Tonight I'm enjoying another pickup from my friend bourbon hunter extraordinaire. Thanks for snagging it for me Jake. This particular whiskey, a bourbon, is called Blanton's. It's made at the Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky.
Of Blanton's four expressions only one, the 'Original Single Barrel', is regularly made available in the United States. It was the first 'single barrel' bourbon marketed in the country. Single barrel whiskeys work a little differently than my description of mixing and bottling in Whiskey 103. In this case the whiskey in each bottle comes from a single barrel, requiring pains to ensure consistency and quality in every barrel produced. Note that because this is not cask or barrel strength it is still cut with water down to a specific ABV, which here is 46.5%. There's no age statement but supposedly Blanton's Original is aged 6-8 years.
Blanton's is a good example of a bourbon with a high reputation that relatively hard to find. They're much harder to find than Buffalo Trace though much easier than Pappy Van Winkle. This is in addition to price, I'm simply comparing by scarcity. It retails about $60 but unless you're buying from a government liquor store with price controls (and usually lotteries) you'd be fine paying up to $75.
A cool part of this bottle is the cork. It includes a metal horse on top and a letter. There are eight different cork designs and if you collect them all it shows eight points of a horse race and the letters spell out B L A N T O N S. I got a letter N, though not sure which one.
I first heard of and recognized Blanton's from Justified, a show about a US Marshal in Kentucky. Unsurprisingly some bourbon is consumed, and after a hard day it often was the good stuff. Blanton's was a favorite of the protagonists boss, the head deputy in Lexington.
Time to have some. I'll just link to Blanton's directly. My normal sites don't add much.
Smell: It smells like smooth bourbon, caramel, vanilla, spices
Color: Medium amber
Taste: Creamy sweetness and wood, vanilla, some fruit?
Finish: Smooth, bit of spice, hint of burn, then everything disappears requiring repetition
At first I didn't want to love it. I sometimes pigeonhole bourbons, disappointed in lower proof ones. However this is fantastic. The front-end flavor is great and then it just disappears, normally something I don't like but really works here. This is what I feel most people want in a whiskey. It tastes good and is super easy to drink since there's barely any burn. With it I've discovered I can be okay with that in a bourbon. Blanton's is definitely deserving of a high reputation and I would drink it anytime.
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