BOTM 5/10 Ancient Age

[Parkersback]

Grabbed a bottle of the AAA 10yr from TPS. The shipping to CA was about 12$/bottle. Ill let you know what I think when it gets here! =]

Hey, Cool Hand, how's that AA 10 YR? I've been thinking of pulling the trigger on an order from Party Source, I'd like to hear your thoughts, do tell.

[Parkersback]

So, since you cannot get it here in NY, some buddies and I went in on a case of the Ancient Ancient Age 10 Year Old that we ordered from the Party Source. This is the single barrel that the whiskey guy from Party Source selected.

Here's a brief review.

I'm drinking this out of a Riedel Bourbon glass.

It's not nearly as dark as I was expecting from a ten year old whiskey. Kind of golden.

The nose is also more young than I was expecting, but not necessarily in a bad way. I get popcorn, carmel corn, some wood underneath, some slight vanilla. Maybe little grass? Also a little licorice, and a definitely a little cherry.

Taste. This has gotten better since it has been opened. Initially it was this strong taste of caramel corn that had some edges that were too bright. The caramel is still there, but it has settled down a little bit. Corn. The rye is there, it's not particularly sweet (which surprised me, since it's cousins--Blanton's, RHF and ETL--are all what I would consider to be pretty sweet). Decent mouthfeel.

(On the rocks, it was more of the same. If anything, it thinned out in a hurry)

Finish. Meh. Not long, but not terrible.

My overall impressions are middling on this. I can think of cheaper pours I like better (EWB) and pours of equal price I like better (RittBIB, WT101, OWA). So I doubt I'd go out of my way to buy it again.

One of the ways I may finish this is the way with the way I drank it last night: on the rocks with a splash of George T Stagg. It muscled the AAA right up, gave it some guts. And the AAA toned down the Stagg a bit.

And I know that several of you just groaned, hearing I desecrated Stagg like that. But I'm just not that big of a fan. I don't dislike it, but it seems almost purposefully obtuse to me, it is so big and so challenging and so in your face. It's like a David Lynch movie or something. I can tell there is some greatness there, but it's hard to get to.

So I thought I'd mix it with one of its 2nd cousins. And I thought it was pretty good that way.