I haven't been able to find a definitive source for this (e.g. horse's mouth / Heaven Hill), but some Reddit comments have explained the format of the laser code this way: Xdddyhhmm Where: 'X' is a letter and indicates a bottling line (all Elijah Craig bottles I've seen show 'A', the Larcenys I've checked are all 'M') ddd is the day of the year that the particular bottle you have was filled (so I surmise can be from 001 up to 366 if leap year?) y is a single digit representing the last digit of the decade (so for bottles filled in 2023 this will be a 3) hhmm is the hour and minute (timestamp) when the filling occurred, in 24-hour format (so from 0000 to 2359) If this is true, then there is obviously not just a "22" and a "23" batch, but rather a wide range of days (two or more weeks) over which bottlings occurred. I finally managed to snag a bottle of C923, which at least to my palate is really delicious, and the entire code is A23430423. This would indicate mine was filled on August 22nd (at 4:23a in the morning? 🤔). I have seen C923 bottles with codes that have a day fill number as low as 221, which would be August 9th. I think this theory is plausible because I also found a picture online of cases of C923 stamped with dates within this range (I think the box showed August 19, but of course now that I'm looking for the image again, I can't actually find it!) So *ASSUMING* there even is a batching issue of some kind, I'd think it likely that the issue is more with the bottles filled earliest, and NOT with 100% of all bottles that happen to begin with 22x (since that would encapsulate 10 separate days!), and especially if you have a bottle dated 222 (August 10). Would be interesting to find, say, a 228 or 229 bottle to compare both to your 222 and to the 23x sample you have (what's the complete code for that one BTW?) Also agree with others here that this should have been blinded. Even if you are trying to be objective, it's impossible to discount the power of suggestion.
This is fantastic info! Assuming that this dating method is correct, it makes a lot of sense to me that the issue would be with the earliest filled bottles as you suggest. It would help to (possibly) explain why some "A22" bottles are described by some folks as having some of those richer, fruitier notes that I mentioned on the "A23" sample, if they were filled some days after the bottling process began, but not before August 18 to warrant A23X. This kind of gradual batch drift seems much more plausible than the A22 v A23 dichotomy. To your other point, I fully appreciate the power of suggestion and the need to do this blind, and it absolutely would've made the case stronger in this video. I have more bottles on the way which will allow me to do some better comparisons, and I fully intend to blind them (and also keep an eye out for those bottling dates more specifically now). As for the A23x sample, I don't have the full code. I'll find out from the person who sent it my way. Thanks for the great description! I figured this video would end up drawing out answers, and of course now I feel like pulling it down and re-doing it with more examples of bottles, blinds, etc. Cheers!
I had read about this laser code theory earlier in the release and thought it was a crock of shit. However this video shows there is clearly something to it. I am a huge ECBP fan and have a bottle (or more) of each of the last few years batches, including all 3 from ‘23. Now I had already known that each of the 3 bottles of c923 I managed to score had a laser code of A22xxx but I hadn’t looked at the earlier releases of the year. So I went and looked at the laser codes on my bottle of A123 and B523 Laser codes are as follows: A123 - A003 (January 3rd) B523 - A122 ( May 2nd) So both A and B batches correspond to the correct month, January and May respectively. However, and this is the reason for my comment. If the first 3 numbers in the laser code are the day of the year then A220 would be August 8th. This means that HH began dumping the C923 batch a full month early. Not sure if this means anything but thought it was an interesting deviation.
@@DrumsAndDrams Triangle blind with 2 of one laser and 1 of the other for science. See if one glass stands out as significantly different and which way. Then see if it’s the different code. That’s the only way to find any real merit in the speculation that’s been going around with these bottles. Should be easily repeatable to pick the odd man out if the bottles are as different as some are saying.
After listening to how different they taste to you, it seems like HH messed up & on the 1st day/batch of C923, they only blended the younger and/or lower floor barrels. So 10+ days later they just decided to blend the honey barrels together & call it the same thing, C923.
Another possibility that nobody has mentioned, is that the earlier 22x bottles could have been tainted after they left the distillery, by the distributor. These were shipped in August. Heat and/or sun can noticeably change the flavor of bottled whiskey in just a few hours & almost always in a bad way. So it's certainly possible that whatever distributor picked up that early bottling let it get hot in the trucks in that August heat. I'm guessing that liquor distributor trucks aren't refrigerated.
Another thing to add concerning batch varition is the Russells Reserve 13 Batch 1. I remember lots of RUclipsrs being divided on it. When channels swapped samples, they found huge swings in quality between them. I think Dan at the Bourbon Junkies just used the phrase of "bad bottles" being out there. Knowing what we know now, I wonder if those bottle codes couldve told us something back then. And that was a much smaller release than C923 is. Interesting stuff. Thanks for the video Cam.
Interesting but laughable. Would need a more detailed blind to put some facts together rather than speculation. No doubt variations can occur but why and how to track is still wide open. Cheers!
This is so interesting. There are two recent products for Heaven Hill where I have watched very consistently bipolar reviews. One is this C923, and the other is Bernheim Barrel Proof B923. I almost want to start asking reviewers what their laser codes are lol. One group of people call the bottle amazing, another group says it’s astringent and bitter. It’s so consistently one or the other that I’ve got to think it’s a similar situation and there is a problem with the batches. Heaven Hill needs to figure it out.
I remember opening my bottle after seeing rave reviews in our Connecticut whiskey group. I was not crazy about it, everthing felt tight and I chalked it up to needing some air time in the bottle. A few days later a post commented that sharing a friends bottle of C923 it did not drink the same. Once he put out feelers, it was narrowed down to that A22 vs A23. I swapped samples with a bud who had an A23 bottle and we absolutely found a difference. Yes, generally the same profile but the way it drjnks and how the flavors progressed in the A23 were Top 5 material. Needless to say, I found an A23 shortly after!
When I say "same profile" its that you know they are definite siblings. A23 has that unmistakable big funky red fruit leaping out of the glass. A22 got hit with the ugly stick for sure.
There’s no way the difference in the third digit of the laser code will correspond with what “micro-batch” it is. There may be consistency issues, but it’s not gonna be as simple as the third digit of the laser code given how bottling lines are setup. One it would be a pain from a bottling line perspective, but insofar as heaven hill markets this as one batch, namely something called C923, they’re not gonna go out of their way to distinguish micro batches by laser code. If anything they would try to conceal it as much as possible. This theory sounds nice, but it doesn’t add up.
Check the pinned comment - some great info there which would explain a more gradual drift in profile corresponding to these codes, which goes against the rumor that there are 2 distinct sub batches etc
This better be true at this point bc I got excited to finally find a bottle and, lo and behold, it's A223. So I have now passed twice bc neither were MSRP and had a tag of $110 on them. But again, ill be pretty pussed if I find out this is all nonsense bc I'll probably never see this again. Lol
Super interesting! Could you share the full code of your A22 bottle? I’m just curious if they’re all the same. I have an open bottle of A22 that I do really enjoy, and luckily my backup bottle is an A23. I’ll have crack it a little early and try them side by side. Thanks Cam!
It’s less about the explanation, which I don’t claim to know (only sharing the one I heard), and more about the fact that there’s such a difference in two bottles of the same product.
I don’t see it that way. It’s just like any other tasting or review on RUclips-one person’s opinion on a bottle or two. Not sure how this generates any more FOMO than any other opinion on any other video.
@@DrumsAndDrams fair enough. I’m just being cynical - your reviews are thoughtful and genuine. No disrespect intended, my statement was more me venting frustration. Cheers!
Based on the pinned comment decoding the etched code on the bottles, my two backup bottles were filled on the 233rd day of the year 2 minutes apart, which would make sense since they probably came out of the same case. They would be part of your “A23” sub-category. Haven’t opened either of them. But the first bottle which I finished (and it was a nice pour, btw) I don’t know the code since I recycled the bottle. I also bought a single bottle at the other store in town (I live in a small coastal town in Oregon) which is my current opened bottle, and it was bottled on the 222nd day of the year (A222) which is eleven days earlier than my backup bottles. Different cases, different stores, different bottling dates. The thing is, since I never A-B compared the first two bottles, I can’t tell you that I noticed any difference between them. The biggest difference is how less hot they get after being opened awhile. Regardless of whether earlier bottlings of C923 fall short of later bottling dates, my experience is that I preferred them to the ECBP A123, mainly because of the superior, less drying or astringent finish than the January release. To me, if there was an improvement to the C923 batches as the bottling process got going, it could have shown up in a matter of a day or so as things sorted out, which could mean that lots of the “A22” variants you refer to in your comparison could be as good as the “A23” variants, because the two numbers “22” vs. “23” are not too specific since you need the three numbers to tell you what day of the year the bottles were filled. Day 220 and day 229 would both be “A22” codes by your definition, yet bottled 9 days apart. Day 230 would get your “A23” designation, but is only one day apart from the last “A22” bottles. All following bottles beyond day 230 would be in your favored category “A23” (assuming they didn’t get any further than day 239 before filling all the bottles of C923.) Clearly the differences wouldn’t simply suddenly appear on day 230, but more likely be an anomaly in perhaps the first day of bottling as they were getting it ramped up. That would be my guess. We’d have to know the date they started bottling the batch, and try to find bottles from maybe a couple of days after the line got going when everything stabilized. Bottom line: the two numbers you use for comparing are incomplete, you need the first 3 numbers to get the day the bottle was filled. The last 4 digits would be the minute the juice flowed into the bottle. Anyway, that’s my take on this supposed variation in the C923 bottles. I think it’s just the first day’s run will be the inconsistent ones until the process stabilizes. Should Heaven Hill perhaps take those first “cuts” and bottle them as some wild card offering instead of ship them out with the rest of the batch… probably. People would probably snap them up because of the random uniqueness of what’s in the bottles, but as long as there was complete transparency about what they were. Sneaking them into the distribution as being the “same” as the stabilized blended batch, maybe not so much. At least HH could avoid all the speculation now out there on social media. Just my take.
If it helps, I have a 223 (Aug11)- the neck was meh. a few days later I revisited and the shoulder to the middle was easily one of if not the best bottle I have ever experienced. I had all of the 2022 bottles headed my way so I held off a few weeks at that point. When I came back to it in a flight fight with all of the 2022s and a private barrel I had, it was back to being extremely mid. Never had a bottle open up so fantastically and then fall off so rapidly in my life, all in the course of ~1month. I didn't even finish the bottle, now 2+more months later.
Truthfully I didn’t feel like this video should’ve gotten the vitriolic response that it did from some folks.. felt pretty innocuous to me, and it seems like we’ve been talking about this with ECBP and other brands for quite awhile.
I have an open bottle of A23 (which I love), and 2 full bottles of A22. I just opened and poured one of the A22s, gave it an hour or so to breathe, and compared it to A23 semi-blind. My experience was just like yours - it wasn't even close. I'm no expert, but the difference in depth of flavor and sweetness at the finish was striking! I'm hoping my "backups" will develop over time, as the A23 bottle has been open for 4-5 weeks.
For the sake of science, no blind no care. That said, my lone experience with C923 was good but not great, so you’ve got me curious. Nice video from a first time viewer.
@@KartDad what would be his bias? We all want bottles to be good. If that was the bias he would have said A22 was good. If he doesn’t like C923, what bias would he have to now say A23 is good?
@@DPTX getting into the weeds here, but it's really about what COULD be his biases. There are numerous possibilities, most of which are probably insignificant. Sounds like he may be doing a blind on a future live stream based on what he mentioned during tonight's live stream. 🍿
Interesting theory and I have checked laser codes on a LOT of Ardbeg Ten bottles because they have batch fades over the years but these are supposed to all be 13 year 7 month and 66.5% abv, that's very specific to split into multiple sub-batches. Throwing a big wrench in the works and maybe purposefully so who knows! It has us talking.
Yeah I know that the idea of sub-batches (whether intentional or not) in this case sounds a little crazy, but that’s the rumor that’s swirling around. I should’ve been a little clearer in the video that in no way am I endorsing that theory as the “why”, but I can say with certainty that there was a big difference in the two whiskeys in the two glasses I tasted. Hard to tell how far that can be extrapolated out, but hey, this is the whiskey nerd stuff that gets me going and makes me think, haha!!
All this variation within a single release is pretty dissapointing and misleading on HHs part. I would understand if it was a Single Barrel but as a combined small batch with no designation on the bottle this is false advertising. Very disappointed, really throws a wrench in the hunting process. Great video and thanks for shedding light on this issue.
@@watchingu83 as someone buying these bottles and not selling them, I can assure you that’s not the goal here. I’d like lower prices on the A23 bottling please.
For a week or two I've seen the occasional commenter ask a channel what laser code the channel has but have never seen a channel reply. (On a side note, it makes me think a bit less of a channel if they ignore easy-to-answer questions.)
@@Best_Served_Neat_On_Ice Yep and I've been peppering comment sections myself. I have two bottles of A22 lower in serial number than this review so as soon as I get one open I'll report back.
I have both. Of course I unknowingly opened the A23 and was thinking of holding on to A22 for a trade down the road…now nobody is going to want it😂. Having said that, A23 didn’t blow me away, I’ve had better Elijah Craig barrel picks for sure. I am a big fan of Elijah Craig and I really hope they aren’t trying to pass off multiple batches as one.
Interesting. Most of WI JUST received C923 and my batch is A22. I don't have the most sophisticated palate but I feel it could be a little more complex. Hopefully it will open open up nicely.
I had a dude in line at a release in VA that shared a pour.. for me, a self-proclaimed novice with bourbon, it was a game changer for me. That proverbial ‘stake’ in the ground for good bourbon was pushed out quite a ways compared to what I’d had to date. It was incredible on the nose and palette.. I’m still trying to find one.
I have no insight on this EC BP bottle because it’s not easily available in Texas, however, Jack Daniels SBBP Rye is. And my bottle of it is terrible. It gets so much love on RUclips and Reddit and my bottle is a mixer. It’s no conspiracy that different batches are better than others.
My bottle has A23 on it and I wasn't impressed. And I'm a fan of ECBP. I can't imagine it being worse considering the praise heaped on it. Not that it's bad...but it's not the world beater it's made out to be. Found my C922 to be far superior to C923.
Everything you said / described about the sample with the code a23 is how I described my bottle. I checked it and it’s a223xxxx. You should have done this as a blind.
@@DrumsAndDrams, If time allows, maybe consider dumping out a couple ounces of each as soon as you get them so that the bottles get some air time before you do the Live blind. (From personal experience I don't trust fresh cracks.)
I have several A22s, and one (I swear!) an A11! Haven't tried it yet. Had anyone else gotten/tried an A11? (My A22s have been hot and underwhelming...but mixed with Larceny C923, are fantastic!)
I’m not sure that’s the case, that idea was simply a rumor circulating based on a lack of knowledge regarding the batching process. At this point I think that it’s unlikely, though not sure why exactly the differences are there.
Like a couple other people mentioned, my c923 doesn't have a laser etched number anywhere on the bottle. Wife and I have thoroughly inspected. I have several other EC bottles (not c923) that have etched numbers. Interesting video regardless. Thanks Cam.
I thought the same thing but there is a tiny code on the very bottom ridge of the glass well below the liquid line. I'm talking TINY! check the front bottom ridge as well
With all the hype around this bottle I dug pretty hard in my area and came up with more than a few of these. I have A21####, A22#### ,A23####, and one withe no laser etching at all. I have only tried the A22. Its HOT, but quite full of flavor. I would be curious to know opinions on ALL the various coded ones....
I have 4 bottles of c923. 3 have laser codes on back and one is on the front. one code has significantly bigger numbers. that one also happens to be the only '22'. for the record, the '23' that's open is spectacular.
@@chriscasperson4588 Out of curiousity, does your code on the front start with an A? I've got 3 bottles of C923. Two laser codes on the back start with A22, third bottle, the laser code is on the front and starts what looks like----17 23
my front '23' code is also preceeded by a '17'. my other bottle code that starts with code A22, has a much larger font and is about an inch higher than the other '23' bottle code.
ECBP C923 is good but nowhere as good as ECBP B520 or even ECBP A121. In the ECBP scheme of things ECBP C923 would definitely rank in the top 10 best ECBP's of all time but making it into the top 5 best ECBP's of all time would be quite a stretch for this Heaven Hill's latest expression.
That’s interesting. I’ve had some salty batches, like A117 - distinct salted caramel. I didn’t notice that on either of these C923s, though if I placed that note on either, it would be the A22 laser code of the two I tested in this vid. Which laser is on the back of yours?
As I crack open my C923 ECBP A22331754 and sip along side the EC18 I got from Costco last year (Currently at the shoulder), the C923 A22 does taste a little tight and alcohol forward. How long has your bottle been breathing? I plan to let mine sit at the shoulder and maybe dose in some of the EC18 if my C923 A22 bottle doesn’t improve in a few months. I am not impressed the ECPB C923 from the neck pour. I was really hoping for something on par with the neck pour of my Proprietor 14yr bottles. Adding a few drops of the EC18 in today’s tasting improved the experience overall with a noticeably longer dark finish, less alcohol harshness, the nose remains still tight for me but has improved. As of right now I will wait to see how the bottle opens up.
I don’t think it’d relate to something being tainted, but rather the differences in barrels being dumped either into separate containers, or into one large container but being bottled throughout the process before all barrels have been dumped etc.. again, no concrete evidence, that’s just one rumor going around, and this tasting only proved to me that there ARE differences, but no idea why they exist.
@@DrumsAndDrams 100% agree with you. I honestly wasn't sure until I compared them myself and tried it blind twice with A23 laser code winning easily each time. A22 is okay but just a standard ECBP release vs A23 being one of the better ECBP releases in many years.
So, heres one for you... i bought an unopened case of 3 bottles & it had two A22's & one A23 in it. kind of feels like that debunks how long the time between batches is. but who the hell knows, LOL
I’ve had 2 samples of different a22 bottles (one yours Cam and another from another friend) both were the same for me. Good but not great. Drank B520 against it one night and b520 was an easy win.
Really interesting.... Immediately went and checked my two bottles and both have the "A23" designation... But after reading the comments, I need to dig deeper into the exact time stamp. Another journey down another bourbon rabbit hole, lol...
I got my hands on a couple C923 when it first released and the buzz was just starting. After drinking about 1/4th of the first, I quickly let the second go. Just not for me, but to be fair, none of the EC / Heavin Hill products are for me. They lack any cohesivity or proper blending. For the life of me I can not see the hype around this batch. It feels like in todays bourbon whiskey world, all that is needed is a high proof and people loose their minds.
Like when I see the shelf price tag on a Elijah Craig small batch say “12 year old”, but there hasn’t been an age statement on the bottle for a few years or more. They shouldn’t be able to put it on the price tag, seems misleading.
@@DrumsAndDrams You posted earlier that your A22 that you have is A2223xxxx, not A2233xxxx. If true then your bottle would have been filled a day earlier than the bottle @TDPJr78 has. See my earlier top-level comment about the explanations I've seen for how to interpret the date codes.
@@Whiskeats assuming the bottling info is true that @nathana.7473 shared (which seems very likely), then yours would be bottled 1 day later than mine. What that means in terms of final product.. well, that would be hard to predict. Go check out the comment from Nathan that I pinned - great info there that is helping me to understand what might be at play here.
Ok I see your point. So it very well could be that each day would probably taste slightly different then the dump before. Or maybe those first batches were more stringent and ethanol, Forward because it was fresh being dumped. And as the days went on it smoothed out. Great info throughly appreciated it.
I don’t know it for certain and I want to be really clear about that, but at least this nosing/tasting revealed to me that there are differences for some reason between these two bottles which happen to have different codes. Whether it’s the batching theory or not, I have no concrete evidence, but this at least proves to me that there’s massive inconsistency for some reason. I hope others will taste for themselves if they have the chance and come to their own conclusions!
Very interesting Cam! I didn't know these were batched like that I guess. Haven't been able to find a C923 unfortunately but will hopefully come across one sometime. Cheers!
They are all C923, he is referring to the laser code printed on the bottle not the batch “C923” within that there is a laser code directly on the glass (not the label) and you look at the first 3 digits same as other distilleries have laser codes printed directly on the glass to identify year and dump dates.
If you find a A22...its a pass. Its barely worth MSRP IMO. It's okay for ECBP but slopy, unrefined in comparison to the A23 sub-batch of C923. Crazy how much variations these have with each other. Extreemly disappointed in Elijah Craig.
Check the front one comment on this video said that of the 4 he has 3 are on the back one on the front and it's is difficult to see without the right light.
@@SRVandDtroubleI have 2 and one is a22 the other is blank. There is a number on the front at the bottom of both that is nowhere near a22 or a23 on either bottle. So I guess some missed getting etched?
@@dustintaylor-d3c Good to know. I guess that possibly means non etched bottles predate the Axxxxxxx number system. If it's not a mandatory thing it makes you wonder if they will go back to non etched bottles after this information gets noticed?
I just got a bottle of C923 and the neck pour nose and palate were fantastic. Virtually no burn. Can’t wait to get home from vacation to find out the code.
And I thought I had reached “Batch Fatigue” with Russell’s Reserve 13. I do appreciate the folks gathering and sharing this information. I have a 22 and a 23, I suspect I’ll blind them for myself at some point.
The point of the video wasn’t the batch process-that’s a rumor-but rather to discuss the inconsistencies between the two different bottlings I tasted. It was about the “what” more than the “why.” The “why” is speculative, and I freely admit that. If you can track down one of each, try the comparison for yourself. It’s interesting!
![Yailin La Mas Viral, @kreizyk.official - Dale 2 (Remix) [Video Oficial]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JaYHBzgqz94/mqdefault.jpg)
I haven't been able to find a definitive source for this (e.g. horse's mouth / Heaven Hill), but some Reddit comments have explained the format of the laser code this way:
Xdddyhhmm
Where:
'X' is a letter and indicates a bottling line (all Elijah Craig bottles I've seen show 'A', the Larcenys I've checked are all 'M')
ddd is the day of the year that the particular bottle you have was filled (so I surmise can be from 001 up to 366 if leap year?)
y is a single digit representing the last digit of the decade (so for bottles filled in 2023 this will be a 3)
hhmm is the hour and minute (timestamp) when the filling occurred, in 24-hour format (so from 0000 to 2359)
If this is true, then there is obviously not just a "22" and a "23" batch, but rather a wide range of days (two or more weeks) over which bottlings occurred.
I finally managed to snag a bottle of C923, which at least to my palate is really delicious, and the entire code is A23430423. This would indicate mine was filled on August 22nd (at 4:23a in the morning? 🤔). I have seen C923 bottles with codes that have a day fill number as low as 221, which would be August 9th.
I think this theory is plausible because I also found a picture online of cases of C923 stamped with dates within this range (I think the box showed August 19, but of course now that I'm looking for the image again, I can't actually find it!)
So *ASSUMING* there even is a batching issue of some kind, I'd think it likely that the issue is more with the bottles filled earliest, and NOT with 100% of all bottles that happen to begin with 22x (since that would encapsulate 10 separate days!), and especially if you have a bottle dated 222 (August 10). Would be interesting to find, say, a 228 or 229 bottle to compare both to your 222 and to the 23x sample you have (what's the complete code for that one BTW?)
Also agree with others here that this should have been blinded. Even if you are trying to be objective, it's impossible to discount the power of suggestion.
This is fantastic info! Assuming that this dating method is correct, it makes a lot of sense to me that the issue would be with the earliest filled bottles as you suggest. It would help to (possibly) explain why some "A22" bottles are described by some folks as having some of those richer, fruitier notes that I mentioned on the "A23" sample, if they were filled some days after the bottling process began, but not before August 18 to warrant A23X. This kind of gradual batch drift seems much more plausible than the A22 v A23 dichotomy.
To your other point, I fully appreciate the power of suggestion and the need to do this blind, and it absolutely would've made the case stronger in this video. I have more bottles on the way which will allow me to do some better comparisons, and I fully intend to blind them (and also keep an eye out for those bottling dates more specifically now).
As for the A23x sample, I don't have the full code. I'll find out from the person who sent it my way.
Thanks for the great description! I figured this video would end up drawing out answers, and of course now I feel like pulling it down and re-doing it with more examples of bottles, blinds, etc.
Cheers!
A23331121 is the full code of the sample, so an 11 day difference between the two
I have A22232309. August 10th, at almost midnight.
I had read about this laser code theory earlier in the release and thought it was a crock of shit. However this video shows there is clearly something to it.
I am a huge ECBP fan and have a bottle (or more) of each of the last few years batches, including all 3 from ‘23. Now I had already known that each of the 3 bottles of c923 I managed to score had a laser code of A22xxx but I hadn’t looked at the earlier releases of the year. So I went and looked at the laser codes on my bottle of A123 and B523
Laser codes are as follows:
A123 - A003 (January 3rd)
B523 - A122 ( May 2nd)
So both A and B batches correspond to the correct month, January and May respectively. However, and this is the reason for my comment. If the first 3 numbers in the laser code are the day of the year then A220 would be August 8th. This means that HH began dumping the C923 batch a full month early. Not sure if this means anything but thought it was an interesting deviation.
Interesting info, but I'm stumped as to what this would mean for my 2 bottles with laser codes
1723174200911
1723175133711
No "a" anywhere in my codes
This should have been done blind. You walked into this being told which one was allegedly better. Removing any bias would have made this more concrete
Absolutely, I agree with you, and now that I have fresh bottles of different laser codes on the way, I can make that happen on a future livestream.
Still a 50/50 coin flip blind. I suggest triangle testing with multiple rounds 👍
Great explanation on this. Thanks!
I don' have an opinion on this but I felt left out if I didn't leave a comment.
Thank you for your service 🫡 haha cheers DC 🥃
It makes so much sense that this is happening when you hear such large discrepancies between reviewers on all the batches for the last 3 years.
Yeah I just cracked open a bottle of A22 and it is AMAZING
Probably would have been a better move to blind them. I've got an A22, time to locate an A23 for comparison.
Do it! It’s a fun one!
And yes, in retrospect you’re right. I have fresh bottles of each on the way so I can make that happen.
@@DrumsAndDramsI can't wait to see that comparison
@@DrumsAndDrams Triangle blind with 2 of one laser and 1 of the other for science. See if one glass stands out as significantly different and which way. Then see if it’s the different code. That’s the only way to find any real merit in the speculation that’s been going around with these bottles. Should be easily repeatable to pick the odd man out if the bottles are as different as some are saying.
I have a bottle etched A22231621. Is that an A22?
I’m sure secondary will handle this with grace 😂
Haha I can assure you my measly 5k subs won’t have any sway whatsoever 😂
After listening to how different they taste to you, it seems like HH messed up & on the 1st day/batch of C923, they only blended the younger and/or lower floor barrels. So 10+ days later they just decided to blend the honey barrels together & call it the same thing, C923.
Lol, why didn’t you do this blind?
Another possibility that nobody has mentioned, is that the earlier 22x bottles could have been tainted after they left the distillery, by the distributor. These were shipped in August. Heat and/or sun can noticeably change the flavor of bottled whiskey in just a few hours & almost always in a bad way.
So it's certainly possible that whatever distributor picked up that early bottling let it get hot in the trucks in that August heat. I'm guessing that liquor distributor trucks aren't refrigerated.
Another thing to add concerning batch varition is the Russells Reserve 13 Batch 1. I remember lots of RUclipsrs being divided on it. When channels swapped samples, they found huge swings in quality between them. I think Dan at the Bourbon Junkies just used the phrase of "bad bottles" being out there. Knowing what we know now, I wonder if those bottle codes couldve told us something back then. And that was a much smaller release than C923 is.
Interesting stuff. Thanks for the video Cam.
Interesting but laughable. Would need a more detailed blind to put some facts together rather than speculation. No doubt variations can occur but why and how to track is still wide open. Cheers!
This is so interesting. There are two recent products for Heaven Hill where I have watched very consistently bipolar reviews. One is this C923, and the other is Bernheim Barrel Proof B923. I almost want to start asking reviewers what their laser codes are lol. One group of people call the bottle amazing, another group says it’s astringent and bitter. It’s so consistently one or the other that I’ve got to think it’s a similar situation and there is a problem with the batches. Heaven Hill needs to figure it out.
Larceny has been the same.
I remember opening my bottle after seeing rave reviews in our Connecticut whiskey group. I was not crazy about it, everthing felt tight and I chalked it up to needing some air time in the bottle. A few days later a post commented that sharing a friends bottle of C923 it did not drink the same. Once he put out feelers, it was narrowed down to that A22 vs A23.
I swapped samples with a bud who had an A23 bottle and we absolutely found a difference.
Yes, generally the same profile but the way it drjnks and how the flavors progressed in the A23 were Top 5 material.
Needless to say, I found an A23 shortly after!
When I say "same profile" its that you know they are definite siblings. A23 has that unmistakable big funky red fruit leaping out of the glass.
A22 got hit with the ugly stick for sure.
Feel like I might be in a minority where my bottle is missing a laser code
That issue seems to be popping up more and more in the comment section
@@DrumsAndDrams weird how they have this discrepancy. Cheers brotha
Sounds like a bunch of aliens and wizards.
😂😂
all in good humor brotha peace and drams@@DrumsAndDrams
Great video Cam and kudos for taking this on. People are touchy with ECBP
There’s no way the difference in the third digit of the laser code will correspond with what “micro-batch” it is. There may be consistency issues, but it’s not gonna be as simple as the third digit of the laser code given how bottling lines are setup. One it would be a pain from a bottling line perspective, but insofar as heaven hill markets this as one batch, namely something called C923, they’re not gonna go out of their way to distinguish micro batches by laser code. If anything they would try to conceal it as much as possible. This theory sounds nice, but it doesn’t add up.
Check the pinned comment - some great info there which would explain a more gradual drift in profile corresponding to these codes, which goes against the rumor that there are 2 distinct sub batches etc
This better be true at this point bc I got excited to finally find a bottle and, lo and behold, it's A223. So I have now passed twice bc neither were MSRP and had a tag of $110 on them. But again, ill be pretty pussed if I find out this is all nonsense bc I'll probably never see this again. Lol
Super interesting! Could you share the full code of your A22 bottle? I’m just curious if they’re all the same. I have an open bottle of A22 that I do really enjoy, and luckily my backup bottle is an A23. I’ll have crack it a little early and try them side by side. Thanks Cam!
A22232347 is the full code for mine. No idea what it means though, haha.
A22331826 the code on my open bottle. Also have A222330813 unopened.
I’m just not buying this explanation tbh.
It’s less about the explanation, which I don’t claim to know (only sharing the one I heard), and more about the fact that there’s such a difference in two bottles of the same product.
Great - more FOMO fodder…
I don’t see it that way. It’s just like any other tasting or review on RUclips-one person’s opinion on a bottle or two. Not sure how this generates any more FOMO than any other opinion on any other video.
@@DrumsAndDrams fair enough. I’m just being cynical - your reviews are thoughtful and genuine. No disrespect intended, my statement was more me venting frustration. Cheers!
Based on the pinned comment decoding the etched code on the bottles, my two backup bottles were filled on the 233rd day of the year 2 minutes apart, which would make sense since they probably came out of the same case. They would be part of your “A23” sub-category. Haven’t opened either of them. But the first bottle which I finished (and it was a nice pour, btw) I don’t know the code since I recycled the bottle. I also bought a single bottle at the other store in town (I live in a small coastal town in Oregon) which is my current opened bottle, and it was bottled on the 222nd day of the year (A222) which is eleven days earlier than my backup bottles. Different cases, different stores, different bottling dates. The thing is, since I never A-B compared the first two bottles, I can’t tell you that I noticed any difference between them. The biggest difference is how less hot they get after being opened awhile. Regardless of whether earlier bottlings of C923 fall short of later bottling dates, my experience is that I preferred them to the ECBP A123, mainly because of the superior, less drying or astringent finish than the January release.
To me, if there was an improvement to the C923 batches as the bottling process got going, it could have shown up in a matter of a day or so as things sorted out, which could mean that lots of the “A22” variants you refer to in your comparison could be as good as the “A23” variants, because the two numbers “22” vs. “23” are not too specific since you need the three numbers to tell you what day of the year the bottles were filled.
Day 220 and day 229 would both be “A22” codes by your definition, yet bottled 9 days apart. Day 230 would get your “A23” designation, but is only one day apart from the last “A22” bottles. All following bottles beyond day 230 would be in your favored category “A23” (assuming they didn’t get any further than day 239 before filling all the bottles of C923.) Clearly the differences wouldn’t simply suddenly appear on day 230, but more likely be an anomaly in perhaps the first day of bottling as they were getting it ramped up. That would be my guess. We’d have to know the date they started bottling the batch, and try to find bottles from maybe a couple of days after the line got going when everything stabilized.
Bottom line: the two numbers you use for comparing are incomplete, you need the first 3 numbers to get the day the bottle was filled. The last 4 digits would be the minute the juice flowed into the bottle.
Anyway, that’s my take on this supposed variation in the C923 bottles. I think it’s just the first day’s run will be the inconsistent ones until the process stabilizes. Should Heaven Hill perhaps take those first “cuts” and bottle them as some wild card offering instead of ship them out with the rest of the batch… probably. People would probably snap them up because of the random uniqueness of what’s in the bottles, but as long as there was complete transparency about what they were. Sneaking them into the distribution as being the “same” as the stabilized blended batch, maybe not so much. At least HH could avoid all the speculation now out there on social media. Just my take.
well you made me check. i have 2 bottles of a23. interesting info either way. I have really enjoy the few drinks i have had so far
Both of mine are A22. Now I wanna taste A23. Just when I thought the hunt was over sigh
Rr13 has the same issues especially with Batch 1. Batch 1 was mediocre where Batch 2 was Turkey Perfection
If it helps, I have a 223 (Aug11)- the neck was meh. a few days later I revisited and the shoulder to the middle was easily one of if not the best bottle I have ever experienced. I had all of the 2022 bottles headed my way so I held off a few weeks at that point. When I came back to it in a flight fight with all of the 2022s and a private barrel I had, it was back to being extremely mid. Never had a bottle open up so fantastically and then fall off so rapidly in my life, all in the course of ~1month. I didn't even finish the bottle, now 2+more months later.
This isn't a controversy... This is pretty common across the industry. This is just a gap in the consumers understanding.
Truthfully I didn’t feel like this video should’ve gotten the vitriolic response that it did from some folks.. felt pretty innocuous to me, and it seems like we’ve been talking about this with ECBP and other brands for quite awhile.
Nice try. You just want our A22's
😂😂😂
I have an open bottle of A23 (which I love), and 2 full bottles of A22. I just opened and poured one of the A22s, gave it an hour or so to breathe, and compared it to A23 semi-blind. My experience was just like yours - it wasn't even close. I'm no expert, but the difference in depth of flavor and sweetness at the finish was striking! I'm hoping my "backups" will develop over time, as the A23 bottle has been open for 4-5 weeks.
For the sake of science, no blind no care. That said, my lone experience with C923 was good but not great, so you’ve got me curious. Nice video from a first time viewer.
yep... it's blind or it doesn''t hold up.
Blind would be best, but I think this still holds up. He doesn't have any bias to affirm here.
@@DPTX it’s still a data point, but it’s not a valid assertion to say he “doesn’t have any bias”.
@@KartDad what would be his bias?
We all want bottles to be good. If that was the bias he would have said A22 was good.
If he doesn’t like C923, what bias would he have to now say A23 is good?
@@DPTX getting into the weeds here, but it's really about what COULD be his biases. There are numerous possibilities, most of which are probably insignificant. Sounds like he may be doing a blind on a future live stream based on what he mentioned during tonight's live stream. 🍿
Interesting theory and I have checked laser codes on a LOT of Ardbeg Ten bottles because they have batch fades over the years but these are supposed to all be 13 year 7 month and 66.5% abv, that's very specific to split into multiple sub-batches. Throwing a big wrench in the works and maybe purposefully so who knows! It has us talking.
Yeah I know that the idea of sub-batches (whether intentional or not) in this case sounds a little crazy, but that’s the rumor that’s swirling around. I should’ve been a little clearer in the video that in no way am I endorsing that theory as the “why”, but I can say with certainty that there was a big difference in the two whiskeys in the two glasses I tasted. Hard to tell how far that can be extrapolated out, but hey, this is the whiskey nerd stuff that gets me going and makes me think, haha!!
@@DrumsAndDrams I trust your palate so will be checking the back of the bottle on this one.
All this variation within a single release is pretty dissapointing and misleading on HHs part. I would understand if it was a Single Barrel but as a combined small batch with no designation on the bottle this is false advertising. Very disappointed, really throws a wrench in the hunting process. Great video and thanks for shedding light on this issue.
I can't help but hear Seinfeld when I read this video title 😄
Hahaha!! Yes!!
I'd love to hear what Heaven Hill has to say about this
Same!
They would say it’s a bunch of made up YT Bull Sh*t to inflate the secondary 👍🏼
@@watchingu83 as someone buying these bottles and not selling them, I can assure you that’s not the goal here. I’d like lower prices on the A23 bottling please.
Interesting, first Ive herd this. Ive got a23. Mines Great!
For a week or two I've seen the occasional commenter ask a channel what laser code the channel has but have never seen a channel reply. (On a side note, it makes me think a bit less of a channel if they ignore easy-to-answer questions.)
@@Best_Served_Neat_On_Ice Yep and I've been peppering comment sections myself. I have two bottles of A22 lower in serial number than this review so as soon as I get one open I'll report back.
It's the same whiskey 🤡
@@Best_Served_Neat_On_IceJust opened my a22131820 and it's great!
I have both. Of course I unknowingly opened the A23 and was thinking of holding on to A22 for a trade down the road…now nobody is going to want it😂. Having said that, A23 didn’t blow me away, I’ve had better Elijah Craig barrel picks for sure. I am a big fan of Elijah Craig and I really hope they aren’t trying to pass off multiple batches as one.
Interesting. Most of WI JUST received C923 and my batch is A22. I don't have the most sophisticated palate but I feel it could be a little more complex. Hopefully it will open open up nicely.
Me: finally finding a bottle of c923
Bourbon gods: so yeah. Anyway.
😂😂😂
I had a dude in line at a release in VA that shared a pour.. for me, a self-proclaimed novice with bourbon, it was a game changer for me. That proverbial ‘stake’ in the ground for good bourbon was pushed out quite a ways compared to what I’d had to date. It was incredible on the nose and palette.. I’m still trying to find one.
I have no insight on this EC BP bottle because it’s not easily available in Texas, however, Jack Daniels SBBP Rye is. And my bottle of it is terrible. It gets so much love on RUclips and Reddit and my bottle is a mixer. It’s no conspiracy that different batches are better than others.
At least those are known single barrels. Discrepancy makes a lot more sense there. Sucks you got a bad one 👎
My bottle has A23 on it and I wasn't impressed. And I'm a fan of ECBP. I can't imagine it being worse considering the praise heaped on it. Not that it's bad...but it's not the world beater it's made out to be. Found my C922 to be far superior to C923.
What did you prefer about the C922?
Everything you said / described about the sample with the code a23 is how I described my bottle. I checked it and it’s a223xxxx. You should have done this as a blind.
I have two fresh bottles of each coming my way and I’ll definitely be blinding them, likely on a livestream.
@@DrumsAndDrams,
If time allows, maybe consider dumping out a couple ounces of each as soon as you get them so that the bottles get some air time before you do the Live blind. (From personal experience I don't trust fresh cracks.)
This is a great video and something I was wondering about too. Thanks for doing the comparison.
So get this….I have an A22 and I also have one with literally no laser coding on the back. From 2 different states! 🤔
Unfortunately the printing isn't consistent, and they can wipe off too
I have several A22s, and one (I swear!) an A11! Haven't tried it yet. Had anyone else gotten/tried an A11? (My A22s have been hot and underwhelming...but mixed with Larceny C923, are fantastic!)
An A11!?!? What is happening!? Lol!
What's the rest of the code on your A11? For example, A11xxxxxxx - what's the full code?
My bad, it was a B523 that got up into the mix. I had a bit of a buzz last night
How did they get they same same proof and age statement if the two laser codes have different barrels in them ?
I’m not sure that’s the case, that idea was simply a rumor circulating based on a lack of knowledge regarding the batching process. At this point I think that it’s unlikely, though not sure why exactly the differences are there.
They emptied the bottom of the rick house first and the higher ricks were better
How do you know this? Very curious!
Drunk guess based on your bottle dating code theory, everyone clamors for higher rick Blantons and humans are inherently lazy
Aaaaaand this is why I’m out. I can’t keep up anymore. 😂
😂😂 I feel you
Love this deeper inquiry. Subscribed!
Sounds like someone wants to calm the secondary market down by throwing shadow at A22
If only I had that kind of influence lol
Like a couple other people mentioned, my c923 doesn't have a laser etched number anywhere on the bottle. Wife and I have thoroughly inspected. I have several other EC bottles (not c923) that have etched numbers. Interesting video regardless. Thanks Cam.
I thought the same thing but there is a tiny code on the very bottom ridge of the glass well below the liquid line. I'm talking TINY! check the front bottom ridge as well
That was sublime!
Thank you
With all the hype around this bottle I dug pretty hard in my area and came up with more than a few of these. I have A21####, A22#### ,A23####, and one withe no laser etching at all. I have only tried the A22. Its HOT, but quite full of flavor. I would be curious to know opinions on ALL the various coded ones....
Where do we find the code???
Cam is the Man
Great work
Back of the bottle at the bottom!
I have 4 bottles of c923. 3 have laser codes on back and one is on the front. one code has significantly bigger numbers. that one also happens to be the only '22'.
for the record, the '23' that's open is spectacular.
@@chriscasperson4588 Out of curiousity, does your code on the front start with an A? I've got 3 bottles of C923. Two laser codes on the back start with A22, third bottle, the laser code is on the front and starts what looks like----17 23
my front '23' code is also preceeded by a '17'. my other bottle code that starts with code A22, has a much larger font and is about an inch higher than the other '23' bottle code.
ECBP C923 is good but nowhere as good as ECBP B520 or even ECBP A121. In the ECBP scheme of things ECBP C923 would definitely rank in the top 10 best ECBP's of all time but making it into the top 5 best ECBP's of all time would be quite a stretch for this Heaven Hill's latest expression.
I just opened one of mine and it was straight up salty, like sea water (maybe a bit of hyperbole) I initially thought I had a dirty glass but now…😬
That’s interesting. I’ve had some salty batches, like A117 - distinct salted caramel. I didn’t notice that on either of these C923s, though if I placed that note on either, it would be the A22 laser code of the two I tested in this vid. Which laser is on the back of yours?
A22 🥲@@DrumsAndDrams
Weird.... both of my bottles start with 17 23. There's not an A anywhere in the laser code?
I've got one that starts like that as well and am curious about it.
same here@@musicmaster451
As I crack open my C923 ECBP A22331754 and sip along side the EC18 I got from Costco last year (Currently at the shoulder), the C923 A22 does taste a little tight and alcohol forward.
How long has your bottle been breathing?
I plan to let mine sit at the shoulder and maybe dose in some of the EC18 if my C923 A22 bottle doesn’t improve in a few months. I am not impressed the ECPB C923 from the neck pour. I was really hoping for something on par with the neck pour of my Proprietor 14yr bottles. Adding a few drops of the EC18 in today’s tasting improved the experience overall with a noticeably longer dark finish, less alcohol harshness, the nose remains still tight for me but has improved.
As of right now I will wait to see how the bottle opens up.
I think Michter's 10 2023 was the best of the year
It was amazing! By the way, Scotch reviews start this Sunday! Every Sunday moving forward. Your Lagavulin will be one of the first reviews!!
@@DrumsAndDrams Awesome! I can't wait
I wish I had your nose and palate. What an impressive review! I love bourbon/rye, but couldnt begin to articulate as well as you. You are a pro!
Is it possible that they have two different vats they store these in, and one of the vats is tainted or something?
I don’t think it’d relate to something being tainted, but rather the differences in barrels being dumped either into separate containers, or into one large container but being bottled throughout the process before all barrels have been dumped etc.. again, no concrete evidence, that’s just one rumor going around, and this tasting only proved to me that there ARE differences, but no idea why they exist.
@@DrumsAndDrams 100% agree with you. I honestly wasn't sure until I compared them myself and tried it blind twice with A23 laser code winning easily each time. A22 is okay but just a standard ECBP release vs A23 being one of the better ECBP releases in many years.
Just checked my unopened C923...................A22. DAMNIT! Lol
All hope is not lost! Check out the pinned comment from Nathan A. Seems less cut and dry given the info he dropped!
I'll take it
McK10 another HH product (and a Single Barrel) shows the inconsistency out of that distillery. Not a knock, just an observation.
So, heres one for you... i bought an unopened case of 3 bottles & it had two A22's & one A23 in it. kind of feels like that debunks how long the time between batches is. but who the hell knows, LOL
Damn bro, this just ruined my whole hunting season lol. I thought I had a premium bottle smh.
Well done, unfortunately I can’t seem to find this bottle anywhere, nada, zippo ! I’m in Los Angeles and it’s dry as the desert 🏜️🤘🏽🥃👊🏽
I’ve had 2 samples of different a22 bottles (one yours Cam and another from another friend) both were the same for me. Good but not great. Drank B520 against it one night and b520 was an easy win.
I bought a backup bottle of EC BP C923 due to all the FOMO. I still prefer A123 over B523 and C923. 🥃
Really interesting.... Immediately went and checked my two bottles and both have the "A23" designation... But after reading the comments, I need to dig deeper into the exact time stamp. Another journey down another bourbon rabbit hole, lol...
I got my hands on a couple C923 when it first released and the buzz was just starting. After drinking about 1/4th of the first, I quickly let the second go. Just not for me, but to be fair, none of the EC / Heavin Hill products are for me. They lack any cohesivity or proper blending. For the life of me I can not see the hype around this batch. It feels like in todays bourbon whiskey world, all that is needed is a high proof and people loose their minds.
Like when I see the shelf price tag on a Elijah Craig small batch say “12 year old”, but there hasn’t been an age statement on the bottle for a few years or more. They shouldn’t be able to put it on the price tag, seems misleading.
Awesome. Sounds like my unopened A22231001 might be the worst bottle possible.
I've now had both blind and the "bad" batch won out for me. I think it's in your own heads.
I did this blind comparison tonight. You are 100% correct
very interesting thanks for sharing. cheers
Good video dude, finally somebody addressed the topic. I’ve been saying this myself for the past couple of years, glad I’m not crazy. Ha
First, they removed the 12 year age statement. Now, they're not consistent with the batches. Get it together, Heaven Hill!!
I have A223, is that different then yours or is your third number 3 as well?
Mine is also A223, which would be the one I'm referring to as "A22" (the bottle on the left that I don't like as much as A23)
@@DrumsAndDrams You posted earlier that your A22 that you have is A2223xxxx, not A2233xxxx. If true then your bottle would have been filled a day earlier than the bottle @TDPJr78 has.
See my earlier top-level comment about the explanations I've seen for how to interpret the date codes.
Yeah so I’m curious if our bottles are different because I have A2233
@@Whiskeats assuming the bottling info is true that @nathana.7473 shared (which seems very likely), then yours would be bottled 1 day later than mine. What that means in terms of final product.. well, that would be hard to predict. Go check out the comment from Nathan that I pinned - great info there that is helping me to understand what might be at play here.
Ok I see your point. So it very well could be that each day would probably taste slightly different then the dump before. Or maybe those first batches were more stringent and ethanol, Forward because it was fresh being dumped. And as the days went on it smoothed out. Great info throughly appreciated it.
Thanks for comparing. Awesome details in the video and the comments?
!!!!
Nice analysis. I didn’t know there could be two distinct ECBP batches within a batch.
I don’t know it for certain and I want to be really clear about that, but at least this nosing/tasting revealed to me that there are differences for some reason between these two bottles which happen to have different codes. Whether it’s the batching theory or not, I have no concrete evidence, but this at least proves to me that there’s massive inconsistency for some reason. I hope others will taste for themselves if they have the chance and come to their own conclusions!
@@DrumsAndDrams very interesting, thanks 🙏
I don't see any laser codes on one of bottles.. and the other definitely doesn't have an A before it either.
Very interesting Cam! I didn't know these were batched like that I guess. Haven't been able to find a C923 unfortunately but will hopefully come across one sometime. Cheers!
They are all C923, he is referring to the laser code printed on the bottle not the batch “C923” within that there is a laser code directly on the glass (not the label) and you look at the first 3 digits same as other distilleries have laser codes printed directly on the glass to identify year and dump dates.
If you find a A22...its a pass. Its barely worth MSRP IMO. It's okay for ECBP but slopy, unrefined in comparison to the A23 sub-batch of C923. Crazy how much variations these have with each other. Extreemly disappointed in Elijah Craig.
@@Tech_Geek247 Nah I just opened mine and it's great
It’s weird…my C923 bottle has no code on the back. ??
Same, wonder if this is a 3rd variation. 🤔
Very tough to see the codes. Gotta hold it up to the light and twist and turn it to find it.
Check the front one comment on this video said that of the 4 he has 3 are on the back one on the front and it's is difficult to see without the right light.
@@SRVandDtroubleI have 2 and one is a22 the other is blank. There is a number on the front at the bottom of both that is nowhere near a22 or a23 on either bottle. So I guess some missed getting etched?
@@dustintaylor-d3c Good to know. I guess that possibly means non etched bottles predate the Axxxxxxx number system.
If it's not a mandatory thing it makes you wonder if they will go back to non etched bottles after this information gets noticed?
I also wasn’t blown away by the C923. It was good, though.
I think my a223 is great can't wait to look for another one regardless of lasercode
So isn't that a near empty bottle of the A22 you rated a 5-7 out of 10??
It’s a mystery to me why you wouldn’t blind them????
You should have blind tasted these
Once my new bottles arrive I will be sure to!
I just got a bottle of C923 and the neck pour nose and palate were fantastic. Virtually no burn. Can’t wait to get home from vacation to find out the code.
I have A23 and my experience is more consistent with what the video describes for A22. Don't have both to compare side x side though.
I just bought a bottle and it has a soil taste to it. I love EG
And I thought I had reached “Batch Fatigue” with Russell’s Reserve 13. I do appreciate the folks gathering and sharing this information. I have a 22 and a 23, I suspect I’ll blind them for myself at some point.
Way over hyped.. it's good though.
Have not seen this bottle at any of the stores I go to. The allocated events had one or two only.
Just checked my bottle. A23 baby!! 🥳
I haven't found a bottle yet. I'll take either one.
This is based on the assumption that the batch process he describes is true.....which he repeatedly says he doesn't know. BS video at best.
The point of the video wasn’t the batch process-that’s a rumor-but rather to discuss the inconsistencies between the two different bottlings I tasted. It was about the “what” more than the “why.” The “why” is speculative, and I freely admit that. If you can track down one of each, try the comparison for yourself. It’s interesting!
Larceny C923 for the win
Watched Fred's top 100 the other day. If I recall the C923 didn't break the top 50. I wonder if he had the A22 bottle.
C923 was in his Top10
LOL, of course I got the A22, lol!