Four Roses Small Batch

I’m a big fan of the Four Roses I’ve had so far, I own a bottle of Single Barrel and Loch & Key OBSV PS, and love them. People seem to name Small Batch as being different, and this will be my first experience with it. I guess the thing to look out for would be whether I pick it as Four Roses at all, since that should be something I can do by this point.

Source: Sample from Master of Malt.
Setup: Blind in a trio tasting with Old Forester & Smooth Ambler Old Scout 10yo Bourbon
Drank: Neat, in a Glencairn. Rested 15 minutes.

---

Nose: Dusty, hay, creamed corn. A rye component showing dill, caraway. I like the way the dusty and rye notes work together, harmonizing to create kind of grassy, damp moss thing. Nice nose.
Palate: A little thin. Not finding any spice, interesting after the rye on the nose.
Finish: Dusty, drying oak, apricot. Not a whole deal of sweetness. Pretty decent length. Where did the rye go?
Blind Guess: Something with noticable rye content.
Overall: Lovely and dusty, with a good and long finish. Would have liked some of the complexity from the nose to follow through on the body/finish.

Rating (given blind): 5

Thoughts: To me this tasted totally different to the single barrel bottles I have, probably because they’re both OBSV. I had learned to pick up the mossy, earthy, flowery notes from those bottles and while you saw a hint of that in the tasting notes, once it was revealed it was not even close to me. Really interesting! I thought it would be closer to the single barrel. I find the Small Batch has less complexity, it’s more of a straightforward typical bourbon (but a solid one at that). The SiBs are super complex to me and anything but typical.