The Bib & Tucker 10 Year Old Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey
750 ml rye-in-solution vessel
Tasting notes:
Imagine kittens bursting from a box, only it’s rye instead of kittens and the bottle instead of a box–such is the first hit of the nose. Then comes that sweet, corny bourbon thing we often get with Bourbon. [John: Imagine that.] But it’s really redolent and resounding with rye. It’s not clear exactly how much, as we understand it’s a propRYEtary mashbill. John got a submarine periscope, replete with maritime must. Bill got a birchbark canoe on the horizon through the viewfinder (yes, his nose is that good).
To continue the strained metaphor, on the mouth the rye rises up like a sounding whale. The rye’s as integrated into this dram as the whale is into the water: it’s not like it’s in solution, but hard to imagine it not in there and somewhere else. There’s great spice at the end of the mouth from the rye also, and that’s coupled with a thin, waxy syrup mouthfeel that’s not quite viscous, but is clingy–not unlike a melted candle that just couldn’t stand the idea of you breaking up with it.
The finish is sweet and almost cloying. The sweetness and syrup hangs in there with the tenacity of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. [Bill: Well, that escalated quickly!] There’s lots of pepper and spicy herbs, including a couple of interestingly indistinct herbs that rise above the fray to fight it out on your palate in a big finish that rivals that of Neo and Agent Smith at the end of The Matrix.
Rating:
On the scale of cloyingly sweet things–
The Bib & Tucker 10 Year Old is Karo® Pecan Pie*–This rating fails to capture the spiciness in this dram, so think instead of eating Karo Pecan Pie immediately after eating a true Cajun gumbo, and you get the idea.
*Karo Syrup did not sponsor this post, despite our tireless efforts stalking trying to contact the CEO.
—Stephen
–Our thanks to Bib & Tucker (and Chandni Patel of R\West) for the sample!
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