Pappy Van Winkle opinion

[Boom Boom]

Larceny was my gateway bourbon. That and Weller are very easy to start drinking neat or on a big rock. After a bottle or two the burn disappears and you start getting all the little notes. Larceny gives me a caramel and toffee syrup flavor.

Old Weller Antique was mine. Had always been a Jack guy, but saw a note that said One Bottle Only on that, wondered what the deal was for a $20 bottle, and holy **** I was hooked as soon as I tried it.

 

[NTDawg]

I did a budget bourbon reboot a while back. Evan BIB was always my go to. Unless I want a wheater, in that caseLarceny is the no brainer.

Early Times BIB was my winner. Benchmark Bonded was #2 (I hate nearly every other Benchmark too). Evan Williams BIB fell to #3.

@NTDawg will put Turkey 101 up there too.

But Evan White label is very good.

At that price point EW BiB, WT 101, JTS Brown and Old Forester 100 are all really good, different but good. A lot of people are turned off by the nutty profile of EW BiB but I like it. I also like Ealry Times BiB better than those and it is supposed to be close to the same price but it is hard for me to find in MS. I just bought a bottle for $30. As good as all of those cheap bottles are they are not as complex as bourbons in the $50 to $75 price point. I like EW BiB but I'm not confusing it with ECBP (from the same distillery).

 

[theoriginalSALTYdog]

I was at an event last night were the host pulls out a full bottle of Pappy. I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a big bourbon drinker, I drink rum and can generally tell the difference between cheap rum and good rum. I was genuinely disappointed in the Pappy, it tasted like most any other bourbon I’ve drank. I wish I could have appreciated it but it was just meh!

For the money I'll take Maker's Mark and Woodford Reserve all day long. . . . .

 

[Jacknut]

Just finished off a Old Forester 100 the other day. Good bourbon for $25.

 

[The Peeper]

I can count on one hand the number of time I've had bourbon in my life. The last being over 30 yrs ago. Just never cared for it. Fast forward to last weekend when a friend brought Blanton's to the lake. Wow!

That has me wanting to get into bourbons some.

Same here, you'd be wasting it if you gave me the most expensive bourbon made because it would just sit on the shelf. I had a customer give me a bottle of Makers for Christmas about 1990 or so that has my name printed on the bottle, still unopened and very dusty

 

[She Mate Me]

Same here, you'd be wasting it if you gave me the most expensive bourbon made because it would just sit on the shelf. I had a customer give me a bottle of Makers for Christmas about 1990 or so that has my name printed on the bottle, still unopened and very dusty

You might be surprised at what that bottle is worth to someone out there.

 

[She Mate Me]

Depends on what you mean by cheap. There are bottles of bourbon I like as much as expensive bourbons starting in the low $30's. There are bottles I like a little bit more up to the $60's but the bang for the buck is pretty small there and after that I'm not sure there is any bang for the buck. Much less so than with Scotch at least. The cheapest scotch I can find that I will drink is in the mid $40's if you find it cheap. Start having options in the $60's, but there are a couple of bottles that I just can't match for less than $100. Certainly lots of $100+ scotch that aren't much if any better than the $60 ones, and the couple I am thinking of may be more my personal taste than really being "better".

I still consider cheap to be less than $25 or so per 750ml.

I can pick up a 1.75L EW black label for $27 or less. That's cheap to me for a perfectly drinkable bourbon.

 

[She Mate Me]

Yes that replaced the Henry McKenna 10 year BIB as my base bourbon after the McKenna won those awards and went through the roof. PLEASE don't put it in any contests. They are both Heaven Hill brands.

That reminds me of my best example of how lucky we were during the dog days of bourbon.

My base bourbon in the 90's was Evan Williams 1783. It actually had a 10 year age statement and my recollection is it was about $10 a bottle. This one is probably from the 80's, but you get the idea...



Does that bottle shape remind you of anything?...



At some point the 10 year age statement on 1783 became No. 10 Brand and it was never the same.

I feel sure that the 86 proof, 10 year old juice I used to get for $10 a bottle is now going in a McKenna bottle at 100 proof and bringing $65+.

We didn't know how good we had it.