Benchmark Full Proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Benchmark Full Proof is Buffalo Trace at 125 proof for the price of a bottle of wine. Benchmark started life as a Seagram's brand in 1969 before Sazerac bought it and moved production to Buffalo Trace in Frankfort, Kentucky, where it's made from the same low-rye Mash Bill #1 as Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, and Stagg — the difference is younger age and simpler selection. In 2019 the distillery expanded the Old No. 8 into a full lineup, and Full Proof is the top of it: bottled at 125 proof, the barrel-entry strength, which means the whiskey is brought back to exactly the proof it had when it first went into the wood, with all the oils and body that implies. Non-age-stated, and generally reckoned around four years. Expect a big nose of caramel, vanilla, and brown sugar with fresh oak and a corn-sweet undertone, opening into a dense, warm palate of toffee, cinnamon, black pepper, and charred wood with the Buffalo Trace family resemblance clearly there, finishing long and hot in the way 125 proof should. Honest note: this is young, high-proof whiskey — it lacks the depth of Stagg Jr. or E.H. Taylor Barrel Proof, and it wears its heat. But for around $25 it's one of the best value propositions in American whiskey: a barrel-proof Buffalo Trace product you can actually find, built for a big Old Fashioned, a cask-strength Manhattan, or a splash of water and patience. The enthusiast's secret cheap bottle.

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