Review #119: George Dickel Bottled in Bond Fall 2005

George Dickel recently released a 13 year old bottled in bond expression at a very reasonable price and it hit Texas this week! I’ve been enjoying Barrell and Smooth Ambler’s Dickel sourced releases and am a fan of bottled in bond so I had to pick one of these up.

George Dickel Bottled in Bond Fall 2005

Age: 13 years

Abv: 100 proof

Color: A medium amber

Price: $40.99

Neat

Nose: Chocolate milk powder, toasted marshmallow and a bit of mineral water

Taste: More chocolate, marshmallow and minerality with some warm spice and faint oak notes. Decent mouthfeel but thinner than I expected.

Finish: Medium length finish where the age really shows with strong oak notes with supporting spice and chocolate.

Conclusion

I liked this whiskey though it’s not going to convert you to Dickel juice if you’re not a fan and overall isn’t anything crazy to write home about.

It is very comparable to the new 13 year Smooth Ambler Old Scout Single Barrel Select so I decided to do a little side by side. Unfortunately all of my first bottle of SAOS SiB Select evaporated so I can’t compare this whiskey directly with that one but I did pick up a second bottle in trade from a friend who doesn’t like Dickel. It clocked in at a slightly lower 96.8 proof than the first one’s 99 proof and wasn’t quite as tasty. Compared to the 96.8 SAOS bottle the Dickel BiB was had a stronger nose, thinner mouthfeel, less spice, more oak on the finish and a bit more of that Dickel mineral/vitamin note. Overall I preferred both bottles of the SAOS SiB Select to this but not by a huge margin.

TL;DR: If you’re a Dickel fan on a budget this hits all the right Dickel notes at a great price but if you can swing the extra $24 I’d go with the Smooth Ambler.

On a side note some folks are concerned about the lack of age statement on the label; it’s on the website and in their press materials. I think that’s just for classic marketing bs so they can reduce the age of future releases without having to change the label but who knows.

1 Star - Good whiskey: I would choose to drink this over readily available whiskies

You can also follow me on Instagram(@atxbourbon) or reddit to keep up with these reviews and my other whiskey-centric adventures.

Scale