review #5: Burnside Bourbon ("Eastside Distilling"), 4yr barrel aged straight bourbon whiskey, 48% abv

there's one thing I wonder about

This is just a curiosity. But it's not outrageously priced (msrp $27.95) and not awful.

My first impression was second-rate Buffalo Trace: a lot of creamy corn and sweet oak flavors -- vanilla, coconut. So not a big revelation, since BT costs about the same. But still, they managed to age it in new oak and put it in a bottle with a gratuitous age statement and it's not terrible.

It did turn on me though. But the pleasant flavors thinned out, some feinty edges came out, and there were some strange vegetal notes -- like overcooked vegetables or kitchen scraps that have sat around too long. Then on the finish, an odd, chalky/woolly/slatey taste that I associate (maybe falsely) with charcoal filtering.

So it's probably just remaindered LDI juice (where else could it be from? KBD, I guess.), but it would be interesting if someone is labeling Tennessee whiskey as bourbon. Or maybe they just did something weird to it. Oddly, it tastes like an even younger whisky trying to seem older.

And what's with 96 proof? I guess they rectified it themselves, at least.

score: 72

more:

here's an interesting write-up and comment thread on what "procured by" amounts to

also:

the picture on the bottle seems to be Ambrose Burnside, who has nothing to do with Burnside St and Bridge in Portland, but he did seem to have invented sideburns.