5 Bourbons I Regret Buying - Overpriced AND Overhyped!

Hey all, welcome back to SLB Basement Bourbon Bar. My name is Kurt. I'm sure, well let me put it this way, I hope I have others out there that feel the same way I do. There are times when we're in liquor stores and we're hunting down different bourbons and whiskeys that we think we really want and we really have to have and then once we get them home we tear them open and we pour a little bit into a glass and you take a sip and you go, my god, that's horrible. Today I'm going to give you five, five bourbons that I wish I would have never bought and hopefully I'll get some response back from you all that you have some of the same stories because this is going to get a little bit embarrassing but I think it's important to share with you not only the excellent bourbons and whiskeys that I love but also the crap that I ended up buying that I should have never bought. If you're new to the channel or you're interested in some more spirit reviews and cocktail recipes make sure to hit that subscribe button. Once you've done that hit the notification bell and that way you won't miss a single episode of the show. Alright let's get started with a little bit of this embarrassment. The very first bottle I want to show you that I purchased that I never should have bought Jefferson's Ocean aged at sea. This one right here, believe it or not, I have two. I was not only stupid once but I was stupid twice. This is voyage number 17. Over there I have voyage number 16 to be truthful. Voyage number 16 in my opinion is just a little bit better. It's not quite as bad but this voyage number 17. This Jefferson's supposedly they took some barrels filled with blended whisky, blended bourbons, sent them out in the ocean somewhere, aged them out in the ocean so they were swish swish washy when they were sailing the boats through the ocean. In my opinion it didn't help a darn thing. This particular offering here, this voyage number 17, it's harsh, it's harsh on the nose, it's harsh on the palate, it has overwhelming flavors of leather and tobacco and it's got a lot of bitterness on the back end. To me $80 for this particular bottle, I've got 30 at least other bourbons here down in the basement bourbon bar for $80 or less that are so much better than this particular offering. Number one of the wish I would have never bought, Jefferson's Ocean. How's that drink, alright? Next on the list, I've got to get my glasses on for some of this stuff. This is Hill Rock, Solera aged, finished in Napa Cabernet barrels. It's beautiful, beautiful packaging, what a beautiful bottle. I mean it also too, it's a very sturdy bottle, it's got a lot of thickness to the glass, it's a beautiful offering but man, I'm going to promise you something, this stuff is viciously bad. I mean this stuff is so bad. I know I paid over $100 for this thing and look at it, you know, obviously I didn't do my research well enough, I got this home, I opened it up, I mean I really don't even have any tasting notes for you, it's just sheer crap. I mean it's just so bad. They say that it was finished in Napa Cabernet, I find zero, zero hints of any kind of a finished taste to this particular whiskey here. I mean in my opinion they could have aged it in cardboard and that's kind of how I would say, that's how it would taste to me. It's just ridiculously bad. It just tastes like, I don't know, I'm just going to stop there because I honestly don't have accurate tasting notes to share with you to tell you how bad this really is. This was an embarrassing purchase, that's all I can say, it was horrific. So Hill Rock, you know, Solera aged, basically with Solera aged it's taken young whiskeys, blending it with older whiskeys and aging it in the same barrel. It's extremely young tasting, it's just, it's just really honestly, it's just horrible. That's the best I can say. That's it for that one. The next one on my list, very old St. Nick. This is a 12 year bourbon. I know this cost me upwards to $200, it was somewhere between $150 and $200, I've had it down here in a bar for probably a year and a half going on two years and I barely got it below the neck. The reality of it all, on this particular offering, I mean look at it, it looks cool, you got the old man in the front here, the label, it looks really neat, 12 year old bourbon I thought, but that's probably pretty good. Obviously I didn't do my research on that one either. This one here has some fair tasting notes to it, but it's just extremely boring. Nothing stands out about it, nothing hits you on the nose or the palate to let you know that you have opened a $200 bourbon. It's basically a marketing ploy in my opinion, as far as the way it looks and everything, it looks real cool, but you know, it's just not, it's just not, it's just not very good. For $200, that was a complete fail. Alright, number three. Number four, this might hurt some people's feelings, I'm not sure, but I've got Elijah Craig number, Elijah Craig, 18 year old. I'm positive I paid at least $300 for that, if not close to $350. And I bought it at my local liquor store, which sells all their bourbon offerings for as close to retail as possible. Real close, if not retail, just a little bit more. I got this, I'm a big Elijah Craig fan, like most people are. I have the Elijah Craig small batch back here that I use for a lot of my mixed cocktails, for my bourbon cocktails, and who doesn't like the Elijah Craig barrel proof offerings? For that kind of money, $60, $70, I think it's $70 now, but you know, $60, fantastic, fantastic bourbons. I thought, what, how could I go wrong? I didn't research this whatsoever, but I find it, I find it to be extremely heavily oaked. It's got a lot of oak in there on the palate, and with that I find it just a little bit of a, a little bit offensive to me, with the amount of oak that I find in this particular offering. All right, last but not least, the most embarrassing moment of this video by far, yep, I suckered into it, there it is. I hope my wife's not listening at this portion of the video. This particular bottle, Kentucky Owl Dry State, it's their 100th anniversary edition, came in a beautiful, beautiful box, I mean the presentation was just glorious. Let's see here, I have bottle number 293 out of 2,000, so I mean it's pretty cool, I mean they didn't have that many bottles out there, it's beautifully labeled, and I don't have the box out here, but the box is extraordinary that it came in, really, really nice stuff, their 100th anniversary, but yeah, plug yours babe, I paid $1,000 for that bottle. Yeah, yeah, you don't want to know what's going on behind that camera, you don't want to know, but I opened it up, I mean we didn't even, I don't think, sure, we didn't open that for a while, so once we did open it up I was excited, and it just, it just wasn't that good. I have a Kentucky Owl bourbon over there that is head and shoulders in taste, and nosing above this one, yes honey, how can I help you, her hand is raised. I'm just thinking that you better learn to like that one, and drink every ounce of that lovely Kentucky Owl. I think this one we might share with friends that come in or whatever, you know, so that we can help drain the bottle a little bit quicker, because I'm probably not going to drink a whole lot of that myself, I'm just not. Actually you probably should keep it the way it is, you can bring the box out, because it looks way better than what it tastes. It just doesn't deliver, it doesn't deliver on the taste, it has some decent tasting notes to it, but honest to God, like I said, I've got the Kentucky Owl 10 year rye over there, which is much better than this particular bottle, I've got a Kentucky Owl bourbon, I don't remember which batch number it is, oh Trent went and got the box. Here's the box, it's a beautiful presentation, I can't get it open, oh it's right here, I mean come on, what guy wouldn't want to have that, right? That's what I was thinking when I bought it. I did, I did come back in once or twice, I did have a little hesitation before this purchase because that's a lot of money, but again, I suckered into it, and by far, the Kentucky Owl Dry State might have been my biggest disappointment for the money. Alright, hopefully this video has been helpful to you, I'd sure like to hear some of your comments of some of the bottles that you have purchased, that you have regretted also, that would probably make me feel a little bit better about myself. As always, we ask you to please drink responsibly, and we'll see you next time right down here with me in a good old basement bourbon bar. See you later.