Four Roses Small Batch Select - Review
Age: No age statement (blend of 6- to 7-year-old according to the distillery)
Barrel type: Standard bourbon (charred fresh oak)
Region: Kentucky
ABV: 52%
Price: $58
Additional details: non-chill filtered, natural color
Since their reintroduction into the U.S. market, Four Roses has had a few standard bottles that you'll be able to find on the shelves of just about every liquor store worth its salt in the country. Four Roses' intro-level bottle, commonly known as "yellow label," is a respectable cocktail bourbon, and its high-rye character works particularly well for Manhattans. Four Roses Small Batch is their solid, unobjectionable everyday sipper, and Four Roses Single Barrel is one of the three or four best bourbons available at $40-45. Between these three versatile expressions, most whiskey enthusiasts will find something that suits their budget and taste.
Everyone who's a fan of bourbon recognizes their iconic logo with -- you guessed it -- four red roses. This spring, the distillery unexpectedly announced and introduced a bottle that they're calling the "fourth rose." Taking a new spot at the top of their lineup, Small Batch Select is supposed to be a higher-proof, unfiltered blend of six of the distillery's ten proprietary recipes: OBSV, OBSK, OBSF, OESV, OESK, and OESF. (For a primer on the recipes, check out my review of an OESK Four Roses Private Selection here.) According to Four Roses, the three unique yeasts used in this blend (the V, K, and F strains) should produce flavors of delicate orchard fruits, spice, and mint.
We found a bottle of this at Liquor Barn in Louisville and proceeded to take it along with us on a week-long Midwest road trip. Along the way, we managed to "appreciate" this in quite a few different settings, using a variety of glasses -- purely for research and writing purposes, of course.
Appearance: If you've seen Four Roses Small Batch, then you've seen the Small Batch Select bottle. It's the exact same, simply with a dark brown label. In the glass, the Small Batch Select is the oiliest and most viscous of the lineup, befitting its high proof and lack of chill-filtration.
Nose: This one's an odd duck. It shifted dramatically several times during the course of our trip, and rose and fell in my estimation correspondingly. My first experience came when nosing it directly from the bottle, and that may showcase this bourbon's tremendous potential the best. These early scents included dense maple syrup, molasses, stewed fruit, a hint of oak, and craisins. However, I found that it was hard to replicate this depth of sensation when poured out into a glass, where I had to fight through considerably more ethanol only to run headlong into a whorl of rye spice, heady, musky florals, honey, and more citrus fruit. On one night, I could even swear I got a sweetened soy sauce impression from it. It's not unpleasant, just very different.
Palate: Again, this chameleon seemed to transform from day to day. I found that I preferred drinking this in a rocks glass rather than a glencairn, which is a rarity among whiskies, almost all of which benefit from the latter. On some sips, it feels like a classic, high-quality, albeit slightly youthful bourbon, with honey and caramel coating the mouth with a full, creamy texture. Occasionally, that darker syrup lingers, while other tastes reveal high doses of rye spice. A few of the more evanescent notes glimpsed from time to time include craisins and unsweetened chocolate. There's an unusually low amount of vanilla flavors for a bourbon.
Finish: The rye is the star of the show on this finish. In fact, it's so pronounced that it almost becomes hoppy or bitter. At one point, it reminded me of the bitterness of biting into a cherry pit or grape seed by mistake while eating the fruit. The F yeast mint is here in spades as well, for better or worse. The intense combination of herbal, bitter rye and a drying, cooling mint scent is not my favorite, and I wish there were darker, richer caramel or dessert flavors to balance out some of the spice rack.
Value for Money and Final Impressions: The rising tide certainly is lifting Four Roses' boat. Twenty years ago, these guys were out of the American market entirely. Now, they have come roaring back with a number of hints, including their stellar Single Barrel series. Their latest release seems designed to capitalize on their newfound popularity. It's easily $10 to $15 more than the Single Barrel, and the only apparent benefit is a tiny 2-percent bump in ABV. Meanwhile, that comes at the expense of a year or two of age. In my book, this doesn't quite reach the level that I'd want out of a $55-60 bourbon. In that price range, it's now fairly easy to find Bulleit Barrel Strength, which is a similarly young high-rye bourbon but that brings a lot more to the table.
Rating: B