Maker: Brown-Forman, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Style: Standard recipe bourbon filtered through beech and birch charcoal and aged in pre-toasted, charred barrels .
Age: NAS (4-6 y/o?)
Proof: 86 (43% ABV)
Price: $24 (The Party Source)
Appearance: Medium copper.
Nose: Lumber yard, caramel corn, fennel, nutmeg.
Palate: Full bodied and mellow. Grape soda, tootsie roll, bubble gum.
Finish: Creme brulee, dark chocolate. Similar to a Speyside Single Malt.
Mixed: I tried it in all my usual whiskey cocktails: Manhattan, perfect Manhattan, Old Fashioned, Holdfast boulevardier, with Coke, with ginger ale, and with Benedictine. It excelled in every one of them, hampered only by low proof in the boulevardier.
Parting words: This bourbon from Brown-Forman, with its recipe somewhere between high(ish) rye Old Forester and high corn Early Times, is intended as a tribute to the Brown-Forman cooperage in Louisville, Kentucky. B-F is the only Kentucky bourbon distiller with its own cooperage, a rightful point of pride for them. Cooper’s Craft puts that wood to work (I’m pretty sure that’s a Lil Kim lyric).
The pretoasted barrels and unique filtration process bring out sweet, chocolate flavors rarely found in bourbons, macrodistilled ones anyway. At 86 proof, it’s not a world beater, but honestly “some different flavors” is more than one expects for $24 these days. Cooper’s Craft is recommended.
Sipology 