Elijah Craig 12 Year Old

Sometimes you get a bad bottle...a very bad bottle. This is one of those stories. The reviewed bottle has been open for 4 years and is 2/3rds full. 4 years is a long time for the bottle to be open, you say? Well, this bottle of whiskey is a lot better now than it was 4 years ago

If you read Jim Murray, you know that he hasn't liked Elijah Craig 12 YO in recent years. The Heaven Hill distillery in Bardstown burned to the ground in November 1996. The new distillate for the Elijah Craig 12 YO bourbon has been from a different distillery. The Elijah Craig 18 YO, 20 YO, and 21 YO currently for sale is to date still from the old distillery at Bardstown

Colour: relatively dark

Nose: for 2 consecutive years nothing but soap was perceptible on the nose and palate. With the bottle 2 years open, all of the soap suddenly vanished and there was a bourbon there for the first time, a very tasty bourbon. Four years running, this nose is pretty good: decent spice, caramel, and maple. Score now? 21/25 Overall cumulative review score 18/25 pts

Taste: the good flavours at open 2 years faded within months after that. Score now: 17/25; cumulative score 15/25 pts

Finish: this goes a little shrill with the wood flavours...not too smooth; now 18/25; cumulative 14/25

Balance: not very balanced even when it was good. Now: 18/25; cumulative 15/25. I can't review this now and ignore the fact that this was completely undrinkable for 2 years.

Heaven Hill should be able to improve on the Elijah Craig 12 YO to date. Certainly the cherry-picked barrels of the Elijah Craig 12 YO Barrel Proof version show that they can deliver a delicious product

Summary scores: 10/100 for the first two years; 74/100 now; 86/100 for a brief period at two years bottle open; and 62/100 overall, if and only if you were willing to wait this out. Of course most people would have thrown out the bottle in the first few months it was open

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