George Remus Binny's Single Barrel Select Straight Bourbon

VITALS:

- $65

- 124.2 Proof

- Barrel No. 483

- Indiana

I do love store picks. And I do love MGP bourbon. Luckily, both are usually pretty easy to find. The George Remus bourbon has been out for some time, but I hadn't taken the time to try it. I've had pretty much every other product coming straight out of MGP, such as Eight & Sand, Metze's Select and Rossville Union Rye.  I've even had the big brother of George Remus, the Remus Repeal Reserve Batch III (which was spectacular!), and they've all been really good.

So, when the opportunity to grab a store pick of George Remus bottled at cask strength, that was just something that I couldn't pass up.  And when you consider the prices that you see on other barrel strength bottlings of MGP product sold under a different label, $65 for a barrel strength single barrel of MGP bourbon is, in the end, a very decent price.

On the nose I got a lot of sweet bakery notes. There was a lot of brown sugar, as well as a sweet vanilla icing note. It had that baked goods smell to it as well, though, like the smell of cinnamon rolls or coffee cake. It even had a bit of a walnut note to it to kind of round out the experience. I only wish the nose was stronger than it was. Surprisingly, despite the high proof, I found the nose to be kind of soft and dainty.

I had a similar experience with the palate, too.  Despite being well over 120 proof, I got very minimal alcohol burn with each sip. That was very surprising, in a good way. It allowed the flavors to come through much more.

The first impression that I got from this was smooth, salted caramel. This is totally unrelatable, but I remember having salted caramel ice cream for the first time years ago while passing through Atlanta. I loved the flavor of that ice cream, and they even sprinkled a small amount of salt on the top. The flavor here reminded me of that experience.

It wasn't all sweet caramel, though. It had a grain forward note to it, kind of a corn flakes note, but sweeter. Perhaps more like Frosted Flakes? It also had more earthy notes. There was a distinct but not strong wood note to it, and the walnut note that I got on the nose came through as well.

This bourbon had a long, sweet finish. There was no spice on the back end, but rather more of a dark brown sugar note that stuck around, and at times it was almost a molasses note that lingered.  I was surprised at how sweet this whiskey was, and I did yearn for a bit more spice. But all in all, this was well worth the price of admission.

Grade: B+