Well, a new NFL football season is upon us, and I’m an unrepentant Detroit Lion’s fan, so who knows what this year holds in store.  The team hasn’t looked great in preseason, but adding Reggie Bush in the offseason can’t help but make us better, and we still have Stafford, Suh and Megatron, so I suppose hope springs eternal!

For this week’s bourbon, I tapped a local resource.  A few years back, when I decided to take my bourbon fandom up a notch, my family jumped in to help me try to find some good selections.  In her endless calling around, my mother stumbled upon a store in Birmingham, MI called Kakos Market.  The people at Kakos were wonderful, talking with her for long periods of time and making recommendations for other bourbons that might fit her son’s flavor profile. They pointed her toward some absolute winners, which I will reference at another time.

I dropped into Kakos myself last week, looking for a few specialty bottles, and while in the store, they showed their own small batch barrel of Elijah Craig 12 year. I had a taste in the store, and took a bottle home for myself, to try today.

Every once in a while it happens where I can taste a good bourbon, know it’s a good bourbon, but just not feel it myself.  This is exactly what happened here.

My take: This is a spicy bourbon.  The nose was full of autumnal scents – apple, corn, nutmeg – a lot of fruit and nuts. And wood, lets of wood.

The taste carried this over.  The flavor popped with spicy oak, corn and fruit.  It fills the mouth, and has a pleasant taste, but as you may know by now, I like sweeter bourbons, and this one has some burn.  It’s dry, and has a long, strong finish.

I know it’s a quality bourbon, but (and maybe it was just my mood that day) it was too harsh for me.

Dan scale (1-10): 7.0