Great value rye whiskey from Jim Beam. It's a favourite of whisky bible author Jim Murray, and won best rye aged under 10 years in 2010, scoring 88 points. The label received a bit of a redesign in 2016, changing from a yellow label to this rather stylish green label.
The spice is immediately apparent... nutmeg, cloves, freshly-ground black pepper. It's clearly going to pack a punch. There's also some maraschino notes too, with a thick caramel undertone.
The spice delivery is not immediate; first there's a brief caramel vanilla note before it plunges you in. All the notes from the nose are here, delivered with a pleasant, fiery warmth.
This rounds off to smooth cherry and pepper, with a slightly citric sweetness.
Right. This is simply great for the sub-£30 price tag. I'm off to make an old fashioned...
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I do second the author of "Not much there, but refreshing", to drink purely you really don't get too much out of it in terms of taste and complexity. It's rather flat, doesn't rest a long time on your palate, but it's still very different to Jim Beam's white label bourbon while being very elegant and smooth, that's why I can't imagine anything better for mixing Manhattans and Sazeracs and that's why it's, above all critique, great value for the money.
A thin, crisp whiskey. Does not really taste like a rye. More like a bourbon/rye hybrid. There is no body and it gets boring before the bottle is done. But on a hot summer night, over ice, it can be quite nice, in the way that a shot of cheap scotch can be nice when it's really cold outside. Nothing special here.
