The Four Roses 2014 Limited Edition Single Barrel

[Our apologies to Four Roses for the tardiness of this review. We are sad to see the Single Barrel release go. Despite being very sorry for not having gotten this review out sooner, we are at least glad that we had no part in drumming up any more demand for this lovely whiskey and thus played no part in its having been discontinued.]

Tasting notes:
Oooh, this has a really elegant nose!  Just exquisite!  Imagine the gentle slope on the nose of a tapir being ridden by a family of elephant shrews.  There’s a thick leather saddle cracking under the heat of the Sun, and dried cherries are attached to it with jute straps.  The shrew children have found the cassis and are sipping it from long Krazy Straws.  When Mr. Shrew finds out, the straws aren’t going to be the only crazy things on this unusual journey.

The mouth is lovely and, when compared to the Four Roses Small Batch, it’s a bit different.  I’d say it is less rangy than the Small Batch.  It’s like a waxed cotton pencil case in the corner of the dance floor after friends drag an architecture student to join them.  They watch her whip and then they watch her nae nae.  All of which is to say that it’s banana flambée eaten while wearing ferret wool mittens in an ice hotel.

The finish reminds me of a fan held on the end of a flat wooden stick.  I’m sitting in the back pews of a country church in the summer.  The humidity, thick with magnolia and perfume, is more widely distributed than original sin.  Cicadas drone outside.  The sermon is unending.   But my fan joins a low-humming chorus of other fans and cools the air.  Grace made palpable in an August miracle.  It is well with my soul.

Rating:

                                                                      –John