Last drop in 27 years, Buffalo Trace Bourbon is great

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Let's go directly to the point: a bourbon This old man should not be so good. Twenty-seven years in a barrel, through hot and humid summers of Kentucky and cold frozen winters, should transform a bourbon into a bomb of tannic oak. Of course, this particular bourbon did not really suffer through these extremes. Instead, he spent a lot of time in Buffalo Trace The experimental warehouse controlled by the climate (and even more time in warehouses at controlled temperature), but still … After almost three decades, this new version of the last drop completely challenged my expectations.

THE Last Gout Distillers was founded in 2008 by veterans of the Tom Jago and James Espey spirits industry, and published nearly 40 different bottles of scotch, cognac, Japanese whiskey, rum, Irishman whiskeyAnd yes, Bourbon, since then. Each of them is supposed to be the last literal drops of liquid from rare barrels around the world. Sazerac acquired the company in 2016, which means that it has fairly easy access to whiskey produced at Buffalo trace Distillery now. But, of course, not just any whiskey will do the trick, it must be something special, something allmaria, something that will never be repeated again.

This is certainly the case with the 37th version of the Drop. It is a mixture of three barrels distilled in 1995, 1996 and 1997, an era when you can light the radio and hear the collective soul, Silverchair and the asylum of the soul, in this order (look at them). Master Blender Drew Mayville and Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley selected these barrels to get married together, and the whiskey found itself in a barrel of 121.8 proofs in a series of 508 bottles. There are a few points to discuss here. First of all, this is really high proof for such an old whiskey, but it certainly has something to do with the fact that it was matured for a while in Warehouse P, the experimental aging installation at Buffalo trace which occurred online in 2018.

The duration is not disclosed, but suppose that these three barrels have spent up to seven years in the warehouse P. It is still quite long from the aging of Kentucky before that, but there are tips that a distillery can use, such as the displacement of hottest barrels in cooler places and climate control inside a warehouse, which Buffalo trace do. Even thus, my hypothesis was that this whiskey would probably be at least a little too adorned and bitter, that I found the Rare eagle 25 Released a few years ago to be. No. This bourbon is great. On the nose, there are aromas of brown sugar, honey, cherry and oak. This is followed by a rich caramel, cinnamon, grape jelly, orange marmalade and grilled coconut in the mouth, with a final burst of menthol and red hots on arrival. Sometimes there is an almost swirling note in Bourbon – although the peat is obviously not involved – perhaps the result of all this time to absorb the barrel square, or simply a note of funky leather that I interpreted as such.

The question is: are you ready to pay $ 10,500 for this bourbon (and probably much more than that on the secondary market)? Consider that you can get a bottle of Michter 20 For half and the 25 years For almost the requested price of the last drop. However, these are not as old and, more importantly, they are not Buffalo trace Whiskies, and this name has a lot of cache among whiskey fans, no matter what you think of this phenomenon. At least the price includes a small 50 ml sample of bourbon to sample if you do not really want to open your bottle, because you plan to return it to the future. The main thing is that all old whiskeys are not really very good, especially with regard to bourbon and are not more based on rarity than on quality. This new Buffalo Trace Bourbon of the latest drop, however, is both rare and excellent, and seems intended to become a collection object.

Score: 96