Amburana casks are challenging to work with, as they impart strong cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and vanilla spice notes. True blending expertise is required to enhance the bourbon with Amburana and maintain balance. The BCS blending team created a bourbon blend of two mash bills with different char levels finished in sustainable Amburana casks. A vatting of individual casks without finishing was layered in to add depth, richness, and complexity, ensuring the bourbon shines through first and foremost. An intense baking spice character centered around cinnamon fills every nook and cranny of the tasting experience. It's a veil through which one experiences the aromas of chocolate, walnut, and toasted sourdough. The palate too has a narrative driven by cinnamon and spicy ginger beer with cameos from marmalade, tarragon, and hefeweizen. A healthy splash of water foregrounds passionfruit, goldenrod, and honeycomb. Appearance: Russet Nose: Cinnamon, and a lot of it. Along with other baking spices it suffuses nearly every other aroma. Heavily spiced horchata, café de olla, and banana bread all feature Palate: The texture is rich and buttery. Here, too, those oak-derived spices predominate, with licorice root joining the assemblage. Pumpkin pie is reinforced by masala chai and ginger beer. More traditional bourbon flavors of tarragon, verjus, and lemon meringue pie keep the oak in check. Finish: An array of citrus peels welcome in cider apple and dirty martini. Sweeter than the palate, notes of hefeweizen and dark cuban rum persist on the tongue thanks to some grippy tannin. 116.42 Proof
