Bourbon Tasting Notes From Bourbon Madness Night

 In cooperation with the incomparable Lindsey Pickard, the following are the tasting notes from Bourbon Madness Night, also known as "what happens when your extrovert friend organizes a small party and then gets sick and can't show up."  All of the following are what I was sent as messages as we were going through my bourbon stockpile.  It is worth noting that there's some synesthesia even when she's sober.  I'm sharing all of this because she did a pretty good job of expressing flavor complexity in a way that I wouldn't normally manage, even if she will probably go "oh God" and hide under something as soon as I post this.

She established fairly early on that bourbon's default color is apparently a dark green, like a hunter green or a rifle green, which led to some re-tasting to see what else was in there.  Where possible, I have linked back to my own previous reviews of the same material.  I have lightly edited and reorganized to group products from any given distillery.

First, already reviewed, the Isaiah Morgan Distillery: "*Coughs painfully*"

Bardstown Fusion: "Household green. (On second tasting) Bright red with yellow overtones.  Dark green is still there, but I can taste the rest of the chord."

Black Patch agave whiskey: "Blue-green glass, followed by lime green or spring green at the very end."

Garrison Brothers Honeydew: "Orange and red at the same time, like a chord.  And a hint of yellow at the top like an overtone."

Hye Spiced Rum: "Dark blue, bits of orange and lime green."

Hye Dark Rum: "Tastes like sugar cane and RED."

Black Patch bourbon: "Red and purple chord."

Town Branch: "Blue-orange-green-red clay in rapid succession."

(Note: For what follows, my explanation was "And now we're gonna ride the moonshine Wonkavator.")

Samuel Bryant "Tennessee Pete" pseudo-scotch: "Green, then smoke."

Samuel Bryant blueberry moonshine: "As expected, but with a touch of lime green at the top."

Samuel Bryant coffee moonshine: "Where blue meets purple.  Your tankard.  Also, dark brown cocoa nub."

Samuel Bryant peach cinnamon: "Robin's egg blue."

Shining Rock root beer moonshine: "Black.  Just black.  ??!!!!???"

Shining Rock apple moonshine: "I can taste different apples.  One with a dark green flavor.  Dark green and a bright green together.  It tastes like a Jolly Rancher."

(Note: "... And now we're gonna bring the Wonkavator in for a landing.")

Woodford Reserve: "Pink and orange like a sunset.  With red.  The most is orange."

Maker's Mark: "Green and orange, but like fuscia or bright purple."

My wife's coffee liqueur: "Mallorn dirt."  Out loud, there was much explanation of how this meant it was the perfect plant in the perfect soil, and therefore perfect.

In summary, after a while, I could see where she was going with each of these and could generally make educated guesses about where any given flavor profile was going to wind up.  However, it was an interesting way of expressing flavor complexity, and as a result, I share it as literal tasting notes.

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