Still Austin The Musician Straight Bourbon

This is a Texas bourbon, and so it's different from the traditional Kentucky style bourbon. It's young by the calendar, but in Texas aging moves more quickly because of the climate (just as whisky ages faster in Kentucky than in Scotland). The mash bill is 70% white corn, 25% Elbon rye (making it a high rye whisky), and 5% Wildfire barley. It's 98.4 proof, cost me $39.99 for a fifth, is copper colored in the glass, and the label says it's at least two years old. NOSE: Sweet potato pie spice (NOT pumpkin pie, which I can't stand), almonds, corn sweetness, vanilla buttercream icing, smoky cashews, cinnamon chocolate. I don't think I've ever come across a whisky which melds things together into discrete notes (e.g. cinnamon and chocolate merging into a note of chocolate with cinnamon in it) the way this one does. MOUTHFEEL: Medium creamy. TASTE: Cinnamon chocolate, brown sugar, black pepper butter, dark chocolate. FINISH: Medium, beginning with black pepper, bringing in some oak, and mixed in with the other notes a hint of chocolate orange. SUMMARY: This is definitely a superior bourbon. It's now one of my standards - whiskies which I may not always have on hand due to limitations on fundage and storage space, but which I definitely will buy again and again. It's definitely worth the price, and I'd be willing to pay $50 (though it would mean I could only afford it perhaps one or two times a year). RATING: On my hick scale, which goes bottom to top 1-8, this is the 7th level - Right fine. That's the same as 4.375 stars, 87.5/100, or 8.75/10.

This is the very last time I take a chance on craft whiskey. This was supposed to be thee darling of the Texas craft whiskey community and I honestly might as well be sipping paint stripper with a faint whiskey flavor. The nose, especially at a distance can fool you into thinking youre about to have a typical flagship bourbon not dissimilar to the the major KY distillers. If you go in much deeper you will start to smell the ethanol like grainforward youth from the spirit, but it’s still not over powering. The front of palate is relatively pleasant with brown sugar and cinnamon. However once it hits the mid-palate it takes a HARSH turn, to a grainy industrial flavor that only intensifies into the finish. This whiskey is simply too young. No amount of variant climate differences from the TX heat, or solara style hydration techniques are going to cover up for the fact that the spirit hasn’t aged and developed mellowing wood sugar flavors extracted from longer term barrel aging. I would barely consider this worthy if mixing into a spirit forward cocktail like a manhattan or old fashioned. What ever you do with this its probably best masked as much a possible by mixers, bitters, sugar, fruit, or whatever else you can find. I do not recommend. Take your money, spend 50% less, for a 4X better product from a heritage KY brand. Hope this helps!

Sweet and spicy is the melody this musician plays. The nose holds equal parts of both, with a spice that is herbal and peppery like arugula, and a sweetness that is fructose and honey forward but yields a rich vanilla with some coaxing. Cherry pie filling, a hint of allspice, applewood smoke, and a touch of orange blossom wafting over green fields. The palate is played allegro forte, with a lively dance of flavors delivered on a potent ABV. There is plenty of canned fruit cocktail and pecan pie filling, plus an earthy rye and some cayenne that balances things out. The body is medium to full, and has a slight oiliness to it. She must’ve danced her legs clean off, because there are none to speak of. Though, a couple of swirls leaves a nice string of her pearls behind in the glass. The coda of the performance is somewhat short, semidry, and woody yet fruity, like peach pits and apple seeds. Plus, soft barrel spice and one final note of pecans in bitter dark chocolate brings the curtains to a close. Nose: 9 Taste: 8 Body: 8 Finish: 7

Nose: Vanilla and light charred/toasted oak, there is a background of a fruit or rich melon hidden in the nose, and maybe the smallest hint of herbal green tea or toasted grain. Palate: While somewhat thin, it has a decent carry over and nice proof on the palate. It has melons, almost an artificial candy flavor like paddy taffy in a good way. A decent finish the longer you sip it, but on initial sips the finish doesn’t linger too long. A few sips in, it has a nice light fruit and a bit of a cooked grain finish. Finish: At first light and thin, but the more you sip the more it hangs around and is like a cooked grain and melon mixture of a finish. Not displeasing in the least. Overall, it tastes like a young whiskey, but is not particularly thin or punchy. It is a decent 2 year old dram, but I very much look forward to tasting their more aged products. I am a fan, and can’t wait to see more from them. I will likely pick up their full line if the next bottles I try from them flex their muscles a bit!

I went ahead and bumped this to 4 stars. It tastes much better than expected with its young age. That doesn't mean that it doesn't show at times. It certainly tastes hotter than its labeled proof. Spice, coffee, vanilla, nougat, and oak on the nose. Im getting some banana and apple quickly on the palate, which dissipates into that nougat that I noticed on the nose. Some graham cracker. There's a roasty note that lingers on the finish, which is quite pleasant. Solid mouthfeel. Quite a bit of depth, and even with its heat, it doesn't undermine those flavors. Could possibly be the best 40$ bottles from a craft distillery I've bought in some time.

Nose: Sweet caramel, cinnamon apple Palate: Caramel continues up front, and then transitions quickly to cinnamon and other baking spices Finish: Short-Medium, spice lingers on Overall a nice balance of sweet and spice, what really caught my eye with Still Austin's flagship bourbon is it's 98.4 proof. Not only is it a bit higher than other brand's core bottle (which you might find anywhere between 86-94) but it's only 20 points lower than Still Austin's Cask Strength version (which I own and drink at home.) This Texas bourbon is aged around three years now a days, and is an amazingly solid sipper for a brand's flagship bottle.