George Dickel 15 Year Tennessee Single Barrel

This is "bottle 21" (do they mean from barrel 21??), single barrel, 40% ABV, and its been sitting in the Utah Dept Alcohol Beverage Services warehouse for a year before hitting store shelves. Grabbed it without looking carefully at the proof--was not expecting it to be so low from reviews I had read. Tasting neat. Brown shiny copper color and average coating legs in the glass. Nose is bubble gum, oak, caramel corn, and wet roasted peanut shells. On the palate, it's thin corn syrup, damp rock mineral, artificial fruity bubble gum. There's some oak but it's wet, with little tannic or char bite. Thin mouthfeel. Little vanilla and almost no baking spice. The finish is acerbic, musty, and blessedly short but for that artificial fruit flavor. I've never had a problem with Dickle products as some people do, but this is a huge disappointment. Part of that is my fault for not looking at the proof (and passing on this 80 proof bottle). Maybe at 90 or 100 proof it would reveal some character, but this is ... not. Single barrels are a crap shot, but this one is...not a shot. After reading others writing about this 15 year bourbon (here, but especially the Breaking Bourbon website...they loved this but did warn of inconsistency barrel to barrel) I feel cheated by getting a really weak barrel cut to 80 proof. I'd be happy with a tannic over-oaked bourbon (as some reviewers noted) over this nothingburger bottle. I hope you have better luck. At least be smarter than me and avoid an 80 proof bottle. Insult to injury? The bottle does NOT sit flat--it ROCKS on the table.🙄😑 Revisited this 3 days later, and... I wasn't wrong--this really is a very weak single barrel bottle. An ice cube washes this out, and I can't see it holding up in any cocktail. Very disappointing purchase. Taking it down to 2.25 generous. And the bottle still rocks like a dashboard hula doll. WTF!

Well boy can you smell that Dickel mineral flavor! Like opening a jar of Flintstone vitamins and taking a whiff. But Flintstones stop with the mineral, and the whisky continues on with a load of deep caramel, dark sugar and chocolate malt powder. Smells a lot like the dough for my favorite brown butter cookies. Mouthfeel is almost heavy, with a light oily texture, and very approachable. No heat, no burn, no ethanol. Palate is sweet, but balanced. There’s a big wallop of caramel and vanilla but then a slew of baking spice shows up and grabs your attention before the slightest bit of oak brings it all to a neat, clean, and enjoyable close. It isn’t overly complex, and you’re not going to spend 20 minutes dissecting this and finding new flavors. But then you don’t have to because it puts everything out front, where it’s easy to find and easy to enjoy. Approachable. And quite tasty. And well worth picking up if you can find one near you.

Nose: caramel, orange starburst, vanilla and barrel smoke, delicious nose. Later a little woodiness like sawdust. Body: light and thin Palate: flavors exploded on the palate with sweetness, green apple, caramel, smoky chocolate Finish: long and smokey, caramel and orange starburst. The length of finish is surprising given the body. Note: this is a really tasty whiskey. A little confusing in that it’s light and thin but full of flavor. I would say no Kentucky or in this case Tennessee hug. Very easy to drink and has nice flavor. The palate follows the nose. The finish is long and smokey how I like it.

I have reviewed this once and I stick by my previous review notes but I have lowered my rating some.  That vitamin note that everybody talks about is definitely on this bottle and I’ve got to say the most disappointing part of this is, there’s no finish. This particular bottle has been proved down so much that the finish is just flat to not even present. If this had some spice this had a little bit more proof I think this would definitely raise my rating, but at this stage, I’ve lowered my rating down and this continues to be disappointing.

What started as mineral astringent verging on sour for the first, oh, 25% of the bottle, rounded out into a nicely oaked, creamy Tennessee whiskey through the middle 50%. However, the final quarter of the bottle returned to that over-oaked musty grape Flinstones vitamin flavor that I don’t enjoy from Dickel products. It’s a single barrel, and mine was a tick above 80 proof, so I’d be interested in trying one of the higher proof bottles, but I’d also just as soon get the Dickel Bottled in Bond instead, which I find much more balanced.

Well my old man used to drink George Dickel many moons ago… before single barrel was even a thing. This is the first i have tried as he had switched to Wild Turkey before i had an interest. This was surprisingly mellow and smooth! I also added funky in the tasting profile as there is something I haven’t quite put my finger on as far as flavor hints. But to be fair the brie, meat abd crackers might have been an influence. I usually do my tasting first. But nonetheless… i don’t think this is my father’s George Dickel experience…