Four Roses Single Barrel Collection - OBSF Recipe

Nose is bold and a little all over the place with rock candy, cinnamon sugar, basil, various wood tannins, clove, pepper, and mint. While none of those things are off-putting on their own, the jumble doesn’t come together particularly well. That said, the ethanol is low so points for that. Palate brings cinnamon bear gummy candy, generic apple, black tea, the clove from the nose, a metric ton of pepper, rye spice, hay, and slightly bitter oak. Drinks hotter than the proof would indicate. Bone dry finish gets into herbal territory with tea leaf, barrel char, bitter oak, spruce, and some sort of floral note which is hard to identify because I don’t eat flowers but at gunpoint I’d say rose petal. Lingering minty toothpaste-like finish which goes on forever, but you wish it was shorter. As you may have gathered, this was not my jam. Lots of herbal, floral, and bitter notes without the sweetness I would have liked to provide balance. Easily the worst of the series. I’ve read reviews labeling this as “traditional” but I think not; where’s the vanilla, caramel, or cherry? Worst Four Roses product I’ve had, and a major disappointment.

An elegant, Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey by Master Distiller Brent Elliott in Kentucky crafted with a mash bill of 60% corn, 35% rye & 5% malted barley: using yeast F. It has an aromatic birth with notes of grains, wood, fruits, nuts, flowers, herbs & spices; while a rich & spicy life adds notes of molasses, butterscotch, mint, cinnamon, maple syrup, cherry blossom, cherry & orange Jolly Ranchers; that led to a balanced death of medium length with notes of orange marmalade, pepper, oak, clove, cocoa powder, toasted marshmallow, rye, pipe tobacco, crushed walnuts & pine sap. March 2024

Nose evokes apple, char, orange oil, clove, cocoa, and vanilla. Alcohol well-integrated on the palate, with a friendly Kentucky Hug. Lingering finish shows oak, vanilla, and a focused espresso note with caramelized sugar. Four Roses single barrel is one of the best values in the market today, and can be found for just north of $50--for a complex, single-barrel, 100-proof bourbon. Aged 7-9 years (per company website). 50% ABV. Recipe OBSF. Warehouse JW. Barrel #80-2B.

Great to see Four Roses expand the single barrel to other recipes. This one leads with floral, mint, chocolate and red fruit. It is a rye drinker's bourbon all the way. I get a lot of rye spice and clove intermingled with vanilla throughout the experience. I see more apple mentions than red fruit so I'm not sure if I'm picking up the fruit correctly, but this bottle has been open now for 8 months or so and has improved with time greatly.

Nose: Sweet, vanilla, bright, powdery. A bit of sweet mint as you sit on it. Palate: Sweet and soft right off the bat, starts to get a bit prickly on the sides of the tongue, then explodes into rye spice and prickly black pepper Finish: The black pepper fades back into a thick, bitter rye spice and settles into flat, heavy tannins and touch of rye sweetness

Warehouse NS, barrel 13-1 V Nose: candy mint, caramel Palette: spearmint up front, lots of menthol notes, but not very refined. Almost tastes hotter than its proof of 100, where the cask strength single barrels have more to focus on, with less bite, this one seems to focus more on the mash bill than what the yeast brings to the table. Was expecting more.