Willett 80th Anniversary Bourbon Review

The history of Willett in TLDR form: 

• get mega hype hype hype famous selling old whiskey sourced from long defunct distilleries
• start distilling your own product
• release very young in house products (hey baby, here's just the tip)
• watch people go crazy for it based on the reputation of sourced whiskey
• $$$$$$$

That sounds pretty bitter and well, that's because it is but I've seen enough crotch shots of Willett 2 and 3 year rye to know there are lots of people that think landing any Willett product is a major score. 

Honestly, I like Willett and I feel like their stuff will be pretty good one day soon because most of what they are putting out now shows promise. I'm just tired of the hype machine around them because thus far the only in house products are pretty young so there's a low ceiling on how good they can be. So along those lines, here is another such product that was released at the gift shop back in March of this year. Apparently it is set for national distribution which has already started and will be limited to 5200 bottles.

No Age Statement; Bottled in Bond; 50% ABV; $35; thanks to /u/_glab for the gift

Nose: Very sweet. Some grainy corn, lots of wood sweets, cinnamon, and a bit of new make ethanol.

Taste: Corn grain, lots and lots of cinnamon, a little earthy dirt funk, and your typical vanilla caramel sweets. There's as much wood influence as you'd expect for a 4ish year old Kentucky bourbon but not enough to cover up all the rough ethanol notes. The finish is a lot of dirty, dusty, dry cinnamon. I don't know what that dirt funk note is but I often get that in other micro/craft distilleries like Garrison Brothers and this reminds me of their bourbon. This is the first time I recall tasting that in any Willett product.

Thoughts: I don't like it. It's not horrid but it's not as good as the Old Bardstown Bottled in Bond Willett put out earlier this year. As expected, it's a youngish, corn forward bourbon but there's some sharp off/craft notes here that are ruining things. The dry cinnamon note is really odd to me and so overbearing there were sessions where it was all I could taste. Given my impression, I was completely shocked when someone told me people are paying $200 on the secondary for this. What the fuck is wrong with you people? Get off my god damn lawn.

Note: In all fairness, I might be a crotchety old man. For a contrasting opinion, Liquor Hound gave this a much better review.

Rating: D+

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.