Had a great time at the Houston Whiskey Social this past weekend. Probably sampled close to 60 different bourbons. An unreal experience, overwhelming and mindblowing. The absolute best was the pappy tasting - healthy pours of 10,12,15,20,23. there is no wonder this brand is at the top of the spirit. they were all excellent, compared to all the others. the next best 5 were part of the BTAC - wlw, gts, er17, and two ryes - Sazerac 18 and thomas h handy. Those were the most interesting of the bunch, all excellent as well. also tried 5 samplings from the knob creek limited edition collection. they had 4 different years of birthday bourbon - (14,15,16,17). I was disappointed in these. My first tastes of birthday and they were not as good as the pappy or btac selections.
of the affordable/available bourbons, liked cody road, Hudson, mb roland, 1876, cotton hollow, widow jane. there were so many good ones and hard to be noteworthy when you sample so many in such a short time. they all run together after a while. I was disappointed in the barrel booth. they had probably 10 of theirs there, and I tried at least three and none impressed me. this is disappointing because I have a batch 12 I've been saving back, thinking it will be worth something. it will not and I will be cracking into it soon.