Elijah Craig - Small Batch 12 Year Bourbon

[AgentDrex]

A sample of my usual noisy photo, this time of some bourbon my buddy brought over to share a few weeks ago (apologies if I posted this elsewhere already):

 

[fjrabon]

great bourbon. It's my go to daily drinker.

 

[AgentDrex]

I had the misconception all these years that all bourbon tasted like that crap Jack Daniels and Windsor. If only I had known that there was something out there as sweet and smooth as Elijah Craig, I would have been drinking this instead.

EDIT: Can't believe I goofed like that...posted this and didn't realize I had written scotch accidentally...thinking about glenlivet for some reason...just finished up the bottle of that so I suppose that was on my mind...edited the correction in...my bad

 

[fjrabon]

their 18 year old is sublime, a bit more expensive, but still not terribly expensive for 18 year old bourbon.

 

[thetrue]

Bourbon? I like bourbon. I'm a Knob Creek fan, myself.

 

[fjrabon]

If I were forced to only drink 4 bourbons ever again, I'd probably have to go:
Wathens, Booker's, Elijah Craig 12, Blanton's

 

[TATTRAT]

Bookers, Bakers, makers Mark or Knob Creek are my preferred winter sipping bourbons. The Elijah Craig though, for a mid priced, mid-grade bourbon is really palatable. It has a nice sweetness to it that helps it make a GREAT Stonewall, if you are mixing. As noted above, the 18yo single barrel is nice, very nice actually considering the price point.

1 jigger and one rock. . . hell, I could go for one right about now to be honest.

 

[thetrue]

I'm young still, I'll grow in to the others, don't rush me!

 

[fjrabon]

Here's what I'll be partaking in over the next couple of days, since you mentioned scotch:

Talisker 25 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

 

[TATTRAT]

Smokey and peaty. With a 25 year age, and bottled 8 years ago, should be a nice sipping whiskey. I rather enjoyed most of the Scotches I had from the isle of Skye. My Dad and I had a great month long Scotland tour we promised ourselves, and hitting Scotch distilleries was actually the priority of the trip. An AMAZING time.

. . .I had a night, well about 4 years ago now, lets just say that things got really out of hand, the Scotch was flowing as easy as the conversation, fast forward to the next day: Worst. Hangover. Ever. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. . . even now, just the smell of Scotch turns me off. Not sure if it was the Scotch, or the Cigars that did it, but holy hell, I woke up feeling like a Haitian refugee camp had spent the night in my mouth, I could feel my pulse behind my eyeballs, seeing light hurt, and though I am quite sure people were talking in normal tones, I felt like EVERYTHING was screaming at me. Couldn't even hold down water. Great times!

 

[Tuffythepug]

I'll have to give the Elijah Craig a try. I generally keep a few bottles around for Sunday afternoon jams at my place. My bandmate's tastes are not necessarily refined to the degree that would warrant breaking out the good stuff; Let's face it if you're just going to splash some coke in it anyhow, what's the point ? Note in this picture that I keep my personal choice in the background.

 

[TATTRAT]

Yeah, if you are mixing, no sense in putting the money out. . . hell, after the third drink, it really doesn't matter what it is, lol. I do love me some Makers Mark. Such a nice, smooth, easy drinking Whik'key. Makes a fine Manhattan too.

 

[thetrue]

Maker's mark is what I go for if the track runs out of mine. It is quite smooth, especially after you've been enjoying some drink for most of the day already

 

[AgentDrex]

I hear ya about the mixing. No need to bust out the good bottle if you're going to pour Cola into it. I'll have to try Talisker some time. Maybe a friend or two will go in on a bottle with me. I'm a Vodka drinker first and fore-most however, having just been introduced to good scotch and bourbon since late last year. I'll post this crappy photo of my semi-rare bottle of Jewel of Russia Ultra (this was taken December of 2010 so I was still learning. White balance was set off of a sheet of 90 bright copy paper under flourescent lighting and background was the copy paper I used, then over-exposed a tad to hide the sides of the paper as they overlapped to create the background):



If you look at the leading left edge of the bottle, you will notice the overlapping paper. I had no idea what I was doing and know a lot more now, so will try to re-shoot this as I still have the bottle luckily. They only sell 20,000 of them world-wide, each bottle being hand-painted with four different styles a year, so in actuality, there are more than likely only 5,000 of these bottles in existence.

 

[fjrabon]

I drank a lot of makers in college. Now, eh, I mean its okay I guess. Wheated bourbons seem to lack character to my tastes. Their new makers 46 is pretty good though. I thought it would be gimmicky, but you really can taste the flavor of the added oak staves. Plus I think it's aged better.

By the way, Elijah Craig 12 is as expensive or more than makers, so it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to get it to save your makers. EC 12 is cheap... For 12 year old bourbon. It's still definitely NOT a cheap bourbon. My favorite cheap-ish mixing bourbon is Jim Beam 7 year old.