Belle Meade was launched in 2012 by a couple of local brothers, Andy and Charlie Nelson. Last I heard, they officially launched Green Brier Distillery in Nashville back in 2014 with a eventual plans of selling a Tennessee wheated bourbon. That distillate is probably far from ready so for now we just have products sourced from MGP in Indiana that the Nelsons have blended, bottled, and/or finished. I really enjoy MGP bourbon but for whatever reason I've never liked the standard blended Belle Meade. I do however like all of their single barrel products I've tried as I find them to be on par with other cask strength MGP bourbons like Smooth Ambler Old Scout. I typically enjoy finished whiskies and want to support the hometown guys so I took the plunge on their newly released cognac finished bourbon.
No Age Statement; 45.2% ABV; Batch No. 1; $82
Nose: Sweet and spicy. The high rye MGP mashbill is evident as there is a good bit of spice as well as some menthol. Surprisingly there isn't as much cognac influence as I expected.
Taste: Very sweet and not as spicy as the nose. Upfront it's a lot of typical bourbon sweets with a decent amount of wood depth. On the backend is where the cognac starts to come through with some fruity grape notes. The cognac influence doesn't seem heavy handed though it does seem to be mellowing out what would normally be a spicy finish.
Thoughts: I like this a lot better than the standard Belle Meade but that's not saying much. Even though I never got around to reviewing it, I enjoyed their 9 year Sherry finished bourbon quite a bit more than this. Given the price, I'd go with their ~9 year old cask strength single barrels over this any day.
Rating: C+
Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.
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