize the quality I’m getting at a particular price point. The reviews in this series will all be written through a bourbon drinker’s lens.

As we are quickly coming up on the Autumn Whiskey Release season, I think it is just about time to take a quick break from whiskey and let our eyes wander around the liquor store a little bit. Kind of a palate cleanser before we start taking a look at a bunch of bourbons that we will probably never see on the shelf or won’t be able to afford should we see them. And so I’m taking a look at an inexpensive, by bourbon standards, rum that works amazingly well both with a little ice or in a cocktail.

Here is what the producer has to say about this one:

Plantation O.F.T.D. Rum is our take on that classic style of overproof rums. And not just ours: to join him on the quest to get the blend and the proof just right, Alexandre Gabriel scoured rum joints around the world to find six grizzled old salts who knew which end of a rum bottle was which. Together they came up with this blend of Guyana, Jamaica and Barbados rums, bottled at 69 percent alcohol. O.F.T.D. officially stands for Old Fashioned Traditional Dark but if you ask any of the seven collaborators who were in the room when this blend was born, they’ll tell you it really stands for something else that was exclaimed when the winning rum was tasted…

Let’s see how it tastes.

Plantation O.F.T.D. Overproof 69% Rum

Purchase Info: $30.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $2.07

Details: Blend of Jamaica, Guyana, and Barbados Rums. 69% ABV.

Nose: This is like the best molasses and ginger cookie you've ever had. Strong notes of molasses and ginger are backed up by cinnamon, citrus, and coffee.

Mouth: Very hot (as expected at 138° proof) with notes of caramel, molasses, chocolate, ginger, nutmeg, and citrus.

Finish: On the long side of medium length and warm. Notes of molasses, nutmeg, and chocolate.

Thoughts: To paraphrase the quote above. Oh fuck, that’s delicious! It’s good on its own but is very hot. Water tames the heat and ups the sweetness, and brings in a little mint. I've used this in cocktails many times, and it works amazingly in all the ones I’ve tried. To me, it didn’t matter whether the cocktail normally calls for a light rum or dark. It still worked. Overall, O.F.T.D. is a great rum. I’m a big fan.

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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.

Corkcicle Whiskey Wedge

If you’ve met my wife, you will know that she has a bit of a glassware problem. We have so many whiskey glasses that we’ve had to sort them. We have the ones we use regularly. We have those that are pretty and sit on knick-knack shelfs. And we have boxes of those that don’t fit into either category in our storage facility. So because of the multitude of glassware we own, I seldom buy more.

Unless we are on vacation, that is. This is how we got so many in the first place, I like souvenirs.

I also like cocktails. And so when Total Wine decided to stock what had the possibility of being the perfect cocktail glass in amongst the bourbon, I noticed. And since I am always on the lookout for content, I thought I’d put Corkcicle’s Whiskey Wedge through its paces and bring you along for the ride. Total Wine was selling it for about $25. The Corkcicle website charges the same.

So first off, what is the Corkcicle Whiskey Wedge? Basically, it’s a glass that comes with a silicone mold that freezes ice into a wedge shape in the glass. The tagline on the box is “Goodbye, Watered Down.” The company claims that the wedge shape of the ice minimizes surface area and melting, resulting in a drink that is cold but not watered down.

Now that is the same claim that is made by makers of fancy ice sphere molds as well. And as I have one of these fancy ice molds, I’ve noticed that the large chunk of ice does, in fact, melt slower than the same volume of ice in cube form. So is the Whiskey Wedge better than a glass with a large piece of ice in it?

To find out, I conducted an experiment. I had a large ice cylinder left over from a photo shoot, so I used that in a glass alongside the frozen Whiskey Wedge. The experiment is simple. Freeze the Whiskey Wedge, and when it is ready, put the Ice Cylinder in the glass, and pour in two ounces of high-proof whiskey. I used Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. I initially did this exactly the way I would do it if I were making a cocktail. The glass was room-temperature. I never remember to pre-cool my glassware, and this was no exception. My notes are below:

• After 2 minutes: the drink with the ice cylinder has noticeably melted compared to the Whiskey Wedge. The one with the cylinder tastes more dilute.

• After 5 minutes: the Whiskey Wedge has visibly melted and changed shape.

• After 15 minutes: the Whiskey Wedge is noticeably darker than the drink with the ice cylinder. The Whiskey Wedge is also still much less diluted in the mouth.

Initial Thoughts: Square glasses are hard to drink out of, but I'm impressed. The drink in the Whiskey Wedge held up much better than the one with the ice cylinder. I wonder how much of that is because the glass containing the ice cylinder was fresh from the cupboard, whereas the Whiskey Wedge was fresh from the freezer. The initial round goes to the Whiskey Wedge, but let's give it a fair fight. For try two, I will freeze both glasses.

• After 2 minutes: Both pieces of ice have melted about the same visually. The drink with the ice cylinder is slightly more dilute in taste.

• After 5 minutes: The dilution in the Whiskey Wedge glass has caught up, and both are about the same in taste.

• After 15 minutes: The drink with the ice cylinder is visibly lighter in color, and the drink in the Whiskey Wedge is much stronger in the mouth.

Conclusion: The only knock on the Wedge is that I personally dislike drinking out of a square glass. It works as advertised. In the same time frame, it melted less than a comparable volume of ice in a different shape. Though freezing the glass containing the ice cylinder helped it close the gap, the Whiskey Wedge still worked better at not overdiluting the drink while still adding a bit of needed dilution. When I bought this, I thought it was a pretty gimmick. But it works as advertised.

I fully admit that this is not a very scientific experiment. If it were, I would have measured the volume of liquid that went in (which I did), let it sit for the allotted time, and then measured the volume of liquid that was poured out after time. I was not about to waste tasty and expensive bourbon that way, though, so you get this result instead. Overall, I’m impressed. I’ll probably be picking up a second glass to go with the first.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof after 15 minutes in a glass with a cylinder shaped piece of ice and in the Corkcicle Whiskey Wedge.

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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.

Woodinville Straight Bourbon Whiskey

I am a huge Neil Gaiman fan. He’s my absolute favorite author. And for me, it all started when I read the Sandman. The Sandman is a comic series from the late 1980s that is gruesome, grotesque, heartfelt, moving, beautiful, and just an amazing journey. I love it. Has been my favorite piece of literature since I first read it.

And now it has been made into an amazing Netflix series. If you are a fan of the comic, you should love this. I’m almost through binging the series, and so far, I’m blown away. This is as good of an adaptation as American Gods was bad (American Gods being another series based on a Gaiman work). It’s beautifully shot and well acted. The story is not in the same order as the comics, but I think that was a good choice when adapting to video. They’re different mediums, and the needed story beats aren’t quite the same. Hopefully, I will finish the series tonight. If not, tomorrow for sure.

So let’s get to tonight’s bourbon. I’ve been wandering liquor stores trying to find things to write about that won’t break the bank. As I did, my eyes fell on this bottle of bourbon from Woodinville Whiskey Co, out of Woodinville, Washington. Now I’ve been aware of Woodinville for many years. I featured their bottle design way back when I interviewed the designer of their packaging, David Cole back in 2013. But somehow, I’ve never tasted their whiskey. That has been remedied. But before we get to what I think of the bourbon, let’s see what the producer has to say.

This truly small-batch bourbon starts with traditionally grown corn, rye and malted barley. All of our staple grains are cultivated exclusively for us on the Omlin Family farm in Quincy, Washington. The grains are mashed, distilled, and barreled in our Woodinville® distillery, then trucked back over the Cascade Mountains to our private barrel houses, where Central Washington’s extreme temperature cycles promote the extraction of natural flavors from the oak. Prior to being coopered, the barrel wood is seasoned in open air, rain, wind, sun, and snow for eighteen months, softening the wood’s harsh tannins. The barrels are then slowly toasted and heavily charred to further enrich the wood’s desirable flavors. This meticulous process yields a truly hand-crafted spirit with aromas of crème brûlée and spice cabinet, as well as notes of rich caramel, dark chocolate, and vanilla bean on the palate with a sweet, lingering finish.

Woodinville Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Purchase Info: $41.99 for a 750 mL bottle at total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $2.80

Details: 45% ABV

Nose: Hay, mint, and almond.

Mouth: Honey, almond, cinnamon, and if you hold it in your mouth long enough, a capsaicin-like heat.

Finish: Medium length and warmth. Notes of cinnamon, honey, and almond.

Thoughts: This is pretty darn tasty. If you like hot honey, this should be one to pick up. I look forward to trying a few more from their product line. They have a Rye and a Port-finished Bourbon at my closest Total Wine, which I am already planning to pick up. And according to their website, they have Cask Strength versions at the distillery. Well, that seems like a good thing to add to the itinerary for the next time I visit Seattle. I’ve wanted to do that anyway.

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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.

Calumet Farm 16-year-old Single Rack Black Bourbon "Citation"

Ok. I can hear you now.

“Eric, the tagline at the top of the page says “The Irreverent Home of Frugal Bourbon Drinkers Since 2012.” Why do you keep featuring whiskeys that cost over $100?”

And to that, I’d like to paraphrase my (can’t believe I’m about to type this) inner Bill Clinton and say that depends on what the definition of is…errr…frugal is to you. To me, being frugal and being cheap are two different things. They are similar, but there is a bit of nuance to my definitions. Being cheap means don’t spend the money. Ever. Being frugal means that you only spend the money if you know that the money is being well-spent. Let me give you an example.

If I were cheap, I would never have spent $138 on a 16-year-old bourbon. But since I am frugal, I did. And I did so because I really (really) enjoyed the 14- and 15-year-old versions of the same bourbon. Or something like that.

So now that we have that out of the way let’s get to the good part. The tasting!

Calumet Farm 16-year-old Single Rack Black Bourbon "Citation"

Purchase Info: $138.99 at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $9.27

Details: Rack number: W4005.09. Batch size: 19 barrels. Non-chill filtered. 53% ABV. Mash bill: 74% Corn, 18% Rye, 8% Malted Barley

Nose: Coffee, instant hot cocoa powder, almond, caramel, and dusty oak. Definitely, a pour that needs time to open up in the glass, though.

Mouth: Spicy and sweet initially. Past that, you will find cinnamon, chocolate, coffee, and oak notes.

Finish: Sweet, warm, and long with notes of leather, caramel, and chocolate.

Thoughts: This is delicious, and I don't in any way regret the purchase. Is it better than the cheaper 14- and 15- year old versions? Well, they still live on my fancy shelf, so let's find out.

Ok, so I tasted them all side-by-side, and yep. That 16-year-old is the best of the bunch, though not by a lot. The 14-year-old is the lowest on the totem pole. It’s sweet but not as rich as the 16-year-old. The 15-year is a close second, with less sweetness and more spice. And the 16-year-old is just ahead of that by combining the spice, the sweetness, and the oak into a delicious whole. But the margins in this are razor thin, so if you see one and feel like you can afford it, these are worth the $120-$140 that I spent on them. They are all very delicious. Big, big fans of all three in this house.

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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.

The Whiskey-A-Go-Go Cocktail via The Modern Rogue

Well, hi there.

Early last week, I was in bed watching some YouTube as I waited to fall asleep when I saw a video about a cocktail that sounded very interesting to me. Mostly it was interesting because I had every ingredient but one. Now normally, my bedtime video habits wouldn’t be brought up here. Even when they are relevant. I mean, it’s a little weird right?

But here’s the thing. I watched that video and decided I was going to make that cocktail. So I looked up how I could get the one ingredient I was missing. It turns out Total Wine carries it, just not in the stores that are nearest to me. I needed to make an hour trip to go get it. Which isn’t a huge deal, except that was a particularly unlucky night. For some reason, I couldn’t get on the road until almost eight o’clock in the evening.

Now if you know me, you know that I am no longer a night owl. I’m usually in bed between 9:00 and 9:30pm. At eight, I’m starting to wind down. Have a drink. Get myself ready for sleepy time. So for me to leave the house at eight on a Tuesday night? You know I wanted this cocktail. Long story short, I drove, got the ingredient, got home and got ready for bed. It was too late to actually make the cocktail, but hey, I knew what I was going to have the next day.

Except for one small thing. I had a very timid, very large lab staying with me at that moment and he really wanted the comfort of sleeping on top of me. After a while, I tried to get him off of me so I could sleep. I was gently pushing him off my legs, he was stubbornly pushing back, my hands slipped, and his head hit my temple at a very high rate of speed.

Doctor confirmed it was a concussion. Which meant, no alcohol. Which meant no tastings. Not only couldn’t I write Thursday’s post as I wasn't supposed to think, but damn it, I couldn’t even have my cocktail that I went out of the way to try. So tonight, I’m giving you the cocktail recipe and sharing the video that sparked this entire misadventure. I was able to have the cocktail tonight, and it is quite tasty, if you like spirit-forward cocktails that are on the slightly bitter side. It’s called the Whiskey-A-Go-Go and I got it from an episode of The Modern Rogue, one of my favorite YouTube channels.

The Whiskey-A-Go-Go Cocktail as seen on The Modern Rogue

1.5-ounces Rittenhouse Rye
0.75-ounce Amaro Montenegro
0.75-ounce Bonal Gentiane-Quina
One dash Scrappy’s Cardamom Bitters

Build this in the glass, use big ice, stir a bit to dilute, and serve with the ice and a zested lemon peel

And now to the video, think of this like I’m a substitute teacher who doesn’t really care. Instead of math today, we’re watching a video instead.

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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, posters, and more.

Revisiting Elijah Craig 18-Year-Old Single Barrel to Celebrate a Major Cancer Milestone

Ten years and some months ago, my wife and I got the worst news of our lives to that point. My wife had Stage 3 ovarian cancer. Yesterday we celebrated the ten years since she was given the all-clear by her doctor. No signs of the disease in her system. In light of this, indulge me in a much longer post than usual before we get to the whiskey review.

Ovarian cancer has historically been a killer. Even today, there is currently no early detection test for it. This means that a lot of people find out way too late for anything to be done about it. My wife was lucky. Extremely lucky.

When she was diagnosed, it was a fluke accident. She knew something wasn’t right with her body, and every doctor she talked to told her she was fine. A year later, she ended up having a cyst on an ovary surgically removed, and the doctor that was supposed to do the surgery had a family emergency. Because of this, his boss ended up performing the surgery. His boss was one of the best gynecological oncologists in the state. Since it was her specialty, she nosed around a little while she was inside and found something. My wife had multiple tumors on her ovaries and bladder. Tests confirmed that they were cancerous. She was at Stage 3. She went into immediate chemotherapy, and within a few months, she was given the all-clear. She was lucky on so many levels. She happened to have another issue in the same area, she ended up with a specialist doing the surgery instead of the scheduled doctor, and she had a particularly slow-growing form of cancer. 

Today 1 in 78 women will develop ovarian cancer in their lifetime. And though this is typically considered an “old woman’s disease,” not just old women are victims of this disease. In my wife’s cancer groups, children as young as ten years old have died of this horrible disease. In the US today, 49% of those diagnosed are still alive after five years, but that number drops to only 35% at ten years. Less than half of the women diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the US will survive five years. Think about that. There are over 160 million women in the US. That means over 2.1 million of them will develop Ovarian Cancer in their lifetime, and after diagnosis, over 1 million will be dead within five years. These numbers are bad. But they used to be worse. Just five years ago, the numbers I would have been reporting would be predicting a half million more dead by five years. Still, according to the National Institute of Health’s National Cancer Institute, almost 20,000 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2022. And sadly, 12,800 or so of our fellow citizens are predicted to die this year from the disease.

But the good news is that in those women where it is diagnosed early, the survival rate is much higher. Unfortunately, only 16 percent of cases are diagnosed in the early stages. The problem is that many of the symptoms are also symptoms of other things. Bloating, pelvic pain, feeling full quickly, and needing to pee are not exactly uncommon in women. And many doctors are willing to dismiss them. What my wife and I have learned through this is that if your doctor doesn’t listen to you when you know something isn’t right, find a new doctor if you have the means. And keep doing it until you find one who will at least check it out. And if you don’t have the means, pester them until they do something.

If you want to know more about this disease, please go to the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance, the CDC, the American Cancer Society, or the NIH. I know this is a whiskey blog. But what is whiskey without someone to share it with? My wife loves whiskey. She helps with the tasting notes and is the “silent” partner of this site. I want each and every one of you to have someone to share your whiskey with, and I don’t want you to lose them or yourself because talking about “girl parts” is hard. My wife was lucky, but if the first doctor had listened to her, maybe she wouldn’t have needed to be.

Tonight we are celebrating ten years clear. And we are doing it with one of her pre-cancer favorites: Elijah Craig 18-Year-Old Single Barrel (EC18).

Kids, pull up a stool and listen to Old Man Eric spin you a tale of how things used to be. Way back in the year 2012, you could find an 18-year-old, single-barrel bourbon, on store shelves, for less than $50. Oftentimes there would be a full facing of them right there on the shelf, maybe even from multiple barrels. Now in 2012, EC18 wasn’t for everyone, namely me. In my estimation, it was more than a little too flabby and oaky. But my wife liked it, so we had it on the shelf relatively often. We found out as my wife was recovering from a chemotherapy session that the days of old, yet inexpensive bourbon were ending. Heaven Hill was putting the jewel of the Elijah Craig line on hiatus. My wife, of course, sent me out to buy two bottles for the closet, and being an attentive husband, I immediately complied. When EC18 came back, it cost three times the price. (I reviewed both pre- and post-hiatus versions here). I think I bought it once after that.

And then I didn’t see it again until March of 2021, when I saw it high on a shelf behind the counter at Ace Spirits in Hopkins, MN. I knew that we were coming up on a major anniversary where it would be appropriate to celebrate with a fancy pour and thought this would be an appropriate pour given how it was intertwined with her treatments. It cost more than I’d have liked, but you don’t celebrate ten years without cancer very often. It turned out that I was about a year off in my calculations, so this has sat in my closet for well over a year now. But here we are. Ten years and one day after the all-clear, revisiting one of her pre-cancer favorites.

If you are curious what her actual pre-cancer favorite was, it was Four Roses 2009 Mariage. It was so widely available here in Minnesota that I bought the last bottle of it in 2012, the day after her cancer diagnosis, to hold onto so we could celebrate her all-clear when it happened. What can I say? I’m an optimist.

And since that bottle of Four Roses Mariage has been long emptied, let’s dig into this more than adequate substitute.

Elijah Craig 18-Year-Old Single Barrel: Revisited

Purchase Info: $164.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN (March 13, 2021)

Price per Drink (50 mL): $11.00

Details: Aged 18 years. 45% ABV. Bottled 12-2-19. Barrel: 4809

Nose: Caramel, vanilla, nutmeg, and oak.

Mouth: Spicy cinnamon, caramel, and oak.

Finish: Warm, and the flavors last forever. Notes of sweet vanilla and cinnamon.

Thoughts: This is a delicious bourbon that holds a soft spot in my heart for reasons outside the taste. I wouldn’t have spent $182 after tax on a bottle of bourbon if I didn’t have a sentimental reason for buying it. As far as the bourbon itself, though, my wife still loves it. I like it, but it's just a touch too oaky for me as I'm not really a fan of super oaky bourbons. But that is nitpicky stuff. Everything else about it is delicious.

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Ordinarily this would be where I would ask you to give me money. A $3 coffee or a purchase at my Etsy store. Tonight, I’m going to ask you to instead donate that to a cancer charity of your choice. Do what feels right to you and maybe together we can help make the world a little better.

Michter’s US-1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Almost exactly one year ago, I realized that somehow, even though it was once one of my go-to pours, I had never reviewed Michter’s Rye. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I had a similar revelation about Michter’s Bourbon. Somehow, I just never got around to reviewing it. So as I was wandering through the liquor store looking for an “everyday” bourbon to have on hand, I realized that I could also get a little content out of the purchase if I grabbed a bottle of Michter’s. So I did.

That’s right, I bought this instead of the much less expensive Wild Turkey 101 for you. I hope you are happy with yourself.

I kid. I kid. I grabbed it because I hadn’t purchased it in quite a few years, and I wanted something different that wouldn’t break the bank. Here is a little of what the distillery has to say about it:

Truly “small batch” each batch of our US-1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon is batched in a holding tank sized to fit a maximum of twenty full barrels, leaving no margin for “blending out” imperfection and thus necessitating excellence from every barrel. Reflecting the spirit of the Bluegrass State, Michter’s US-1Kentucky Straight Bourbon is nuanced, mellow and earthy.

Let’s see how it tastes, shall we?

Michter’s US-1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Purchase Info: $46.97 for a 750 mL bottle at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $3.13

Details: 45.7% ABV. Batch #: 21F1851

Nose: Brown sugar, caramel, vanilla, and a slight nuttiness.

Mouth: Brown sugar, nutty/toasty notes, cinnamon, and a hint of mint.

Finish: Medium in length and warmth. Sweet. Notes of brown sugar, cinnamon, caramel, and mint.

Thoughts: This is a tasty "everyday" bourbon. Maybe even at the higher end of the everyday quality range. Costs a little more than I'd prefer for an everyday bourbon, but it is tasty enough to drink neat and works well in a cocktail. So I'll give it a little bit of a pass on that. I'd probably pounce on it at $35-40, but the $45-50 I paid is pushing it a bit. That said, I did enjoy the whiskey and finished it off relatively quickly, so there is that.

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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, posters, and more.