High West "Big Apple" Single Barrel Straight Barreled Manhattan Finished Bourbon Whiskey The Prime Barrel Pick #51

High West is one of our favorite producers, and a barrel pick with them is a staple of our club. We've done two fantastic (and unique) picks with them before, and we took advantage when the opportunity presented itself again. We were given a choice between several finishes, ranging from more common finishes (cognac cask) to geeky ones (Spanish brandy and barreled Manhattan). To mitigate the risk of being swayed by knowing which finished sample we are tasting, we taste everything blind and base our selections on taste and profile alone. This is what we've done with High West samples, and out of the five we tasted (two were double ryes, and three were bourbon), two were very interesting. Different but interesting.  if we call two samples we liked, Samples A and Sample B, Sample A had more of a traditional profile with a great nose, pretty tasty palate, and medium finish. Sample B was a lot more "geeky." That can sometimes be bad, as things can go far to the left. Thankfully, this was not