Ezra Brooks - Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey - Port Wine Cask Finish 49.5 Cask Finished Series "OB"

Ezra Brooks - Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey - Port Wine Cask Finish [Cask Finished Series / Official Bottling] 49.5% abv.

A new Cask Finished Series Lux Row Distillers’ Ezra Brooks brand: an expression finished in Port casks. Formally known as Ezra Brooks 99 Proof Cask Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Port Wine Casks, this is a take on Ezra 99 Bourbon (made from a mash of 78% corn, 10% rye, and 12% malted barley) that gets a 6 month long additional finish in authentic Portuguese Port wine casks.

This is the first in what is planned to be an annually released series of different cask finishes.

The nose offers restraint: Boldly spiced with a stronger rye punch than expected, it’s sharp and fiery, with elements of toasted corn, burnt match heads, and cayenne. Time in glass encourages a gentle raisin quality to percolate, a significant charred quality endures. A closer analogy would be fruitcake or, perhaps less accurately, slightly burnt cinnamon toast.

Again the palate keeps things more savory than expected, though that’s not exactly a complaint: Toasted cereal notes and ample barrel char hold sway, tempered by various elements of butterscotch, cinnamon candy, and some mint syrup. Time in glass helps these sweeter qualities to build, but again it’s never the Port bomb that I was expecting. Rather, notes of milk chocolate, spiced almonds, and a mix of raisin and Maraska cherry rise en route to the finish — which is lasting but, again, quite toasty with its enduring, smoldering barrel char quality. A layer of vanilla returns the final moments of the fade-out back to unfinished expectations.