Colonel E. H. Taylor E. H. Taylor Single Barrel

I happily lucked out at the LCBO lottery last year and scored a bottle of this single barrel bottled-in-bond. You can never go wrong with E.H. Taylor, amiright? Bottle code is B1704114:21K. It's been open for almost a year.

The colour is a medium caramel. On the nose we have big notes of tobacco, wet oak, mint and armchair leather. Beef stock from the butcher. Black liquorice. Light molasses. Perfect caramel and vanilla help tick off all the boxes for a perfectly balanced BIB bourbon. Water accentuates mint and fennel. Fantastic.

On the palate we have more liquorice, with sage, mint, lighter caramel and Nicaraguan cigar. Lovely oak. Kalbi beef. Water scales everything up a few notches. Rich, complex but not without elegance thanks to the herbs.

The medium-length finish is slightly ashen with cinnamon, cloves and a dusting of black pepper. While it doesn't change the world, it is one of those always-excellent Buffalo Trace bottles that tickles the heart. Too bad its so hard to find now; I remember just a few years ago you could often walk into a liquor store and find it just sitting there on the shelf...ah, days gone by.