Dis­tillery: Four Roses Dis­tillery of Lawrence­burg, Kentucky

Proof: 110

Age: Blended 13-, 12-, 11-, & 9-year-olds

Color: Amber [1.2]

Price: $75

This is a bottled-blend of four of the Four Roses bour­bon recipes includ­ing a 13-year-old, a 12-year-old, an 11-year-old, and a 9-year-old. The dif­fer­ent recipes include a mix of 60% corn, 35% rye, 5% malted bar­ley to 75% corn, 20% rye, 5% bar­ley; and four dif­fer­ent yeast strains. It seems the dis­tillery may be repli­cat­ing prac­tices from the old coun­try by blend­ing these dif­fer­ent whiskeys in an attempt to achieve a whiskey greater than the sum of its parts. What they got was a very drink­able and truly unof­fen­sive result, which makes me believe that they may have just come up with one of the most bal­anced whiskeys BAWC has come across. While noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar stood out, noth­ing felt missed as it left us to pon­der: what did we just taste?

Nose: Sev­eral of us got pic­tures of open­ing up a wax pack of base­ball cards while lay­ing stomach-down in a wet barn as notes of paper, hay, and stale chew­ing gum were tossed around the room. Lesser notes of spearmint and fresh fruits were noticed upon fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. Over­all, mel­low and inviting.

Palate: Fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt, par­tic­u­larly that of ripe cher­ries, with a light sweet­ness with toasted almonds and tobacco. A warm­ing, well-balance of sweet­ness, spici­ness, tof­fee, and herbal with noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar stand­ing too far out.

Fin­ish: Long and smooth like a fine cigar.

In a word: Reserved

Con­clu­sion: Bet­ter than OK, but not the best due mostly to lack of per­son­al­ity; how­ever, one should expect this whiskey to open itself up upon future meet­ings. There is a hid­den com­plex­ity to this whiskey that one should be care­ful judg­ing too quickly, or they may miss the point.

Rat­ing: 3.75 out of 5 Stars