I recently had some friends from a local bourbon group tell me that Caribou Crossing was basically Canadian Blanton’s so I went and tracked some down and did a side by side taste off. Blanton’s is a NAS single barrel release from Buffalo Trace that comes in a fancy bottles and has garnered a lot of hype lately.
Blanton’s Single Barrel
Age: NAS
Abv: 93 proof
Color: A deep gold
Price: $61.99
Bottle: Warehouse H Rick #26 Barrel #1409 Bottle #278
Neat
Nose: Sweet honey, vanilla and warm spice notes.
Taste: Sweet honey again but with more spice than the nose, less vanilla and some citrus notes. Very easy to drink but with a decent mouthfeel for the proof.
Finish: Medium length and slightly dry with lingering spice and a little vanilla.
Stars: 1 - Good whiskey: I would choose to drink this over readily available whiskies
Conclusion
When you get past all the hype this is still a great bourbon and I’ll gladly pick it up at near retail whenever I can. It’s especially good as a step up from 80 proof entry level, for lack of a better phrase, bourbons. That said I really don’t think it’s worth the hunt especially when you can grab the more readily available, higher proof and similarly priced EHT Single Barrel.
Next time we’ll see how the Caribou stacks up!
Summer 2019 Update
Well EHT SiB is just as hard to find now and I’d recommend hunting Blanton’s over EHT SiB if you’re going to hunt one. Otherwise just grab the EHT Small Batch.