Early Times 354 Bourbon

Early Times 354 Bourbon is a product of Brown-Forman, which also owns the Jack Daniels, Old Forester, and Woodford Reserve brands. Early Times 354 Bourbon is the relatively recently re-introduced true bourbon whiskey version of Early Times, which has marketed a very widely sold Early Times Whiskey which is not a true bourbon, because it is aged in a combination of some new wood, but also some used oak. Bourbon cannot by US law be the product of any used wood aging. This is a review from a newly opened bottle. If I observe significant oxidation effects from this bottle later, I will post them in the future. There is no age statement on the bottle. I would estimate the age to be 3 to 4 years old

Nose: smell of heavy char, strong wood with strong wood spice, moderate rye spice. Quite sweet, and also floral, with the scent of carnations. A very decent nose for a 40% ABV bourbon

Taste: everything in the nose translates onto the palate, though with less finesse and less definition. There is a lot of flavour for a 40% ABV bourbon here, including a lot of char flavour. Heavy char works against subtlety in my mind, but it gives robustness. The wood flavours are ok, but not great. More wood aging would probably improve this a lot. I'm not adding water to a 40% ABV bourbon

Finish: long, with lots of sweet wood flavours and char. Robust once again, but unrefined

Balance: the nose is actually the high point here. Overall balance is reasonably good

This is young but with a lot of flavour. Early Times 354 Bourbon is not at all bad if you like heavy charring being used to bring out the wood in a young whiskey. I don't like the heavy char flavours myself, but I think many in the mass market will find them acceptable, especially for mixers and on the rocks. High flavour heavy char bourbons work relatively well with ice

This is not a connoisseur's whiskey, but is probably fine as a mixer. Early Times 354 Bourbon is certainly more interesting than the Early Times non-bourbon Whiskey