In the last year or so, I’ve been getting a bit more into bourbon again. There’ve been quite a number of bottle shares and I’ve used one American whiskey in most of the #StayTheFuckHome Tastings that I’ve been doing with some friends.

I even started watching some Youtube reviews of bourbon, and a thing that stood out was the level of enthusiasm for the 1792 bourbons distilled at Barton Distillery. Of course, that meant I had to get me some!

And when things aren’t readily available through normal channels in Europe, you go to auction sites and you spend some more money than you should. That’s life, if you want to have the stuff that isn’t available…

With this one, though, it kind of sucked. I started bidding on one, since it wasn’t available in Europe at all, and I ended up paying € 70 for it. Of course, then there’s shipping and the auction’s premium, so it was about € 85-90 before I had the bottle in my hands.

While that’s bad enough, the next thing that happened, literally in the same week as my bottle got in, is that this stuff was suddenly imported into The Netherlands and became readily available at below € 40… #FML, right?

Sniff:
It starts with a lot of new oak sweetness, and quite a lot of corn too. A bit of grain sugar and some gumballs. A whiff of mint, burnt popcorn.

Sip:
Syrupy and sweet on the palate. Corn, maple syrup, vanilla cream, a hint of chili. Some tropical fruit like mango and papaya.

Swallow:
The finish is slightly drier than the palate, but still syrupy, malle syrup, a touch of chili heat.

While this is a fine bourbon by any measure, it is an entry level one. Compared to the 1792 Full Proof, this is a massive step down. It’s good, but it’s not great. Luckily good bourbon is very enjoyable, and the part of the bottle that I kept for myself went rather quickly.

So, yes, it’s worth the € 40, but hell no, it’s not worth the € 90…

84/100