Savannah Bee Company Port Bourbon Barrel Aged Orange Blossom Honey

I was first made aware of Savannah Bee Company on my first visit to Savannah, GA about 12 years ago or so. I was looking for somewhere warm to spend my Thanksgiving holiday and in a coin toss, it won out over San Diego. I never would have guessed at the time what a difference that coin toss would have made on my life. For one thing, it was on that trip that I had my first experience with a whiskey that wasn’t Jim Beam or Jack Daniels. I had started to get into spirits but hadn’t found a love of whiskey yet. So when I noticed that we would be driving right past a small distillery named MB Roland on our way there, we made a plan to stop in. It was there that I took my first distillery tour and really got interested in the process of whiskey. So, I guess you can credit that trip with what you are reading right now.

That was also one of the first trips that my wife and I made together after our child grew up and moved out. So Savannah has always had a soft spot in our heart and since honey from the Savannah Bee Company was one of the many souvenirs we brought back, it shares in that fondness.

And as we have discussed in the past, I love honey. I love it. I love it so much that I should have been named Poo Bear. And when my absolute favorite honey producer put out a honey that was aged in Bourbon barrels? Well that was a no brainer for me. I had to give it a try. I’ve looked at two other Bourbon Honeys in the past. Stubbees and Honey Feast. They each had different amount of honey flavor. One had a lot and was great in cocktails. The other had less, but that lent itself to food-based uses.

Here is what the producer has to say about their offering:

A premium harvest of our orange blossom honey has been carefully aged in the port wine barrels that once aged Angel’s Envy™ Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. The resulting honey is incredible! A sweet citrusy vanilla forward flavor with a hint of Madeira that slowly fades. A sweet collaboration!

So let’s see how it tastes. Will it be bold and boozy? Will it be subtle and sweet? Let’s find out.

Savannah Bee Company Port Bourbon Barrel Aged Orange Blossom Honey

Purchase Info: $27 for a 12 ounce jar at their website.

Thoughts: Less bourbon flavor than other bourbon honeys that I've had. Tastes like a bright, get rich honey flavor. There are hints of vanilla that are not there in the unaged version (of course I already had the unaged Orange Blossom Honey on the shelf), which I assume is from the influence of the Angel's Envy. I like it, but if I was looking for a bourbon flavor, this would not be my first choice of bourbon honeys. But they have offered up a cocktail to use it in.

Honey Bourbon Sour

Taken, and adapted slightly, from the Savannah Bee Company website

• 2 oz Bourbon, Angel’s Envy would probably be best a good choice

• 1 oz honey simple syrup (equal parts honey and water)

• 1 oz fresh lemon juice

• 1 oz fresh apple cider

• Honeycrisp apple slice for a garnish.

Shake and strain into a glass. Garnish with a slice of apple.

Thoughts: Well balanced. The predominant note is from the lemon and apple, but it is very well integrated so that it is more an apple/lemon "essence" than a full on flavor. Add in a wedge of Honeycrisp apple as a garnish and this is a recipe worth keeping, and sharing. Much like the honey though, the bourbon flavor itself isn’t prominent, but instead adds notes of richness underneath.

Verdict: Overall, I really liked it, but would I buy it again? Probably not for the price online. I thought that almost $30 was more than a bit expensive for a 12 oz jar of honey. But I’ve seen their hot honey in my local supermarket for much less than what they have it for on the Savannah Bee website, so maybe there are places that are selling it cheaper. Or maybe not. It is a limited run after all. And we all know what limited edition means in the Bourbon world.

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The Whiskey Grail

The product in this review was sent at no charge for review purposes with no strings attached.

Glassware. It’s made of glass, right? I mean, it’s right there in the name. Glassware. All of the best glasses are made of glass. Glazed ceramic is cool if you have a coffee mug, or you like to support your local pottery shop, or you frequent your local Renaissance Faire with a mug of ale (Faire with an extra E to make it olde timey). But otherwise, good old glass works best for glasses. Plastic? Not on this guy’s watch. Especially with whiskey.

No, sir. I’m pretty stuck in my ways. If you pour me a glass of whiskey, nothing beats glass. Or so I always thought until I got an email from the folks behind tonight’s product review. See they make themselves a wooden whiskey glass. With a charred inside.

Now, as you might expect with my previously professed love of glass glasses, I was a little skeptical of the world’s need for a wooden glass. But the emailer was nice enough to say kind words about me and the blog. And since I love talking about myself and hearing compliments, I took a second look at their email. I did make my, and I’m assuming your, skepticism apparent to them, though. Here is the email I sent back to them:

Thanks for reaching out. I’d be happy to take a look at a Grail. If it is something that I think my readers might like I’ll be happy to talk about it on BourbonGuy.com. I’ll warn you though, my readers are a very frugal and skeptical bunch, and are happy to let people know it so I have to be straight with them and not blow smoke up their nethers about products. 😁

If that meets with your approval, you can send a sample to the address below.

See, after over a decade of blathering at you lovely people, I like to think I know you pretty well. I don’t want to waste your time on gimmicks or products like “whiskey stones” that just seem like they would offer more chipped teeth than chilled whiskey. I don’t do gift guides for that reason. Because we all know what would be on it.

BourbonGuy.com 2022 Holiday Gift Guide

1. Your Favorite Bourbon

2. Your Favorite Rye

3. A glass?

4. And, of course, stuff from the BourbonGuyGifts.com Merch Store.

Anyway, listing number three in the gift guide brings me back to the Whiskey Grail, which is what these fine folks from Georgia call their wooden whiskey cup. And let me tell you, as skeptical as I was about this product, I like it. It fits in my hand amazingly. It looks cute. And believe it or not, it does add an oaky note to a glass of whiskey when you try it side-by-side with the same whiskey in a glass made from good ol’ glass. The oaky note seems to be because you are sticking your mouth on a piece of wood, not that your whiskey is being infused with extra oak. But in any case, the claim of adding an oak note to your whiskey is true as far as I my mouth can tell.

So should you buy it? The cups run from $30 to $35, depending on if you want their logo engraved on it or not. I probably wouldn’t have purchased it for myself if I had seen it in a store. But if I was at a craft fair (no e) or a festival? There is a better-than-even chance it would have come home with me. Honestly, this would make a fun gift for a playful whiskey lover.

Don’t get it for the curmudgeons who only want to drink out of a Glencairn, though. They don’t usually understand fun.

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Fever-Tree Distillers Cola

When I was a child, a soda was a treat. Even if it was in the refrigerator, you had to ask to have one and often times the answer would be no. As I grew older, soft drinks became a bigger part of a young person’s life. I still remember when the first soda machine was put into my high school cafeteria. I remember that the old folks grousing: “what’s next, a McDonald’s instead of healthy food?” To my knowledge a McDonald’s was never brought in.

Of course when I was older I had soda all the time. If one could binge drink soda, I did. Eventually, I decided to get healthy and gave up almost all soda. Though a Diet Pepsi was my breakfast most mornings until I quit going into an office. These days, instead of soda being a treat, it’s what I have when there is nothing else to be had. Most of my soda consumption comes on road trips from small gas stations with even smaller beverage selections.

Except of course when I want a highball. Most of the time I use soda water, rum or gin and some citrus. But every so often a Rum and Coke, a Cuba Libre (basically a rum and coke with lime juice), or a Bourbon and ginger ale just sounds too good to pass up. It was with that thought in mind that I picked up the Fever-Tree Distillers Cola from my closest Total Wine. Though it was in shelved with the bourbon, it made me really want a rum and cola. So I tossed it in the cart with everything else.

Fever-Tree Distillers Cola

Purchase Info: $5.99 for a 4 pack of 200 ml bottles at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN.

Details: No artificial sweeteners or high fructose corn syrup.

Nose: Spicy and sweet. Notes of caramel and baking spice. It smells like a Cola.

Mouth: Sweet. Notes of citrus oils, caramel, and a touch of wintergreen as filtered through a cola base.

Thoughts: This is the most interesting cola that I've ever had. I know it was developed as a mixer, but I like it by itself. It's a big step up from a Coke. But since it is a mixer, we need to try a couple of spirits with it. Let's do the Plantation rum from Tuesday in a rum and cola, maybe we will even get fancy and make a Cuba Libre and then let’s mix this with bourbon as well.

To see how this fares when used as part of a highball I made four versions. Two used rum and two used bourbon. Each spirit was combined with either Fever-Tree or Coke. In both cases, the Fever-Tree was the winner when tasted blind. The Coke tasted artificial and almost chemically. I don't normally like bourbon and cola and the Fever-Tree was no exception. I do however like rum and cola and I like a Cuba Libre even more. This paired wonderfully with the Plantation O.F.T.D. so I will be using the rest of this four-pack in that way. I'm very happy with the purchase and this may be my go-to cola going forward.

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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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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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Smoke Boards: Cocktail Smoking Kit

When I was a kid, my brother and I visited my father every other weekend as part of my parent’s divorce agreement. My dad and younger brother were (and are) avid outdoorsmen. And since I wasn’t interested in hunting, fishing, trapping, etc (like, at all, not even a little bit), that left me at his place watching my even younger siblings from his second marriage.

As you might imagine, Saturday afternoons in a rural trailer park in the middle of Northern Wisconsin weren’t very exciting for a 10- to 12-year-old boy. This rural trailer park was surrounded by a creamery that made cheese, a post office, a bar, a car/farm equipment dealership, and a cemetery. That was the “town” I spent about 52 days a year living in as a child and young teen. And I wasn’t thrilled by it. Mostly because the only things to do were to get into trouble or watch tv. And I did plenty of both while babysitting.

Now, this was long enough ago that rural cable systems were basically non-existent. My dad had a tall antenna that was able to pull in the ABC, CBS, and PBS stations. No NBC station and FOX wasn’t even a thing yet, at least not locally. And while I would watch ABC and CBS for my Saturday morning cartoon fix, the afternoons on those stations were pretty boring. So I’d switch over to PBS and watch what they had on. Basically a lot of This Old House and various cooking shows.

I loved the cooking shows as a kid, which is weird since I was a super picky eater. But that love never went away. As a young adult, early Food Network was my favorite thing for a while. These days about half of my YouTube subscriptions are cooking channels. Which is how I stumbled upon the idea that I wanted to start smoking meat. And I jumped into that whole-heartedly. It’s become my favorite hobby.

So it was only natural that when I walked past the Smoke Boards booth at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, that I‘d be easily convinced to stop and give their cocktail smoking kit a look. And after talking to the guys manning the booth, I was convinced to grab a kit for myself. I haven’t had many smoked cocktails. But the ones I’ve had are usually more theater than flavor. A local restaurant serves their smoked manhattan in a smoke-filled box. It is dramatic, but the flavor of the drink isn’t affected that much. The folks at Smoke Boards told me that their kit would do better. So let’s check out how it works.

Step 1: Light the chips on fire.

Place a small amount of one of the types of the kit’s wood chips on the smoke board and light them on fire using the provided torch.

Step 2: Smother the fire.

Or wait for it to go out. Place the provided mason jar over the smoldering chips to allow it to fill with smoke.

Step 3: Add your whiskey.

Put the cover on the jar and shake it up to dissolve the smoke. I’ve tried adding just the whiskey and adding the entire cocktail. I got better results infusing the whiskey and then making the cocktail out of the infused whiskey than I did by infusing the premade cocktail.

Step 4: Make the cocktail and enjoy it.

It really is that easy. It took me a few tries to nail down the best procedure for me. But, I tell you what. I have a new appreciation for smoked cocktails. A smoked Old-Fashioned is delightful on a cool Autumn evening. The smoke isn’t as strong as it is in the various smoked American Whiskeys on the market so it doesn’t over-power the drink, it just sort of adds another layer to the drink. All in all, I like this. They do sell extra containers of chips on their site, but I’m actually kind of excited to try some of the many smoking chips I currently have in the house to see how they play. I’m thinking an Old Fashioned smoked over peach wood might be tasty.

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Just A Bunch of Things I Found on Vacation

I am an impulse buyer. Sure, I can make it through a grocery checkout line without buying a candy bar. But it isn’t likely that I will leave a liquor store, festival or distillery without buying at least something. Here are a few of the ones I picked up last month while visiting Tennessee and Kentucky. Even though some of them travelled almost as far as I did to get there.

Lincoln County Reserve Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup

Until my teenage years, we never bought syrup. My family made it. We tapped the trees and boiled the sap into syrup. But then we had a fire and the sugar shack we boiled sap in burned down. And since it was a collaboration between my grandparents and one of their cousins, the shack never got replaced. My brother has decided to carry on the tradition though, in order to teach his kids. I however buy mine from a 92-year-old lady who has been making it forever.

So, one could say that I am quite the connoisseur of maple syrup. Either that or you could say that I’ve been spoiled by amazing maple syrup my entire life. And I’m pretty biased. I really do think that the best maple syrup comes from the upper midwest. Fight me Canada. That said, I do like trying new things and so when I saw Lincoln County Reserve selling Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, I knew that a bottle would be coming home with me. And funny thing, that syrup was made in Wisconsin. Merrill, Wisconsin, a city of fewer than 10,000 people and an innumerable number of maple trees. This bourbon was aged in 10 gallon used bourbon barrels from Distillery 291 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

But is it any good? In a word, yes! It’s buttery with a nice bourbon flavor. The bourbon is not overpowering bringing a lot of brown sugar and caramel notes. It has a great mouthfeel, nice and thick. And let me tell you, it is amazing on French Toast and sausage. Highly recommended.

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Freddie's Old Fashioned Root Beer

Let me tell you about my college life. I had a wife, a kid, a job, and a major that was deceptively time-consuming. You might think that a fine art degree would be a cakewalk, but at least at the university I went to, you’d be wrong. Multiple all-nighters per week were extremely common as, due to our finances, I tried to fit a five-year plan for college into as few quarters as possible. One way we saved money was by renting an old farmhouse about a half-hour outside of town. Honestly, it was a pretty nice place. It was maintained by the local student-housing property management company. Meaning it was not maintained at all except by the elderly owner who was paying the property management company to, supposedly, do all of that for him.

Anyway, this farm was near a very small village of about 800 people. There was one grocery store, though it didn’t carry much. But one thing it did carry was Dr. McGillicuddy’s Root Beer Soda. I had no idea that the liqueur brand had lent its name to a soda, but every time I went to that tiny store for something, a bottle of that root beer came out with me. Eventually, I finished college, moved, and couldn’t find anywhere that carried the stuff. Until I first visited the Buffalo Trace Distillery. Apparently, Sazerac was the producer of that root beer, and one of the few places it could be purchased was at the distillery. I was super happy to pick up a six-pack every time I visited.

In 2019, Sazerac rebranded that root beer after beloved tour guide Freddie Johnson. He is a great guy and this is a great root beer. So I think it is a great match. But how does it taste? Caramel at first, followed by wintergreen. Unlike some root beers, the wintergreen is not overpowering though. This is subtle. After that is vanilla. The vanilla lasts long after you swallow. The thing that makes this so good is how well-balanced these flavors are. They're melded together so well that it is hard to tell where one ends and another begins. It has a nice creamy mouthfeel as well. This is my favorite root beer. A good part of that is nostalgia, but let an old man have that, ok?

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MB Roland Kentucky Dark Cherry Moonshine

This was a gift from my friends at MB Roland, but I found a great use for it so I wanted to share. Thought I’d mention that since everything else on this post was purchased.

The folks at MB Roland are some of the nicest people I’ve met. And one side effect of them being so nice, I gave their whiskey a try shortly after they opened. That whiskey was the start of my personal whiskey journey. So I guess what I’m saying is that if you enjoy reading BourbonGuy.com, on some level you have them to thank.

We visited them while on vacation, spent the afternoon just hanging out, and since they are good friends we were given a bottle of MB Roland Dark Cherry Moonshine. Something we hadn’t tried before. I’m a big fan of this in cocktails. Especially this Cherry Manhattan from FoodandWine.com. Scroll down the page, it’s worth it. But since this could be consumed alone, let’s give it the ol’ tasting notes treatment.

Ripe, dark cherries on the nose. The month is sweet with a strong, natural dark cherry flavor. No artificial flavors or cough syrup flavors here. Very little alcohol flavor so be careful drinking neat if you really love cherries. Works great in cocktails like the one above. I could also see this playing nicely with lime juice in a cocktail or even a highball. It does need to be refrigerated after opening, but a little fridge space is a small price to pay for delicious cocktails.

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Old Forester Oleo-Saccharum Lemon Oil Syrup

I first heard about Oleo Saccharum in David Wonderich’s book Punch. I reviewed it here. Spoiler, I really liked it. It’s basically sugar and lemon peels left together until the sugar draws the lemon oils out of the peels and dissolves in it, creating a syrup. Easy to do, if a little time-consuming. So it was with interest that I saw this little bottle of premade Oleo-Saccharum at the Old Forester Distillery Gift Shop in Louisville, KY. I was staying in the Whiskey Row Lofts which are basically upstairs and had the thought that I might make a few cocktails with it. I did not and so it came home with me.

But what did I think of it once I did open it? It has a strong lemon nose. It’s very sweet and lemony on the mouth when you taste it by itself. It does really well in the champagne cocktail on the bottle (1 oz bourbon, 0.5 oz syrup, 4.5 oz brut sparkling wine, ice, lemon twist). It’s good, but at the end of the day, a lemon oleo-saccharum is too easy to make for me to buy this again. Especially since you use a quarter of the bottle for one cocktail. Maybe if I was on the road, travelling. But not for home use.

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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.

Nooku Bourbon Cream

It’s been a weird week here in Minnesota. There has been smoke in the air from Canadian wildfires causing air quality and air quality warnings as I’ve never seen before in the state of Minnesota. The smoke was thick in the air. So thick that it impaired visibility and carried the smell of the fires as you breathed it in. It was so bad, that even spending as little time outdoors as possible, I was still dealing with respiratory issues. As such, I decided to pivot away from the tasting I had been planning to do this past weekend toward a couple of small cans I had in my fridge from my recent trip shopping trip in Colorado. I figured it might be best to take a look at something that I wouldn’t be drinking from a nosing glass. Just in case the old sniffer was acting up.

I grabbed these as I was walking toward the checkout at Hazel’s Beverage World in Boulder, Colorado. I hadn’t really been in the market for a Cream Liqueur, but something about the tiny little can, and the fact that one was coffee-flavored, piqued my interest. I figured that for four bucks, I could indulge that curiosity. Might be good in coffee one morning while on vacation. And while I never had the chance to have it in my coffee while on vacation, I did get that opportunity this past weekend as I hid inside from the air outside.

Nooku Bourbon Creme uses two ingredients: dairy cream and Bourbon. In this case, two-year-old, high-malt bourbon from Old Elk. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the coffee version uses some sort of coffee flavor on top of that (not much of one though since it literally says that on the can). And while I haven’t had Old Elk Bourbon, I haven’t heard great things about it. Even so, I was curious to give this a try. I tried each of them straight and then added a healthy amount to an afternoon cup of coffee, just to see if my hunch on these was correct.

Nooku Bourbon Cream

Purchase Info: $3.98 for a 100 mL can at Hazel’s Beverage World, Boulder, CO.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $1.99

Details: 17% ABV. "Bourbon Whiskey with Real Dairy Cream"

Mouth: Thick, velvety, and sweet. Notes of cinnamon, caramel, and dairy.

Finish: Not much to speak of, as expected.

Thoughts: It's a bit like drinking coffee creamer. I’m not getting a lot of “bourbon” notes in it though. Speaking of that, it works pretty well in coffee. If you take your coffee with creamer, that is. In this case, I liked it about half and half. So make that coffee hot.

Nooku Bourbon Cream, Cold Brew Coffee

Purchase Info: $3.98 for a 100 mL can at Hazel’s Beverage World, Boulder, CO.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $1.99

Details: 17% ABV. "Bourbon Whiskey with Fresh Dairy Cream and Natural Coffee Flavors"

Mouth: Thick and sweet. Notes of cinnamon, chocolate, coffee, and dairy.

Finish: Chocolate Milk.

Thoughts: This is better than the regular version. And it also tastes good with coffee, even more so than the original. Personally I like my coffee black, so I’d probably prefer just a shot of bourbon instead of the cream if I felt the need to spike my coffee. Neither of them are particularly to my tastes when tasted alone either, but they aren't bad for what they are. That said, I can see a lot of people liking this.

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