A friend at work told me recently that it was unpatriotic of me to only talk about scotch as there were many fine American products out there that should get some topic time. I told him that it was after all the scotch topic and maybe he should start his own on American beverages. A couple days later he gave me a bottle that he wanted me to review and I told him you have to be kidding.
Before I go on I should point out that although I live in the south I grew up in Minnesota and was born in Southern California. I have been called Yankee more times then I can count. I would guess it's in the thousands of times even though I have lost most of my midwestern accent. To make matters worse just like here on the forum I often can't help myself and taunt said southerners relentlessly. One of my favorites is "But here in the south isn't sister, mother, cousin, aunt and wife all the same thing?"
So anyway my coworker hands me a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon called...get this...Rebel Yell. I start laughing and try to hand him the bottle back. He refused to take it and we jokingly argue about it. I tell him how is it patriotic for me to review a bottle with a confederate soldier on the bottle? He shrugged and said you're still an American and we all rebelled against the king of England so your ancestors are just as much rebels as mine. Now most people would not call me a deep thinker and more of a off the cuff type person but that struck me. I thought about it a great deal on my rush hour traffic drive home. I decided he did have some small point and would review his whiskey.
I poured about a quarter glass and it smelled very floral. The first taste was very sweet and I did not enjoy it. The finish was also very sweet and had some honey in the background. This is a very light whiskey with no smoke at all and you know how I feel about that. I did finish the glass but my thinking was that this would be good for some college kids looking to get loaded on the cheap and let fate guide them for the night. I'm sorry my friend but there was no diversity in the flavors and it was a straight forward corn built whiskey. To be honest some of the moon shine I have have had on hunting trips had a better taste. (For those of you who have not had moon shine it has a pine taste to it and a lot of kick.)
Anyway for the record I can't recommend this whiskey unless you are said college folks looking to get loaded.
The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
Robert Earl Keen 1989
