E.H. Taylor Small Batch Bourbon - 70cl

Edmund Haynes Taylor Jr. spent decades arguing that American whiskey needed a guarantee, and in 1897 he got one. The Bottled-in-Bond Act was the first consumer-protection law of its kind in the United States: one distillery, one distilling season, four years minimum in a government-supervised warehouse, bottled at exactly 100 proof. This bourbon carries that strip because Taylor wrote the rules it answers to.

He bought the Old Fire Copper distillery in Frankfort in 1869 and rebuilt it into something closer to an estate than a factory. The stone warehouses he put up in the 1880s are still standing on the Buffalo Trace site, and the Small Batch is drawn from a handful of barrels aged inside them.

Mash Bill #1 — Buffalo Trace's low-rye recipe — does the rest. The nose is caramel and vanilla with a bright cherry note running underneath, more confectionery than austere, oak char sitting behind it rather than in front. On the palate it turns properly syrupy: caramel corn, butterscotch, a thread of liquorice, and the 100 proof pushing everything forward without ever tipping into heat. The finish softens first, then turns — black pepper and a dry leaf-tobacco note that lingers a good while.

For the money this is one of the more honest bottles in American whiskey. No age-statement games, no marketing proof. A legally defined product from a distillery that has been making it a very long time.

How to Serve

Neat, in a Glencairn, at room temperature. At 50% it takes a few drops of water well — enough to lift the cherry and soften the pepper, no more. If you want ice, use one large cube and drink it before it melts.

Where to Drink It

Black Rock in Shoreditch, where the American shelf runs deep enough to taste this against its siblings.

Scarfes Bar at the Rosewood, for an armchair and an unhurried hour.

Boisdale, if you want it after something substantial.

Food Pairings

Smoked brisket, pulled off the bone and eaten with your fingers. Failing that, a properly aged Cheddar or a bowl of salted pecans — the sweetness here wants salt against it, not more sugar.