Went to the Pappy Van Winkle tasting session on Saturday. Was pretty good - got to taste the 10, 12, 15, 20 & 23 year varieties.
Particularly enjoyed the 20 and 23, which were very different. The 15 was pretty raisin-y, then the 20 was really soft and all wood up front then the rich fruit flavour slowly crept up on my palate after a few seconds. With the 23, the fruit was right back there up front along with the wood and was really rich and balanced. They were all single barrel bottles, so idk if the 20 is generally so different to the 15 and 23, or if it was just that particular barrel.
Didn't get to do side-by-side unfortunately - it was sequential pouring. Think my favourite was the 20 tbh, but would have been interesting to do a side-by-side blind tasting.
The event was only £25 so I was wondering if we would get full pours. Here's what we got:
Not sure it's worth the hype, but it is very good. After the session our table bought the remaining WLW in the bar, which was only 3 measures. Still think it was better than all the PVWs.
We had a different rep for this session so I asked him to clarify what had previously been said about the means of production changing. He confirmed it was the change from Stitzel Weller to BT stock. Apparently the bottles released this year are the last of the SW stock and from next year everything sold will be BT.