ELIJAH CRAIG SMALL BATCH
Single Barrel selected by Save More Market (2017)MASH BILL – 78% corn, 10% rye, 12% malted barley
PROOF – 94
AGE – 11 years
DISTILLERY – Heaven Hill
PRICE – $38 in 2017 and then $54 in 2024
WORTH BUYING? – Ultimately no. But I’m not mad about it.
Whiskey has been referred to as history in a bottle. One could as well say whiskey is time in a bottle. This poetic way of thinking about whiskey actually comes from an objective scientific aspect of it. Once corked and denied access to oxygen, whiskey remains chemically unchanged, or “frozen,” in time.
This suspension and stasis lasts for however long the bottle remains unopened. So, a bourbon originally bottled in 1925 would taste the same opened that year as it would if opened in 2025, provided the cork has remained tight. Once uncorked, the whiskey immediately starts to “breathe” again, reacting chemically to the air allowed into the bottle and the glass.
Sipping that 1925 bourbon one hundred years later, one is ingesting water, wood, grain, and yeast unchanged by time. History in a bottle, while the world has gone on turning.
But now that this bottle has been awakened from its slumber, its process of change recommences in the present. Poetically and literally, this makes that very first sip the closest one can get to Time Travel. I say the first sip specifically, because that 1925 bourbon will now continuously respond to present-day oxygen and slowly evolve into a whiskey influenced by two distinct eras.
It’s a bit of a mind bender!
I bought a bottle of this Elijah Craig Small Batch SiB in 2017 when it first hit the shelf. At that time it cost $38 tax and all. I thought it was just okay. Nice oak and caramel notes. But also a tannic astringency I didn’t ultimately care for.
Seven years later, in 2024, Save More Market was under new ownership. I went in to meet the new boss. Wanting to be a good customer, I bought something—this Elijah Craig SiB, not clocking I’d already had it! This time it cost $54 tax and all. When I got home and checked my notes, Doh! I realized my error.
Oh well. Maybe after seven years, my sense of taste having continued to evolve, I might respond differently to it?
I squirreled it away in my bunker and forgot about it. Time passed…
Then late one recent autumn night, wanting to add a lower-proof bourbon to my shelf of open bottles, I poked about in my bunker and found this bottle still standing in its dusty corner. It had been a while since I’d had some Elijah Craig open, so I cracked it.
Would it be the same experience as in 2017? The bourbon itself would be the same. But I’ve changed. What might my chemistry with this Elijah Craig single barrel be now?
Here we are, five days after uncorking and a handful of pours into the bottle. These brief notes were taken using a traditional Glencairn.
COLOR – soft, cozy, calming oranges
NOSE – oak and rye spices, dusty oak tannins, sweet caramel, vanilla, fresh butter, fresh bread crusts, a dusting of cinnamon and allspice, faint chocolate cake, faint cherry
TASTE – the caramel and a roasted peanut note lean forward together alongside the array of oak notes, supported by a lovely creamy texture, that faint cherry note wrapped in oak tannins
FINISH – mildly bitter oak tannin, caramel fudge, milk chocolate sauce, faint roasted peanut, faint cherry
OVERALL – a rustic baked cake of a bourbon, served in an oak grove
At uncorking the cherry note was more prominent and really drew me in. Today it’s fleeting. Now the caramel, chocolate, and cake notes are the draw, accented strongly by an array of spice notes—oak, baking, rye.
What put me off back in 2017 was the oak tannin aspect. I’d still prefer it to be subtler than it is. But now I don’t mind it as much. My senses blend it among a wider range of oak wood and spice notes, which are themselves more pleasing than the tannins. But a bit of tannin can offer a bitterness that provides definition around softer sweet notes. That bitter line is drawn just a bit too thick here.
I wouldn’t now call this bourbon particularly complex. Were there more prevalent and consistent fruit notes I might. But the oak, spice, and candy / cake notes it offers have enough range to them that I enjoy it, whether as a dry neat pour or the basis for an Old-Fashioned or Stone Fence cocktail.
As for the dual themes of time and taste that uncorking this bottle conjured up for me, it’s interesting to revisit past experiences. It can be a way to measure one’s own arc of change. As we go through life, as we age, what about us remains the same and what evolves?
In this instance, a bitterness that once put me off, now I have more patience for it. Am I less prone to bitterness than I once was? A bourbon I once found rather simplistic in its range, I can now discern in more detail. Am I more detail oriented than I used to be? While this bourbon remained corked in time, my senses continued to expand in range. Beyond whiskey, maybe I have as well?
So here’s to revisiting the past. Not for the sake of nostalgia—something generally too sweet to my personal tastes. But rather to notice the nuances of our gradual evolution. It’s a good reminder that more change is always yet to come, if we’re open to it.
Cheers!
The Right Spirit 