Oh, BTAC. How I long for the days when the resellers weren’t spending every waking moment looking for you. They can have Pappy for all I care but BTAC is truly special. Ok, so it’s impossible to find BTAC bottles in a store. How about in a bar? If you can find it, there’s a good chance you’re paying a lot more for it than you should be. I draw a pretty solid line when it comes to price gouging both on store shelves and in bars. Markup is to be expected. 20x markup is just plain stupid.
The purpose of this preamble was to set up the fact that I was in Boston for a few days this week and even in a major market, I was able to find BTAC pours for decent prices including today’s review: the highly sought after William Larue Weller. This was the 2016 version of the barrel proof wheated bourbon.
WLW 2016 is bottled at a bold 67.7% ABV. Hot. This is a 2003 vintage putting it at 13 years old, right in the middle of my sweet spot for bourbon. I won’t get into all the details of warehouse floors, grain types, and barrel details but you can check out all that nerd stuff here (pdf warning).
| Category | Notes |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Dark Red Copper |
| Nose | Bright, grainy, allspice, vanilla, hints of sour, soft oak in the back, some really nice maple syrup emerges after a bit of time. |
| Taste | There’s the wheat! Vanilla, cherries, finally found some corn, cinnamon, more maple, nicely balanced, some dark dried fruits (prunes and raisins). |
| Finish | Nice deep oak and vanilla, nutmeg, very satisfying spice, chocolate orange. Great length. With water and time, gets quite drying. |
| Overall Thoughts | Overall Thoughts: BTAC is BTAC for a reason. Give me this over Pappy any day of the week. |
| Total Score | 93/100 |
