It’s light enough to shrink in on itself in a cocktail, so if you like to taste the bourbon in your Old Fashioned, you might want to look a shelf or two higher up. I said earlier that it barely tastes like bourbon, with that wateriness and weird candy notes, so don’t buy this if you’re expecting a cheap-but-solid bourbon.Īt any rate, it’s one of the cheapest bourbons on the planet, and it’s super easy to drink, even neat. As it stands, I have no idea how they got this stuff to taste like this.
I would be totally unsurprised to learn that some loophole in the TTB labeling laws had allowed Buffalo Trace to tip a couple of ounces of bubblegum artificial flavoring into each vat. Experience the amazing taste and superior value of Benchmark, an award-winning bourbon whiskey of impeccable pedigree using Buffalo Trace. If it weren’t… you know… alcohol it could almost be marketed to children. Overall: This stuff has a powerful memory trigger for all the sweet fake sugary stuff I ate as a kid. At 40%, this definitely does not need any water. With Water: Water intensifies the weird artificial fruit notes in the aroma, and adds a layer of fresh creamed corn on the palate. Ends quickly with more bubblegum, and no bitterness. Reminiscent of the aroma – slightly tangy and quite sweet in a high-fructose corn syrup kind of way. Sweet corn (cornbread), plain bubblegum, marzipan, blanched almonds, and some light oak.įinish: Short. One-dimensional and almost cloyingly sweet-smelling.
#BENCHMARK OLD NUMBER 8 PATCH#
Fruit punch, cotton candy, and Sour Patch Kids round out the trip down the candy aisle of my adolescent memory. Nose: A piercing tangy note of – I kid you not – Bubblicious watermelon bubblegum. Sazerac moved production to the Buffalo Trace Distillery and tacked “McAfee’s” onto the name, in honor of the McAfee brothers who surveyed the site of the Buffalo Trace Distillery in 1775, long before it was built. 8 brand was purchased by Sazerac (Buffalo Trace) from Seagram in 1992, when it was originally distilled at the Four Roses distillery. Did I mention it’s $15 a liter? It’s $15 a liter. It’s bottled at 40% ABV in a bottle with a plastic screw cap. 8 Brand”), it’s definitely not 8 years old. Despite the big “8” on the front (for “Old No. In fact, it’s made from the same mashbill as Buffalo Trace, the Staggs, and Eagle Rare: 75% corn, 10% rye, and 15% barley (for enzymes). It’s Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey (meaning minimum 3 years in new oak barrels) from a sour mash, and it’s made by that paragon of bourbon virtue, Buffalo Trace. In 1773, the McAfee Brothers set out to explore uncharted territory, surveying land now home to Buffalo Trace Distillery. It’s more like a… thin fruity corn brandy, if you will. In fact, it’s shockingly, inexplicably NOT BAD.īefore we all join in on a chorus of “ding, dong, the expensive bourbon witch is dead” (is that too tortured a metaphor?), I have to point out that Benchmark is weirdly good, as in it doesn’t really taste that much like bourbon. Usually, a 1-liter bottle of bourbon with a nondescript black label and a pricetag of $15 would set off warning bells, but some less-cautious part of my brain said “hey, even if it’s awful we can make a lot of Old Fashioneds… at like, $1 apiece!” Luckily for me, it’s not awful.
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