Nice Sipper's Review of Jefferson's Reserve Single Barrel Bourbon
2 of a 2 part series: Old World meets New World
What a great sip that Glendronach 21 Year Old Scotch was. The complexity of flavor and the well balanced aging was absolutely delicious. It was one of the better sips I have had and I hear the Glendronach 18 Year Old is actually preferred by a lot of folks. Luckily I have a bottle of that that I am waiting to crack open, but that is for another day.
We said our goodbyes to the Old World with a delicious single malt scotch – the GlenDronach 21 Year Old Parliament. What better way to celebrate from breaking away from our colonial past than to drink America’s native whiskey, bourbon…and one named after the very man that wrote those famous words “we hold these truths to be self-evident”...Jefferson’s Reserve Single Barrel. This particular bottle is a store pick from one of my favorite local shops.
ABV: 50%
How it smells…classic bourbon notes including vanilla and cinnamon, but also banana like a banana foster.
How it tastes…vanilla and soft oak at the start followed by toffee and caramel. The end is sweet with honey and cinnamon and allspice on the finish which is a bit drying.
Price…$70
Rating...🥃🥃🥃🥃
Final thoughts….This was a really delicious sip. I was a bit concerned as I haven’t had a lot of Jefferson’s in the past and I didn’t want to have to give a subpar rating for this July 4th review, but I knew it was going to be enjoyable at the first whiff. On the sip, it’s a classic bourbon profile with lots of vanilla and cinnamon and just a touch of oak. The sweetness and spiciness work in harmony throughout the sip. I really enjoyed this and I’m going to have to start carrying a Jefferson’s on my shelf going forward, so a 4x 🥃 seems appropriate. It is a bit high priced at $70, but you get decent proof, and as a single barrel store pick, there’s always a bit of a premium price to it.
Jefferson’s is a bit tight-lipped on their website about what’s inside the bottle, but they have always been transparent that they source their whiskey. They call this one “Very Old” and “Very Small Batch”. From internet sleuthing, the “Very Old” moniker is allegedly a blend of 8-18 year old bourbon with the “Very Small Batch” meaning a blend of 8-12 barrels. I have seen websites that claim they blend 3 different Kentucky bourbons together, some say 4, but they all seem to agree that they are each mash bills that use rye as the flavor grain. The question is whether they are vatting the sourced bourbon from various distilleries prior to barreling or blending the individually aged juice afterwards. As a Single Barrel, this would mean this either has a blend of bourbons inside or it is just a sourced barrel that has been bottled under the Jefferson’s brand. If the latter, “Very Small Batch” indeed is small, as it is one barrel.
The wonderful part of whisk(e)y is that it comes in all varieties, especially since the new whisk(e)y boom began 10+ years ago. When the craft distillers started innovating, the Old Guard distillers scoffed at them. Said their new methods, their creative ways of using finishing casks and new grains in the mash bill were all hogwash. The way whiskey was made was the way it was made for a reason. According to The Ancient Ones, they had tried all of these tricks in the past and settled on a “traditional” way of making whiskey, so whiskey drinkers should disregard these new producers and their new ways. Fast forward only a handful of years and all of The Ancient Ones began experimenting with new ways to craft their spirits with new, unique flavor profiles.
Personally, when I was first bit by the whiskey bug, I started off trying a lot of the releases from these newer craft distilleries. Some were very good, some were promising, and others simply sucked. I didn’t mind paying premiums ($50 a bottle) back then for the craft whiskeys when they proved interesting or promising, but there were too many duds in the mix so I switched my attention to the The Ancient Ones….but then I noticed how much The Ancient Ones were mimicking the craft upstarts with new types of grain, new mixes within the mash bills, and of course, new types of finishing casks. I’ve started to go back to the craft distillers, many of them have been distilling for 10+ years now and they’re putting out some impressive whiskeys. In the future, I’ll be paying them much more than I have in the recent past, but there’s still plenty of wisdom to be learned from The Ancient Ones, and plenty of bourbons, ryes, single malts, and blends that I haven’t gotten to yet.
I hope you continue on this journey to me. I will always post free content for my readers, but the free content will tend to fall under the entry-level price range for various types of whiskeys. Premium bottles, the price range of which will depend on the whiskey category, will be exclusively available to those who subscribe.
Cheers!