I recently drank a fair amount of this Boone County Single Barrel at an ABH meetup and even got to take home a sample to review! Boone County primarily sources from MGP and has picked some excellent single barrels such as this one. It’s hard to go wrong with 10+ year age stated, cask strength MGP but I feel like these folks have been doing an especially good job picking barrels.
Boone County 12 Year Single Barrel Cork and Barrel Pick
Age: 12 years
Abv: 118.8 proof
Neat
Nose: A potent herbal medley with strong vanilla and sweet caramel notes behind the herbs
Taste: Caramel and vanilla notes backed by cherries, herbs and baking spices, especially clove, alongside a rich velvety mouthfeel.
Finish: Medium length with rye spice, herbal and faint caramel notes.
Conclusion
This is one of the best unfinished MGP bourbons I’ve had. I broke out my remaining SAOS SiB and my Joseph Magnus SiB from OLC. This was just generally a bit better than my current low proof SAOS and had a better nose and mouthfeel than the OLC Magnus but not as good of a finish.
I very nearly gave this a 10/10 but the finish left me a little on the fence so I got down my trusty, sadly low, bottle of Old Rip Van Winkle to remind myself of a 10 and the Boone County fell just short due to the finish. I would love to try a 14 year old version of this or couple other 12 years and see if one can hit that 10/10 bar.
TL;DR: Phenomenal MGP bourbon, excellent
9 - a favorite I’d like to keep on my shelf
Great - A great deal, I’d buy it again
Scale
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