A trip to Total Wine recently turned into one of those whiskey purchases that seemed like a good idea right up until I got home and started doing the research I probably should have done before I handed over my credit card.
I was looking at Chestnut Farms when one of the managers started talking it up. According to him, Chestnut Farms and Colonel E.H. Taylor were essentially synonymous. He even pointed to the DSP number printed on a Chestnut Farms box as proof that Buffalo Trace was the distillery behind it.
That certainly got my attention.
So when he showed me the Chestnut Farms Single Barrel marked down to the “sale price” of $129, I bit.
Then I went home and started digging.
And suddenly the story wasn’t quite as impressive.
What I had apparently bought was something much closer to an elevated version of 1792 Full Proof than some sort of E.H. Taylor cousin. That’s not necessarily an insult. I like 1792 Full Proof. But I can buy a bottle of 1792 Full Proof for considerably less than $129.
The question became obvious: Had I just paid twice as much for essentially the same whiskey?
There was only one fair way to find out.
Blind tasting.
I pulled five bottles that seemed capable of answering the question:
- Chestnut Farms Single Barrel
- 1792 Full Proof — distillery pick
- Elijah Craig Single Barrel — Shores store pick
- 1792 Full Proof
- Colonel E.H. Taylor Small Batch Bottled-in-Bond
I poured 1.5-ounce samples into five identical anonymous sample bottles, jumbled them, pulled them randomly and labeled them A through E. At that point, I had no idea which whiskey was which.
Then I started tasting.
Sample A — 83.22
Solid copper in the glass. The nose was a mixture of fruit and caramel with brown sugar and light oak. Cinnamon spice came first on the palate, followed by brown sugar and oak, with buttery toffee and light tree fruit underneath.
The mouthfeel was rich, and the finish hung around nicely with tart red fruit, brown sugar and fading cinnamon.
This was a very good pour.
Sample B — 83.11
A little lighter in color, with warm sweet caramel, toasted oak, nutmeg and butterscotch on the nose.
The palate brought rich buttery toffee, brown sugar, oak and lightly toasted nuts. The mouthfeel was thinner than Sample A, although still better than average, and the finish delivered toffee, cinnamon and caramel.
Not quite as substantial as A, but remarkably close in score.
Sample C — 83.98
Solid copper again, with probably the most immediately inviting nose of the group: butterscotch, nutmeg, sweet red fruit, light oak and just a touch of sugar.
The proof announced itself quickly on the palate. Sweet fruit led into honey, cinnamon, caramel, toffee and light oak. The mouthfeel was a little lighter than I expected, but the finish made up some ground with tart cherries, honey, oak and cinnamon.
This one took the early lead.
Sample D — 81.70
Light copper, with toasted oak, sweet tree fruit, brown sugar, nutmeg and caramel on the nose.
The palate suggested crème brûlée, cinnamon, tart cherries, caramel and vanilla. The mouthfeel bordered on creamy, and the finish was solid, with tart cherry, light oak, vanilla and mild cinnamon.
Nothing wrong with this whiskey at all.
But in this company, somebody had to finish fifth.
Sample E — 83.33
Mid-copper in color. Toasted oak came first on the nose, followed by apples and pears, with brown sugar and caramel showing up behind them.
The palate opened with sweet brown sugar and cinnamon, backed by creamy caramel, sweet apples and vanilla. The mouthfeel was lightly creamy, and the finish lasted beautifully with tart fruit, cinnamon and caramel.
Another excellent pour, and another very tight score.
Then came the reveal.
Sample A was 1792 Full Proof — the distillery pick.
Sample B was 1792 Full Proof.
Sample C — the winner at 83.98 — was Chestnut Farms Single Barrel.
Sample D was Colonel E.H. Taylor Small Batch Bottled-in-Bond.
And Sample E was the Elijah Craig Single Barrel Shores store pick.
Well.
I suppose Chestnut Farms deserves at least a little vindication. It won.
Unfortunately, it didn’t win by $60 or $70.
The Chestnut Farms was the best whiskey of the five in this tasting, but only barely. It beat the regular 1792 Full Proof by less than one point, and the distillery-pick 1792 wasn’t far behind either. If anything, the biggest surprise among those three was that the distillery pick finished a tick behind the standard shelf bottle.
That’s the danger — and the fun — of drinking blind. The label can’t help you.
The Elijah Craig might have been the most interesting bottle in the entire experiment. It was carrying roughly 30 proof less than some of the heavy hitters in the lineup and still finished second. In terms of pure flavor, it may actually have been my favorite. It simply lost some ground because its lighter proof couldn’t quite deliver the same mouthfeel and lingering finish.
And then there’s Colonel Taylor. That was the shocker.
I expected E.H. Taylor Small Batch to contend for the top spot. Instead, it finished comfortably at the bottom. An 81.70 certainly isn’t a bad score, but against these bottles it simply didn’t show up the way I expected it to.
That also reinforces something I’ve been saying about Taylor for a while. It’s a very good bourbon at MSRP. Once the secondary-market fever starts pushing the price significantly higher, though, the whiskey inside the bottle has a harder and harder time justifying what people are paying for the name on the outside.
Which brings me back to Chestnut Farms.
Did I buy a good bottle? Absolutely.
Did it win the blind tasting? Yep.
Do I enjoy it? Very much.
Would I pay $129 for another one? Nope.
Because the tasting ultimately confirmed what bothered me after I researched the bottle. Chestnut Farms Single Barrel tastes like a really good whiskey from the same general family as 1792 Full Proof. It may even be a little better.
But “a little better” and “twice the price” are two very different things.
I could buy 1792 Full Proof, pocket the difference, and be extremely happy.
On the bright side, Chestnut Farms does come in a very nice wooden box.
Apparently I bought a pretty expensive box.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt
