Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon review and tasting notes
The Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon is an honest, clean, smooth, warm, and enveloping spirit, infinitely better than the basic Four Roses, which isn’t quite a whiskey bomb.
This is a nice upgrade, with thickness, always excellent drinkability, but a wider gustatory fullness. While the base product may be fine for making very spartan cocktails or drinking with cola, this Four Roses Small Batch manages to shine. Mind you, it’s not a bottle to climb Everest for, but it’s nice to see that when you put it in, the guys from Lawrenceburg know how to do it.
How is Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon made?
Unlike basic bourbon, which is very bland and sweet, with corn dominating in a monothematic way, this Small Batch is the product of a selection of four particular blends. The amount of rye is greater and therefore, the peppery, spicy and mentholated tones emerge. The argument is always the same: Four Roses can produce excellent bourbons, but rye costs more, is much more valuable and is used only in more expensive and exclusive products. And you pay the difference, since the cost is more than double, as it should be.
Organoleptic characteristics of the Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon
The nose is classic, caramelized, intense, dominated by red fruit in syrup, endless cinnamon, woody tones, vanilla, honey, butterscotch and popcorn. The rye’s more pungent and peppery tones brilliantly balance the underlying sweetness. Overall it is clean and well designed.
It is smooth, warm and velvety on the palate, but the rye is always ready to bite to give freshness and breadth to the sip with pungent and nutmeg tones. It articulates with ease, it is never too overbearing or hot, but rather it remains soft and easily readable, although it does not have an exaggerated persistence. Very intriguing finish of vanilla, wood and black cherries.
Price
33-36 euros: a fair price you are happy to pay for a whiskey that does not disappoint and offers substance and a tasty simplicity that invites you to drink.
Cocktail to do with the Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon
Drunk neat, it is discreet, but never put ice on it or you will lose all sensitivity and feel only the alcohol. Use it to make historical cocktails such as Boulevardier, Old Fashioned, Irish Coffee, Mint Julep, Sazerac, Godfather, Rusty Nail, Rob Roy, Old Pal, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Toronto, Penicillin.