Evan Williams Single Barrel 2002 Black Sheep Of The Family
800 casks were said to make up the 2002 vintage of Evan Williams Single Barrel, so WC must have won the lottery and received the black sheep of the cask family. The not-so-clever acronym for Evan Williams Single Barrel is EWSB and, coincidentally, that is akin to the first sound that emanated from our mouths upon tasting the 2002 vintage. It went something like “Eewww, splfftbb!!! What was that!?” Turns out it was not a jug of rancid battery acid but rather a brownish liquid purporting to be a fancy schmancy bourbon.
Look, we may very well not know a fancy schmancy bourbon if it smacked us in the face and called us Nancy but we do happen to know what a whiff of battery acid smells like and it was eerily similar to EWSB 2002. No, of course not, we joke. Heaven Hill Distilleries would never get away with, um, we mean sell, battery acid as bourbon. So let’s call EWSB 2002 an inspired effort from the wrong side of the rickhouse because this batch in the bottle we sampled was definitely not like the others of its family which we have seen on the receiving end of numerous butt-kissing, glorious reviews. This one was the obvious black sheep of the EWSB family. It was the uncle who went for all the get-rich-quick schemes and made all the wrong decisions in life and now drives a 1981 brown Datsun station wagon with kitty litter in the back and one working windshield wiper.
Our black sheep EWSB2002 began with an aroma of anger but we weren’t certain we could place the source of the anger nor were we sure what it was angry about – all we knew is that our nasal cavity was absorbing the brunt of the bluster. Once the ruckus was somewhat subdued, the tasting began and it became clear that a wood of some sort was at fault. The first thought was to immediately blame an oak, but the culprit could have been disguised as an oak to pull the hounds off its trail, so we’re not throwing a bad oak under the bus until we see the DNA evidence.
Nevertheless, based on the reviews we have seen of other upstanding EWSB 2002 pillars of the community, we are going to assume something went wrong – horribly wrong – with our uncle, er, cask and suggest that you give EWSB 2002 a second chance. It doesn’t cost too much and if lightning strikes twice, there is probably most certainly a black sheep uncle in your family who would love to receive a bottle of slightly used bourbon for his birthday.
Color – Honey brown
Nose – Very angry pomegranate
Taste – Like a piece of rain-soaked wood after an intense, sweaty aerobic workout
Alcohol – 86.6 proof [43.3%]
Price – $25
WC Rating – 5.7
