Henry McKenna Bottled in Bond Arts & Crafts Review Series Part 1/7

Here is the start of a followup to a huge side by side tasting I did involving twenty years of Henry McKenna Bottled in Bond. The TL;DR version is after trying some amazing Henry McKennas distilled in the mid 80s that run circles around the current product, I thought it would be fun to run through the years since then to see how the profile has changed. The grand side by side turned into a bit of a disaster though as there were just too many samples involved. In an attempt to salvage some sense of usefulness, I'm running through what vintages I have remaining in a more typical review style. On deck we have:

• Barrel No. 0083, Barreled on 12/05/86
• Barrel No. 0208, Barreled on 05/01/92
• Barrel No. 0232, Barreled on 04/19/93
• Barrel No. 0324, Barreled on 05/09/95
• Barrel No. 0328, Barreled on 05/20/96
• Barrel No. 0842, Barreled on 10/24/01
• Barrel No. 1024, Barreled on 05/30/02

(Left) Aged 10 Years; 50.0% ABV; Barrel #083; Barreled on 12/05/86

(Right) Aged 10 Years; 50.0% ABV; Barrel #3035; Barreled on 03/14/06

Nose: Typical caramel wood sweets, light young green wood note, and a little spice.

Taste: Creme brûlée sweets, a decent amount of oak and a bit of spice. Again there is a touch of a green wood, like a young sapling tree. It's not that it tastes young, there is just a strange young wood note in addition the older oak notes. There are some darker notes in the finish like cocoa but overall the whole profile is a bit muted.

Thoughts: I had high expectations for this one considering it was the oldest McKenna bottle I personally acquired. I was hoping for something close to the quality of the 1984 distilled bottles but it's not there. Tasting this side by side with a current bottle, it does taste noticeably richer, more sweet, has less grain notes, and has more oak depth. The condensed bourbon notes I mentioned in reviews other pre-fire McKennas are there but it's just not as impactful some of the best ones. While this is still better than the current offering, I think the best lesson to take away here is even in the pre-fire era of McKenna, older does not mean better.

Rating: B

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.