Review: Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Batch A117 (January 2017)
Review: Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Batch A117 (January 2017)
When Rob referred to Elijah Craig’s cult following in 2015, he barely scratched the surface. Elijah Craig’s Barrel Proof releases, all limited-edition expressions of 12 year old, cask strength bourbon, have become collectible phenomena, snapped up on release and resold for well over asking price.
Heaven Hill is doubling down on Elijah Craig and revamping Barrel Proof beginning in 2017. While previous releases have been numbered with a simple and incremental numeric edition code, the company is doubling down on transparency by switching to a more detailed batch number.
Specifically:
To help catalog the various offerings of Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, all releases will now have a unique batch number identified on the label — beginning with our most recent. The first letter indicates which of that year’s releases the bottle was a part of starting with “A,” while the second digit is a number that determines the month of the year the bottle was released. The third and fourth digits indicate the year.
So here’s a look at the first release of Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, under the new labeling system. Released in January, it’s denoted as Batch A117.
This is rather low proof for Elijah Craig, but there’s ample life here and plenty to love. The deep copper-colored bourbon offers a lively nose of caramel corn, vanilla syrup, and a bit of barrel char. The palate is approachable without water, revealing some clear sweet tea notes, backed up by a bit of cola, orange peel, and faint chocolate notes. The finish is spicy and racy, but not overwhelming, leaving behind a light bitterness alongside lingering notes of cloves and oak. Altogether it’s a straightforward bourbon, but well-aged, balanced, and engaging through and through.
127 proof.
A- / $90 / heavenhill.com [BUY IT NOW FROM CASKERS]
Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Batch A117 (January 2017)
$90
Wow, did they have to double the price while dropping the age statement on the barrel proof? I guess the sexy new bottle is supposed to make up for it.
FWIW Heaven Hill still bills this as a 12 year old, though you’re right that it’s not on the front label. (I didn’t receive a finished bottle to check the full back label copy.)
The age statement on my new bottle has been moved to a small label on the side of bottle.