It’s been a long time, hasn’t it. Well, I don’t want to say I would get back on top of this, but I’ve had a relentless spree of major life changes this year on the anniversary of our great pandemic. It’s been a wild year for me already, 2021, and I can’t come close to saying I’ve been enjoying myself nearly as much as I did last year. Perhaps it’s all just finally catching up to me from last year, but it’s been a heavy wave of oddity for me to start the year off. Unfortunately I won’t be able to do many tastings often anymore unless they are gifts or bottom shelf, the very idea sends chills down my gulliver. Beyond all that, here I am, and I am here now, happy to be O my brothers and very inspired to speak my mind on this tasty treat of a find I happened upon by circumstance. What a treat to be greeted by many a youtuber’s favorite dram, the Baker’s 7.
Baker’s 7 Barrel Proof
Clemont, KY
$65.99
53.5% / 107 Proof
Nose - Enduring past the almost violent onslaught of alcohol vapors at the start - from the high proof, of course - I’m able to pick out some vibrant smokey Oak and roasted almonds and cashews, warm honey, and vanilla extract.
Palate - An unmistakable cameo from the Bit-O-Honey candy with an even more nostalgic flavor for yours truly of Weathers caramel candies, followed by vanilla, toffee, white chocolate and oak.
Finish - Hot and long-lasting, this is how I wish all bourbon finishes were. Something that stays with you many minutes after and appreciates your patronage.
Thoughts - Baker’s 7. If you see it, you buy it. I could leave it there, but I want to revisit that statement on Weather’s Caramel, and it’s nostalgia (which lent influence into the photo I took here). Lately I’ve found that melancholy is my only joy to keep me company, and most of all is good drink and good music. Modest Mouse’s early discography in particular has been keeping me warm, if only comfortably numb, thinking back to when I started listening to them and how far I’ve come since then. I get visions occasionally of being exactly where I planned to be so many years ago, maybe just a different state or different job away from “that dream”. But the Weather’s is an even deeper memory of mine, dating back to my dearest aunt, Orletta Kunz. Orletta was my Mother’s sister and passed away many years ago, but when she was there during my life she was my Mom’s best friend, and as a child, one of my favorite places to visit. Her smoke filled home seemed to have an endless amount of oddities and shiny artwork to ponder over, always dimly lit, but the most welcoming of her abode’s proclivities was to offer the finest of candies available to a young lad in the late 90’s and early 00’s; Weather’s Caramel candies, the ones in the shiny golden wrappers. To this day there is no other taste that can bring me back to that darling place, that place of childish innocence, or ignorance, as the grown-ups toiled away in their grieving of day-to-day life, the children set to play. Rooms filled with couches and chairs were the forests of which we plucked our lumber and bricks to supply our pillow forts, the backyard filled with dogs, a few with bad tempers that made running away fun, and getting caught not so much. A Creek run through too, but it was less a creek and more just an irrigation canal, but when you’re a kid, unless you’re raised by a real river, you’d never know the difference. Baker’s 7 brings me back to all of that, it transports me to a time in my life that was, at its core, carefree and happy.
10/10, If you see it, buy it.