Four Roses 2011 Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon
Opened: December 19, 2011
55.1% Alc/Vol (110.2 proof)
Price: $79.99
Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Barrel Strength, non-chill filtered
OBSK – 13 years · OESK – 11 years · OESV – 12 years · OESQ – 13 years
Tasting Date: January 16, 2012
Color in glencairn glass: Baked golden apple brown.
Nose: Deep, fruity, just-polished shoe leather. Honeydew, kiwi, skittles. Black cherry soda with vanilla ice cream float. Watermelon.
Taste: Clover honey right up front on the entry; the honey feels warm and calls forth saliva. Shoe leather and tropical fruit explodes on the palate. The finish is long and spicy, sweet and fruity all at once.
This bourbon enters my mouth on one of the most sensual sweet notes I’ve experienced; warm, tropical honey that holds the juice of melon fruits which have been caramelized in a reduction. The palate shows a fair amount of smokey, leathery wood sweating melon nectar and is the least complex and least interesting aspect of the whiskey. The finish returns to honey and spice with the alcohol finally showing up. There is more than enough body here to artfully manage the 110.2 proof, and I feel no need for water.
Four Roses brings to market another exotic specimen of elegant bourbon that caters to a profound sweet tooth while coloring outside the lines of the expected bourbon profile.
Value: $90/$80
This limited edition bottling utilizes four unique bourbon recipes out of the ten that Four Roses distills and ages. Unlike the 2011 Limited Edition Single Barrel, which took a few months of breathing to really open up, the small batch took around two weeks to develop for me.
I can’t help but remark that I continue to be flabbergasted by the bourbon I taste from bottles bearing the name Four Roses. In addition to the two 2011 Limited Edition bourbons I have reviewed so far on here, I have had a handful of Binny’s hand-picked single barrels of various Four Roses recipes, each of which is typically aged for 8-9 years (OBSQ, OESQ, OBSF, OBSK), as well as their standard single barrel and standard small batch. I have my favorites (and easily recommend with glowing enthusiasm you go pick up their standard single barrel as soon as you can!), but so far everything I’ve tasted from them has been worthwhile.
When you taste enough whiskeys made at the same distillery, a common family profile begins to emerge. Getting to know the profiles achieved at Four Roses has been a pleasure as well as an education, and I’m thrilled that this kind of whiskey art is happening.
Whiskey Wonka 
[…] am of the opinion that FR bourbons often fall into two categories: classic and exotic. The 2011 LESmB had an exotic profile that I relished, and the 2012 LE Single Barrel (1B) followed more the […]
Four Roses 2012 Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon « Whiskey Wonka said this on February 3, 2013 at 12:42 pm |