Review #15: Eagle Rare (10yr): Bourbon

Score: 8.6 / 10

Distillery: Buffalo Trace

Type: Kentucky Straight

Whether you like it or not, every person that enjoys whiskey should have tried this bourbon at one point in time. A great easy sipper, but also a good benchmark to higher grade whiskeys. I've always said in the back of my mind that it's not not as good as eagle rare, why don't I just buy eagle rare? Another reason to get that good log of table whiskeys going is so you do land on some things that you do want to re-visit without rolling the dice each time. In my opinion this is definitely one of those whiskeys. We actually did a comparison of this live on episode 13 or our whiskey podcast Po It Up here in case you are dying to discover more about this one vs a local store pick.

Whiskey Review:

Nose: big oak, spice, coffee and brown sugar. Musty corn hangs around on the outside of my nostrils.

Palate: Initial mouthfeel is very juicy and almost airy, the whiskey feels like it expands on the palate and takes up as much space as possible. Flavors swing between sweet corn and vanilla cream pie upfront (sugary with graham cracker notes), oily cinnamon with a nice bourbon huge on the back-end. The heat is very mild and the citrus notes are evident throughout.

Finish: draws dryness to the front of the mouth. Leaves long lasting lemon zest, cinnamon and woodiness while other favors fade quickly.

Score 8.6

Scale:

S+ Sensational - The Pinnacle (9.5+)

A - AXEceptional (astounding) (9-9.5)

B - bravo (step aBove average) (8-8.9)

C - competent (7-7.9)

D - disappointing (6-6.9)

F - flush it down the toilet (fail) (5.9 below)

Notes: Availability? Common - Uncommon. Here in Denver this is pretty easy to find. However, that is not true everywhere. For instance NY doesn't get store picks, and other distribution issues can occur. However, if this is your jam it's easy enough to source from friends or order from different locations.

Love me some Eagle Rare picks and I was lucky enough to have a friend find this one for me down in KY. This is the 5th Eagle pick that I have added to my collection. Standard Eagle Rare 10 is a great whiskey, but the picks take them to the next level and always offer something unique. I think in this case the coffee notes on the nose combined with the airy mouthfeel and lemon finish really stand out to me. I have a couple of other picks where one has intense watermelon flavor (incredible) and the other smells like pure mocha on the nose. I think the point I am trying to make is keep an eye out for these picks, because in my opinion they are one of the best values in bourbon right now.