Distiller Notes
Wine Enthusiast's Top 100 Spirits of 2019
Each batch of Elijah Craig Barrel Proof is an uncut Small Batch of 12-year-old Bourbon bottled straight from the barrel. This bourbon has a deep amber color. On the nose, caramel with toasted oak, fruit notes of apple and orange. Rich vanilla, caramel, and butterscotch along with spices of black pepper and cinnamon at the back of the palate.
Professional Ratings
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Whisky Advocate
Here, a perfect harmony delivers crème brûlée, butterscotch, fruit, cinnamon, and rising cornbread. Right away complexity sets in, delivering salted baked almonds, cashews, dried apricot, pistachio gelato, Nutter Butters, salted caramel popcorn, rye toast with brown sugar butter, and sugarcane. Somehow, a drop of water makes it even more complex, amplifying the butterscotch and presenting cinnamon-soaked roasted pecans and almonds. Pure bliss; a must-sip.
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Wine Enthusiast
This 12-year-old cask-strength whiskey offers chocolate and vanilla aromas. The drying, numbingly hot palate opens with fiery cayenne and clove, yielding a Mexican chocolate-like effect. Balanced with water, the whiskey evolves into an oakier dark chocolate profile, lightened with almond, ginger and white pepper.
Although Bourbon may be produced anywhere in the United States, it is most commonly associated with Bourbon County, Kentucky, where it has been produced since the late 18th century. Made from a mash bill containing at least 51% corn, the Bourbon Whiskey distillate must be aged in new, charred white oak barrels. Bourbon Whiskeys are bottled at eighty proof (40% abv) or higher and cannot contain any added color or flavor. A versatile spirit that can be sipped neat, with water or on the rocks, it also performs nicely added to cocktails like the Old Fashioned.