Picture Me Rollin'
In his hit song "Picture Me Rollin'", the late Tupac Shakur says: "Any time y'all wanna see me again, rewind this track right here, close your eyes, and picture me rollin'." He was letting all the haters out there know that he was out of jail, free again, driving in his 500 Benz, and loving life; no longer behind bars. If you wanted to know what he was doing, he was driving down the freeway with the top down. He was not sitting in a dark cell.
As for myself, I am not sitting behind a desk, doing mindless inventory work on my computer. I'm drinking booze and writing stuff down while I listen to music, actually. If you want to picture what I'm doing right now, I've got three bottles of Four Roses open on my desk, Tupac bumping on my iPhone speaker (guess which song?), and I'm writing the following tasting notes. Any time y'all wanna see what I'm doing, check out the above photo, close your eyes, and picture me tastin'.
Four Roses K&L Exclusive OESV (10 years & 11 months) Single Barrel Cask Strength Bourbon $66.99 - As long as the country's best Bourbon distillery allows us to keep buying delicious single barrels, we'll keep taking them! This is brightest and the boldest of the three new casks; the most powerful at 60%, the most vivacious with lively spice, and the most expressive. At nearly 11 years of age, there's plenty of richness, but the palate is surprisingly lean in the face of all the punch. There's a blast of cinnamon, a jolt of toasted oak, and then a dusting of fresh pencil shavings on the back end. With water, these core flavors soften and then integrate beautifully. This would be a fantastic rocks whiskey because the inherent vanilla flavor, buried deep in its core is released when the proof is tamed.
Four Roses K&L Exclusive OBSV (10 Years Old) Single Barrel Cask Strength Bourbon $66.99 - This 10 year old cask of formula OBSV is remarkably soft and rich on the entry, with accents of pepper and pencil shavings towards the finish. The mouthfeel is creamy and supple, yet the flavors of the Bourbon itself are never sweet or decadent. There's a bit of burnt sugar on the finish, but most of the whiskey's core flavors are herbaceous and spicy. It's an incredibly intriguing dichotomy, and one of the more fascinating casks we've chosen in some time. At ten years on the nose, it's right in the sweet spot.
Four Roses K&L Exclusive OBSF (11 year & 8 months) Single Barrel Cask Strength Bourbon $66.99 - I know we're just getting into summer, but this cask has fall written all over it. The nose is an explosion of mulled spices and dried leaves with a blast of vanilla towards the back. The flavors on the palate are savory at first, with bits of bitter herb cloaked in charred oak. The finish is deceptive in its intensity, beginning slowly with soft accents of dark vanilla, and building methodically towards the encore. Baking spices, cocoa, and whisps of peppercorn. It never boils over, however, finishing with grace and subtlety, even at 56.1%. Lovely stuff.
-David Driscoll