Sample Roulette: Vacation Edition

Well, I’m back.

We had an amazing trip. One that was far too full of fun to spend time doing whiskey tastings. Well, almost. I did happen to toss a few blind samples in my bag to try. I was on a fun adventure and these little bottles had the possibility of being very adventurous.

I mean, these were samples that I had poured from 2011 until 2017 during my “hoarding phase” of whiskey fandom. During that time, I kept samples of everything I bought. It didn’t matter if it was a limited edition or a $10 handle. All of them had a sample poured and stashed in a little box. Last year I realized I no longer wanted to keep them and started to drink them. I’d covered the original labels with painters tape in order to make them blind, just because it was more fun that way.

So while we sat in my room that overlooked the shores of Lake Powell, planning the next day’s adventure, we took a little time to have a little whiskey adventure as well. Let’s see what I brought with and if any of it was as good (or as bad) as I remember.

Blind Whiskey Sample # 1:

Nose: Corn, toffee, and a mineral note.

Mouth: Spicy, Cinnamon, Cardamom, and a delicate fruit note.

Finish: Hot and Spicy. Notes of cinnamon and cardamom.

Pre-Reveal Thoughts: I really like the spice of this one. My wife doesn't like cardamom so she isn't as big of a fan. That means I will get the rest of this pour. Yay!

Reveal: George Dickel 14-year-old private Select

Post-Reveal Thoughts: The bottle that this sample came from was purchased at a grocery store near New Orleans back in 2014. I remember it being very good and I still found it so. This makes me very excited to crack into the bottle of the 15-year-old Dickel that I found in Colorado on this trip.

Blind Whiskey Sample # 2:

Nose: Floral mint, brown sugar, and cherry.

Mouth: Cherry, brown sugar, cocoa, and nutmeg

Finish: Medium in length and warmth. Notes of cherry, nutmeg, and mint.

Pre-Reveal Thoughts: This is really good. I'm feeling like this might be a really good Canadian Whisky. It has a mouthfeel that, while not thin, is on the thinner side. Good sweetness.

Reveal: Jefferson's Presidential Select, 18-year-old

Post-Reveal Thoughts: When I first reviewed this, I wasn’t a fan. I found it too woody and stated I wasn’t a fan of bourbon with an emphasis on wood notes. I guess I have mellowed with age when it comes to that particular flavor note because it didn’t even show up in my notes seven years later when I did this tasting. Interesting.

Blind Whiskey Sample # 3:

Nose: Dried grain and spearmint

Mouth: Thin mouthfeel, dried grain, spearmint, lots of cinnamon, and sugar sweetness.

Finish: Warm, but not too warm. More dried grain and cinnamon.

Pre-Reveal Thoughts: This is pretty meh. Probably won't be finishing this one. Vacation is too short to spend time on meh whiskey.

Reveal: Old Fitzgerald Prime.

Post-Reveal Thoughts: I don’t have much to add to that statement. I put this one away back in 2014 and gave it a meh then. I still think it’s pretty meh.

I always find this to be a fun exercise. You never know when you are going to put something truly terrible in your mouth and it makes every pour a little more exciting when the product is good. And this round we got two likes and a meh. Not bad for three shots in the dark.

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Chicken Cock Bourbon

Well, here we are. For years I’ve told people not to fall for a pretty bottle. Do a little research and find out what people are saying about a bourbon before dropping their hard-earned money on an expensive bourbon. To not get caught up in the hype of a “Limit 1 per person” sign.

Yep, I’ve preached that for years, yet here we are. Looking at a photo of an oh-so-pretty bottle. In my defense, I’d just found a bottle of Elijah Craig 18-year-old, for pretty close to the suggested retail price, and, I guess, I was feeling a bit lucky that day. So I figured, “why not also take a flyer on something new?”

I backed up that bit of bravado with logic. “My wife likes to decorate with pretty whiskey bottles, so at the very least, I’d get that, right? Besides, I’ve heard of Chicken Cock, and I don’t remember hearing anything bad about it. If it was really bad, I’d have heard something, right?” Yep. A guy who can’t remember how long he’s been married or what his kid’s age is trusting his memory on a $60 bottle of whiskey. Of course, there is always the old “well, at least I’ll get a blog post out of it.”

And so here we are, still looking at that pretty bottle. So we might as well get on with this. What is Chicken Cock bourbon and did I make a $60 mistake?

Chicken Cock bourbon is the anchor bourbon expression for South Carolina’s Grain and Barrel Spirits. It is a revival of a pre-Prohibition brand. The company has put out quite a few expensive bottlings since reviving the brand, which is where I’d heard of them. In 2018, they signed on to be part of Bardstown Bourbon Company’s Collaborative Distilling Program. And in 2019 the expression we are looking at tonight was released. Here is what the company has to say about it:

Distilled, aged, and bottled in Kentucky, Chicken Cock Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey has a rich, elegant mahogany hue; a nose which balances oak tones with sweet notes of dried fruit, caramel, and vanilla; and a palate that opens with soft tannins. A creamy, almost buttery mouthfeel is complemented by butterscotch notes and toasted oak, resolving with a vanilla finish. At 90 proof, there is a slight, welcome bourbon heat. The bourbon is bottled in a replica of the Prohibition-era Chicken Cock bottle.

So, what about what’s inside that “replica of the Prohibition-era Chicken Cock bottle?”

Chicken Cock Bourbon

Purchase Info: $59.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN

Price per Drink (50mL): $4.00

Details: 45% ABV. Bottled by Grain and Barrel Spirits.

Nose: Wintergreen, generic fruitiness, and generic baking spice.

Mouth: Thin and pretty gentle. Notes of caramel, wintergreen, delicate fruit, and baking spice.

Finish: Warm and of medium length. Notes of spearmint and fruit.

Thoughts: Fans of soft, delicate, minty bourbon will adore this one. I am not that person. It reminds me of a lesser version of Redbreast 12. It has a similar delicate fruit note to it. It's just not as refined or tasty as Redbreast. This is not a bad bourbon just an extremely underwhelming one. I'd probably give this a pass unless you just can't live without its admittedly cool bottle. The juice on the inside however is just meh.

But hey, at least I got a blog post out of it.

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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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If You've Had...the Evan Williams Edition

Quick Disclaimer: the 1783 bottle used in this article was provided for review purposes. It was reviewed here.

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I thought I was done with these posts, not because I don’t like doing them, but I’d done all of the ones I could think of. Luckily you guys are smarter than I am and when a reader requested I do one on the Evan Williams, I felt like it was time to jump back in on this series. But, seeing as it has been almost two years since I last did one of these posts, I’m thinking a little explanation is in order.

I think that one of the best ways to really learn the differences between bourbons is to compare them head-to-head. That's the theory behind the If You've Had... series. The setup is like this: "If you've had Whiskey A then Whiskey B is..." hotter, spicier, sweeter, more floral, etc. Each section below is written comparing all of the whiskeys in the line-up to one of their peers. So if you've had Whiskey A, but not Whiskeys B through E, then the Whiskey A section will be the most useful to you. You may notice that there are different tasting notes here as compared to the usual reviews. That is because I am literally going from one bourbon to the other and recording my impressions of the difference. This article purely describing the differences between the various bourbons. I try to write this so that there are no value judgments. This way you get to decide based on what you know of Whiskey A if Whiskey B sounds like something you'd want to try.

Tonight we are featuring the Evan Williams family of bourbons. We are looking at the 80 proof Evan Williams Green Label (which, rumor has it, has been discontinued*), the 86 proof Black Label, the new 90 proof 1783 Small Batch, Bottled-in-Bond, and the 2013 vintage of Evan Williams Single Barrel. So without further ado, I present the eighth installment of the If You’ve Had… series. 

If you've had Evan Williams Green Label, then…

Evan Williams Black Label: is slightly sweeter on the nose. The mouth on Black Label is similar, just a touch spicier. The finishes are basically identical.

Evan Williams 1783 Small Batch: is spicier on the nose, showing more cinnamon. Evan Williams 1783 has a thicker mouthfeel and shows more baking spice and caramel. The finish follows and is longer than Green Label.

Evan Williams Bottled in Bond: is sweeter on the nose with more baking spice and hints of chocolate. The mouth on Bonded is much spicier, showing more cinnamon, caramel and chocolate. The finish is much warmer.

Evan Williams Single Barrel (2013 vintage): is richer, showing more oak and floral notes. The mouth follows showing more floral and melon notes. The finish is similar in warmth and length but brings the floral and melon notes along.

If you've had Evan Williams Black Label, then…

Evan Williams Green Label: is less sweet and more grain forward on the nose. Green Label has a thinner mouthfeel and is slightly sweeter showing less spice on the mouth. The finishes are virtually identical.

Evan Williams 1783 Small Batch: has less cinnamon and more caramel. 1783 also has a floral hint when compared to Black Label. 1783 has a more robust flavor profile showing much more spice and caramel. The finish shows more cinnamon and is longer.

Evan Williams Bottled in Bond: is sweeter on the nose showing more vanilla and chocolate. The mouth shows more cinnamon, caramel, vanilla, and chocolate notes. The finish is longer.

Evan Williams Single Barrel (2013 vintage): is very similar on the nose, showing a few more floral notes. The mouth shows more fruit and floral notes. The finish follows the mouth showing more cinnamon, fruit, and floral notes.

If you've had Evan Williams 1783 Small Batch, then…

Evan Williams Green Label: is more grain-forward on the nose, showing a lot more corn. The mouthfeel is thinner and the flavor is more grain-forward. The finish is shorter.

Evan Williams Black Label: has less of an alcohol burn and shows more dried grain notes on the nose. Black Label has less spicy heat than 1783 but has a more pronounced cinnamon flavor. The mouthfeel is thinner and the finish is shorter.

Evan Williams Bottled in Bond: is sweeter, nuttier, and has more cocoa on the nose. Bonded is warmer in the mouth showing more baking spice and chocolate notes. The finish on Bonded is longer.

Evan Williams Single Barrel (2013 vintage): is very similar, though showing more floral notes, on the nose. The mouth on Single Barrel (2013) shows more fruity and floral notes which follows into the finish.

If you've had Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond, then…

Evan Williams Green Label: has much more dried corn on the nose. Green Label has a much thinner mouthfeel and a less concentrated flavor profile. The finish is more gentle and shorter.

Evan Williams Black Label: is very similar, though slightly mintier, on the nose. Black Label has a thinner mouthfeel and a gentler, less concentrated spice to the mouth. The finish is more gentle and is shorter.

Evan Williams 1783 Small Batch: shows more floral notes on the nose. 1783 has a thicker mouthfeel and shows more caramel and a pronounced floral note when compared to Bonded. The finish of 1783 is more floral and mintier.

Evan Williams Single Barrel (2013 vintage): is much fruitier and more floral on the nose. Single Barrel (2013) is much fruitier and more floral with more cinnamon on the mouth and that difference follows into the finish.

If you've had Evan Williams Single Barrel (2013 vintage), then…

Evan Williams Green Label: shows much more dried corn influence on the nose. Green label is sweeter on the mouth and shows more cinnamon spice and grain influence. The finishes are fairly similar in length and heat.

Evan Williams Black Label: is very similar, showing more vanilla, on the nose. Black Label is sweeter on the mouth, showing more classic bourbon "caramel/vanilla" notes. The mouthfeel on Black Label is thinner and the finish is longer.

Evan Williams 1783 Small Batch: is spicier on the nose, showing prominent cinnamon notes. The mouth on 1783 is richer, with a thicker mouthfeel and more concentrated flavor profile. There is more caramel and cinnamon spice on the mouth. The finish is longer.

Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond: shows mores cocoa and vanilla on the nose. Bonded is warmer in the mouth, showing more nutty and cocoa notes. The finish is longer and warmer.

Conclusions:

• Single Barrel (2013 vintage) really reminds me of an Old Forester Bourbon when compared with the rest of this line-up.

• Green Label, Black Label, and Bottled-in-Bond are all very similar, basically differing in how concentrated the flavors are and how long the finish is.

• 1783 Small Batch is an outlier with a slightly different flavor profile when compared head-to-head with the others. 1783 is more floral whereas the other three are more "stereotypical" caramel/vanilla bourbon notes.

• Green Label and Black Label are remarkably similar bourbons with only very slight differences between them. I can see why they could be considered duplicates in the Evan Williams line-up. If Green Label was your go-to before it was discontinued, you shouldn’t notice much difference if you switch to Black Label. Even the price per bottle is only a dollar different. (Current price for Black Label at Binny’s is $13.99 per 750 mL. I bought Green Label from them in December for $12.99 per 750mL.)

*As of the time of writing, I am waiting for confirmation on that fact from Heaven Hill and will update if I hear back from them.

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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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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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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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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.