This series of reviews comes from a tasting held by my friend Mark at his place (Editor’s Note: This was held back in December 2019 before the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic happened. It is still VERY not safe to do large-scale tastings yet but hopefully that changes by next Christmas!), big thanks to him for hosting and putting out some great whiskies and to the individuals who brought these drams along for me to review!

So to save me from the hellish depths that were Floki Sheep Dung Reserve (an Icelandic single malt spirit with barley smoked in sheep’s dung) I saw that someone brought a heel of this whiskey and immediately downed 2 tall glasses of water to clean my palate before diving into this behemoth of a bourbon.

This edition of WLW is from the 2016 release which was aged for 12 years in virgin oak before being bottled at cask strength. I’ve had just 1 WLW before that I don’t think I ever reviewed (a 2013 edition) and wasn’t super impressed compared to similar year GTS and THH so let’s see how this one does for itself!

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Age: 12 Years

Region: Kentucky

Cask Type(s): New American White Oak

ABV: 67.7%

No. of Bottles: 30 Barrels

Maturation Time: 2003/2016

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• Colour: Dark Gold
• Nose: Nice ripe apple sauce and creamy caramel along with light wood spices, cream corn, burnt sugars, orange zest, hazelnuts and cocoa nibs
• Palate: Huge spices and orange marmalade, creamy caramel, light anise, lemon curd, woodsmoke and raisins
• Finish: Medium to Long with more applewood, apple jam and cinnamon toasted bread

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Pretty good but not a huge standout for a BTAC bottling. I like the nice jammy citrus and apple notes I got from this but the absolutely amazing nose never really translates to the palate or the finish unfortunately, if it did this would easily be the best bourbon I’ve ever tried. But sadly it’s not, it’s still a fantastic wheater but nothing worth throwing down some serious dough over.

And nowadays, it’s a lot more dough then I’m comfortable throwing down to make a big batch of cookies with. Or pizza…if you prefer that instead.

85/100

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