Old Elk Blended Straight Bourbon Whiskey Review
Old Elk Blended Straight Bourbon Whiskey Quick Stats:
Spirit: Old Elk Blended Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Distiller: Old Elk Distillery
Aged: Blended Whiskey 5 years aged
Price: $50
Proof: 88 Proof
About The Distillery:
“We started with passion and vision. To transcend tradition by creating a timeless bourbon recipe and innovative process that elevates the bourbon landscape. As a result of his passion to create a legacy bourbon brand with unsurpassed quality and taste, Curt turned to Greg Metze, a Master Distiller with 38 years of experience specializing in developing bourbon whiskeys. In doing so, This collaboration produced an innovative bourbon, which transcends tradition. This evolved into the collaboration of Old Elk Distillery with Master Distiller Greg Metze. His visionary leadership refined and enhanced the Old Elk bourbon recipe to create a top shelf bourbon.”
About The Bottle:
“The key to our bourbon is our high malted barley content in our mashbill. We invested in our bourbon by using four times more malted barley than traditional recipes. In doing so, we created a non-traditional bourbon that generates sweet and light components. The malted barley combines with the spicy essence of clove from the rye. The classic rich bourbon character from the corn, amounts to a robust and smooth taste profile.”
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Nose
(4)
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Palate
(3)
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Finish
(3.5)
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Proof vs Heat
(3)
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Value
(3.5)
Summary
Summary
Nose: Crisp maple with splashes of vanilla and anise
Palate: Watery Smoothness with strong notes of vanilla and oak
Finish: Non-oily lingering peppered chocolate, leather and a hint of tobacco
Review:
Old Elk is pretty ubiquitous at this point in time. You shouldn’t have a problem taking a trip up to your local, decently size liquor depot and be able to spot this bottle with its cross-section of a tree trunk for a topper. This is their lowest proof selection from Old Elk and has a high malted barley content and a small portion of rye. The corn and malted barley make the bourbon a light and sweet pour, smooth and watery on the palate and something you can quickly drain your glass of without realizing you have done so. It is an 88 proof drinker and we’d dare to say an exceptional mixer as well.
The pour has quite a polite nose on it. Greeting you with the scent of freshly mixed maple waffle batter made by a chef who was a little heavy handed on pouring the vanilla extract in. You can really leave your nose sit in the glass and just bask in that aroma without being punished by the ethanol that a higher proof whiskey would have.
Sweetness and wood reign supreme on the palate. The palate is watery, yet flavorful giving the drinker those sweet notes of vanilla and maple. Chocolate comes running up near the end once the other two make way for other flavors to be discerned. Charred oak hangs out in the background not making too much of a show of itself until the finish.
The finish spotlights the rye aspects of the mashbill. Here we find the spicier flavors of the pour. Dominated by peppered chocolate and baking spice on charred oak, the finish hangs about for a little under 30 seconds due in part to the watery nature of the pour.
At 50$ a bottle, it is a solid purchase. Mixer or a sipper, this pour is good pick that’ll do the trick for an everyday drinker.
User Review
( votes)
Orion has been friends with Greg since their high school days.
His love for whiskey grew as he tried different pours Greg was reviewing for Whiskey Culture. And, when Whiskey Culture began traveling around the country, he went with them to document their whiskey expeditions.
Orion now works full-time for Whiskey Culture managing our production schedule and ensuring the quality of our content. He oversees our contributor program, and can be found alongside Greg during their trips to Kentucky either behind the camera, or behind a glass of fine whiskey after a long day of shooting footage.
