Labels disappear, reputations vanish and sometimes expensive bottles get embarrassed.

Every time I put cheap bottles against expensive ones in a blind tasting, I get a little nervous. There’s always the possibility that something I previously rated wonderfully is going to finish behind a bottle I pulled off the bottom shelf. And while I love finding a great bargain, there’s something unsettling about discovering that the bourbon I paid $100 for can’t beat something that cost me $25.

It doesn’t happen very often. The good stuff should be the good stuff, after all, and the cheap stuff shouldn’t have magically improved since I put the cork back in the bottle. But sometimes it happens. Sometimes my senses get turned around, especially if I’m moving through samples too quickly. Sometimes I’m simply having an off day and things aren’t tasting quite the way they should. And sometimes, that inexpensive bourbon really is better than the expensive one.

And that’s OK. As long as I’m being honest.

The Trouble With Knowing Too Much

One of the challenges of reviewing bourbon is that it’s almost impossible to approach a bottle without some preconceived notions. I know what I paid for it. I know how old it is, how much proof it carries, and sometimes even where it was distilled and aged. I know whether it’s a highly sought-after limited release or something that’s been sitting on the bottom shelf of my local liquor store for years.

And if I’ve tasted it before, I know what I thought about it the last time.

All that information can influence my expectations before I ever put my nose near the glass. If I know I’m drinking a particularly expensive or well-regarded bourbon, I’m probably going to expect something special. If I’m drinking something that costs less than a decent lunch, I might be pleasantly surprised if it’s merely drinkable.

That’s not necessarily dishonesty. It’s human nature. We bring our experiences, expectations and preferences to everything we evaluate. The trick is recognizing those influences and doing everything possible to keep them from determining the outcome.

That’s where blind tasting comes in.

Take away the label, the price tag, the age statement and the reputation, and suddenly all those things I thought I knew about the bourbon don’t matter nearly as much. All I have is what’s in the glass, and the only question worth answering is whether I actually enjoy it.

In that sense, a blind tasting isn’t just a test of the whiskey. It’s a test of the reviewer.

When the Numbers Don’t Agree

I’ve rated enough bourbon over the years to know that my palate isn’t perfectly consistent. I’ve revisited bottles and wondered what I was thinking when I gave them their original scores. Sometimes a bourbon seems to improve with a little time in the bottle. Sometimes it doesn’t seem nearly as impressive as it did when I first opened it.

And sometimes the difference has nothing to do with the bourbon.

What I ate earlier in the day can affect what I taste. So can the condition of my sinuses, the glass I’m using, how much water I’ve had, or how quickly I’m moving from one sample to another. Palate fatigue is a real consideration, particularly when I’m working through several high-proof bourbons in the same sitting.

I’ve become especially aware of those limitations recently because my sense of smell hasn’t been what it used to be. I’ve found that certain glasses allow me to pick up aromas that seem almost nonexistent in a traditional Glencairn. That doesn’t mean the bourbon has changed. It means the conditions under which I’m evaluating it have changed.

And those conditions matter.

When I score a bourbon, I’m recording my experience with that whiskey at that particular moment. I’m trying to be as consistent and objective as possible, but there’s no laboratory instrument measuring how much caramel, cherry, oak or cinnamon I’m experiencing. There’s just me, my senses and my best attempt to describe what’s happening.

That doesn’t make the scores meaningless. It simply means they aren’t carved in stone.

When the Blind Gets Brutal

Last June, I conducted an 11-bottle blind tasting of double-oaked bourbons, including a couple that had been triple- and even quad-oaked. I randomized the bottles, transferred their contents into numbered samples, and mixed everything up again. By the time I started tasting, I genuinely had no idea what was in any particular glass.

The results were fascinating, and a few were downright surprising.

The overall winner was a special Father’s Day selection of Woodford Reserve Double Oaked that I’d purchased at the distillery. It scored an 88.21, which didn’t particularly surprise me. What did surprise me was that three of the next four positions belonged to Bondstone, Total Wine’s house brand. The Triple Oak finished second, the Quad Oak third, and the Double Oak Cask Strength fourth.

Not bad for a brand that doesn’t carry the prestige of some of the better-known names in bourbon.

But perhaps the most interesting result involved Old Forester. The regular Old Forester 1910 finished fifth with an 86.69. The considerably more exclusive 117 Series 1910 Extra Extra Old finished ninth with an 83.44. That’s a difference of more than three points, and it wasn’t what I would have expected.

Then there was Kentucky Credential Double Oak, an ABC-exclusive bourbon that costs less than $50. It scored an 85.82, good enough for eighth place in the blind. That might not sound particularly impressive until you consider the competition. More importantly, that score was strong enough to earn Kentucky Credential a place in my 2027 Bourbon March Madness bracket.

That’s something worth remembering about blind tastings. Finishing in the middle of a strong field doesn’t necessarily mean a bourbon is mediocre. Sometimes it means an inexpensive bottle has demonstrated that it belongs in the company of bottles costing considerably more.

And then there’s the other side of the equation.

Buzzard’s Roost Signature Double Oak, a bourbon costing somewhere around $50 to $60, finished dead last with a score of 79.86. It was beaten by Jim Beam Double Oak, which costs about $20 and scored an 81.81. Neither bourbon threatened to win the competition, but the much less expensive Jim Beam managed to outperform a bottle costing nearly three times as much.

Was the regular Old Forester really better than the Extra Extra Old? Was Jim Beam really better than Buzzard’s Roost? On that day, with those samples, that’s exactly what my palate told me.

Would I get precisely the same results if I repeated the tasting tomorrow? Maybe. Maybe not. But I wasn’t going to change the rankings because I didn’t like what they revealed.

That’s the beauty of tasting blind. And sometimes, it’s the brutality.

The Bottom-Shelf Upset

Here’s the uncomfortable reality: Sometimes the less expensive bourbon wins because it’s actually the better bourbon. Or at least it’s the bourbon I prefer.

Price and quality aren’t always closely related. A bourbon can be expensive because it’s old, rare, difficult to produce or backed by a reputation that creates enormous demand. None of those things guarantees that I’m going to enjoy drinking it more than something that’s readily available for a fraction of the price.

That’s one of the reasons I enjoy my Bourbon Cheapskate series so much. There’s genuine satisfaction in discovering something inexpensive that delivers far more than its price suggests. I love being able to tell readers that they don’t have to spend a fortune to find a bourbon worth drinking.

But there’s a difference between enjoying a bargain and allowing that bargain to defeat something I previously considered exceptional.

When that happens, I have to ask myself some questions. Did I get the original evaluation wrong? Am I having an off day? Did the proof or tasting order affect my perception? Or did that unassuming bottle simply bring something to the table that the expensive one couldn’t match?

Sometimes the answer is obvious. Sometimes it isn’t.

What I can’t do is change my score because I don’t like the result. I can’t give a famous bottle a few extra points to protect its reputation, or take points away from something inexpensive because I can’t believe it performed that well.

If I’m going to call it a blind tasting, I have to be willing to accept what the blind tasting tells me.

Looking Beyond the Label

There’s a spiritual lesson in all of this, too.

When the prophet Samuel went looking for the man God had chosen to become Israel’s next king, he thought he’d found him almost immediately. Eliab, the oldest son of Jesse, looked like exactly the sort of man who should be king. But God had other plans.

The Lord told Samuel:

“For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” — 1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV)

Samuel was making a judgment based on appearances, and he was wrong. God’s choice was David, the youngest son, who hadn’t even been brought before Samuel when the selection process began.

I wonder how often we make the same mistake. We see someone’s appearance, learn about their background, discover what they do for a living, or hear something about their reputation, and we start forming opinions before we really know them. Sometimes those opinions are favorable. Sometimes they aren’t. But either way, we’re allowing information that may have little to do with someone’s character to shape our judgment.

That’s a much more consequential mistake than overrating an expensive bottle of bourbon.

Blind tasting reminds me that what I think I know isn’t always what I actually know. And if I’m willing to set aside my assumptions about something as relatively unimportant as whiskey, I ought to be even more willing to do so when I’m dealing with people.

There’s another lesson in that Kentucky Credential result, too. We sometimes judge people by where they rank in comparison to others, forgetting that someone doesn’t have to finish first to be exceptional. There’s value in recognizing what a person brings to the table rather than measuring them against everyone else.

After all, a label can tell you quite a bit about what’s supposed to be inside a bottle. But it can’t tell you whether you’re going to like what’s actually there.

And appearances tell us even less about what’s inside a person’s heart.

Honesty Is the Whole Point

There’s a reason I keep putting myself through these exercises, even when the results make me uncomfortable. It’s because I want to know what I actually like, not what I’m supposed to like.

I want my readers to know that when I recommend a bottle, I’m doing so because I believe it’s worth their consideration. Not because it carries a prestigious label, commands a premium price or received glowing reviews from everyone else.

And when a bourbon falls short of my expectations, I want to be able to say that, too.

That doesn’t mean every blind tasting result becomes the final word on a particular bottle. If something performs dramatically differently from my previous experience, I’m perfectly willing to revisit it. One tasting, especially on a day when my senses aren’t cooperating, shouldn’t necessarily erase everything I’ve experienced before.

But I won’t pretend the result didn’t happen, either.

I don’t particularly enjoy discovering that a bourbon I spent $100 on can’t beat something I bought for $25. And I certainly don’t enjoy discovering that a whiskey I previously praised doesn’t hold up when I don’t know what I’m drinking. But that’s the whole point of tasting blind. I’m not there to defend a purchase, protect a reputation or justify an earlier score.

I’m there to find out what’s actually in the glass.

Sometimes the expensive bottle wins. Sometimes the cheap bottle pulls off an upset. And sometimes I have to admit that my palate just isn’t having its best day.

Blind is brutal. But it’s also honest. And honesty is worth considerably more than the price of the bottle.

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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.