*Our review system is out of five. There are five of us and each one will rate a whiskey with a thumbs up or thumbs down. The notes will be a combination of all our notes and we will include a word cloud to distinguish which notes were picked up multiple Rams.
The consensus rating will be out of five. All of us have different palates and preferences and there are of course numerous factors that can occur in the rating; neck pour, mood, ambiance/environment, perceived value based on price, etc. So please, use these ratings as an additional point of reference.*
From the SMWS site;
Cask No. B7.13
C’est si bon!
Indiana, USA
Can you pick out the ‘haute cuisine’ aromas from a dish consisting of sea buckthorn curd, meringue, yoghurt sorbet and wholemeal shortbread? Let us come back to earth as the taste was incredible smooth, sweet and gentle, creamy fudge, cherry chocolate fondant as well as lychees and melon in a lemon grass syrup. Diluted we brewed a cup of Earl Grey tea and added demerara sugar while on the palate velvety sweet, fruit syrup with a touch of cocoa powder and in the finish candied lime peel. The mash bill for this bourbon consists of 51% corn, 45% wheat and 4% malted barley, matured in a #4 char new oak barrel with #2 char heads.
Cask: First-fill American oak #4 charred barrel, #2 charred heads
Age: 4 years
Date distilled: December 2016
Alcohol: 56.9%
USA allocation: 199 bottles
700mL bottle format
The above was taken from the SMWS site.
Dram Rams Review:
Color - light to medium honeyed amber
Nose - lavender, Earl Gray tea, herbal/floral notes, rose, juniper, lemon, citrus, lychee, and oddly enough, gin and tonic (specifically a Hendricks gin and tonic)
Palate - For a wheated bourbon, this definitely was unique. We got cinnamon red hot, honey, citrus, oak, those herbal and floral notes also come through on the palate, apple and almost a little perfumed on the palate. Tiny hit of licorice on the back end. It is deceptively smooth and does NOT drink as hot as it's 56.9% ABV.
Finish - Medium
A lot of this was neck pour and initial reaction so we will definitely be revisiting this. This one sort of baffled us with its very unique nose and drinkability at this proof. As it opened up over time, some traditional bourbon notes came through - caramel sweetness and oak and that juniper note mellowed out while a sweet Earl Gray tea not became more pronounced. We're excited to see how this bottle evolves.
Matt - 👎
Foti - 👍
Dave - 👍
Jimmy - 👍
Massi - 👍
