![]() It's far from a bad bourbon, but not what anyone would expect from a bottle with the Van Winkle name on it. It has a nice mouthfeel and overall consistency, but it lacks a depth of flavor and is dominated by spice, oak, and a very dry finish. 2018’s Old Rip unfortunately doesn’t impress me at all. When the bottle design switched to the tall skinny version, it saw a few great years of satisfying releases that starkly contrast this year’s release. 2012 was the last of the squat bottle and I remember it being very spicy and truthfully not all that great. ![]() Overall Thoughts: I feel Old Rip sees the largest swings in flavor and overall quality each year. Finish: Dry, heavy oak, hot, and simple. Palate: Spice, nutmeg, tobacco, burnt caramel. Nose: Butterscotch, gingerbread, caramel. I’ll take one for the team and start my deliberations. And as Pappy MSRP (and secondary) prices have risen, are they still worth the money? There’s only one way to find out. I’m simply trying to examine if Pappy Van Winkle whiskeys are as good as their legend and hype have claimed them to be. Yes this will skew the “results,” but this isn’t a full on review, nor is it a scientific study. Some have been opened for some time and one is being opened for the first time. The set I pulled together includes whiskeys from different years. Of course going this route meant I couldn’t be picky. After a few raised eyebrows and blank stares, I was actually able to pull it off. I went with a alternative option and asked everyone I knew if they would let me “borrow” their Pappy for “research purposes” in combination with a few bottles I had to round out the group. Finding a bar with all five was one option, but a Pappy flight will run hundreds of dollars. You may think being the most popular bourbon website in the world we have bunkers filled with an endless supply of it, but that is simply not the case. Of course the problem is it’s Pappy Van Winkle and really hard to get one bottle, let alone all six whiskeys together in one place (and yes I’m considering all six Van Winkle whiskeys more or less “Pappy” as they are released as a group and equally hyped). With anything that gathers this much attention you always have to ask yourself, is it really that good? I decided it was a good time to taste each Pappy Van Winkle whiskey and see if the whiskey can stand up to the hype that people bestow on it. Of course Pappy isn’t impossible to obtain, as about 84,000 bottles are released each fall, yet its legendary status and demand for it never seem to waver. There are even some exaggerated tall tales where money can’t even buy it, and millionaires have just as much of a hard time obtaining it as you and I. Somewhere along the way, Pappy Van Winkle whiskeys became known as the best whiskeys money can buy.
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