Sunday, April 6, 2014

BTAC 2013 Review Smackdown Part 2 - Sazerac 18

This is part 2 in a series of my quest to acquire the entire 2013 Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. This is the final bottle I acquired from the collection so I'll give the backstory on how I obtained it and then go on to the review.

Sazerac 18 turned out to be my own personal unicorn. Getting this bottle proved to be brutally difficult. I tried numerous swaps on various trading forums over the course of a few months. Most of what I had to offer was declined - combo offers of Handy 09, multiple WTAS, EC18, multiple OFBB ‘13, CEHT BP, ECBP, EC21, among other things. The only hits I got were for people wanting to trade other things for my bottles or one trade that had me losing my ass and I wasn’t ready to do that. My only option looked to be either buy one at $250-275 on the secondary or give up. I loathe secondary reselling and wasn’t about to encourage it so I broke down and choose the option to give up. I decided to part out everything I had been hoarding to trade for the Sazerac. I took pictures and wrote up a post offering to trade all of it for whatever. In a remarkable stroke of timing luck just as I was about to publish my trades someone on one of the trading sites replied to my month old ISO post saying they would take 3x OFBB for one Saz 18. Eureka! I happily agreed.

End of the story, right? Wrong. What I actually received was a Saz 18 labeled Fall 2012. Same vatted juice but completely unacceptable for my 2013 horizontal. Things looked grim again for another week while the guy I traded with tracked down a 2013. I have no idea why he didn’t pay attention when I specified several times it had to be 2013. It took him about a week and I was starting to think it wasn’t going to work out but he eventually tracked one down. Here today we have that bottle and the end of the quest for my holy BTAC grail.

45% ABV; Aged 18 years

Nose: Very little heat. Sweet and then spicy, sort of like the Handy but not nearly as intense, especially on the spice. You can tell the long duration in the wood has smoothed out the rye’s sharp edges. Lots more sweet from all the years soaking up wood sugars. Vanilla, clove, caramel, mint, cinnamon. Slight bitter medicinal tint but still very pleasant.
Taste: More dry than the nose but lots of the same flavors. Herbal and botanical. The spice is there but has been really softened up by the many years spent in the wood. Less sweet than expected. It’s really a good balance of soft spice and dry sweet oak. The oak isn’t overbearing considering the age which is surprising. Rye tingle starts to come on at the end.
Finish: Minty rye tingle lingers for quite some time. Finish is moderate to long which is surprising give the lower proof. Dryness really comes to a head here, all the flavors seem dry - dried cinnamon sticks, dried mint leaves, dark chocolate cocoa powder. Deep long low burn which is again surprising given the proof.
Notes: This a good whiskey but I don’t know if I would seek out a bottle again. I am not the biggest fan of older aged ryes which is probably a good thing for my wallet. I tend to prefer my ryes younger with more pep and intensity. I’m also a bit of a barrel proof zealot and this one is certainly lacking on that front. If I saw it on the shelf I would certainly buy it but at 10 proof higher and easily accessible I think I prefer the Taylor rye over this. It has more intensity in the young flavors that I prefer yet still some age to give it some layered complexity.
Rating: B / B+

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