Background

In honor of March Madness, I would like to introduce the Celebrity Bourbon* Bracket! Ok, one is American Whiskey- more on that in a little. Ever see Terry Bradshaw’s bourbon in a liquor store, laugh at it and say “No way that’s good.” Well, let’s taste through every “wait, the two guys from Vampire Diaries have a bourbon?!” celebrity offering! Which will be the least bad? Who knows, I’ve never had any of these before, but I am excited to find out. Quick notes on the format:

• I tried to select the base product for each brand where applicable. Yes, something like Blackened x Willett is awesome, but that’s not really what we’re going for here.

• A group of 6 of us tasted each matchup, and we did them blind each time. The reviews below are predominantly my notes with added color from our panel.

• The seeding was done by number of Instagram followers, because it is a celebrity bracket after all. I’ll roll out bracket updates periodically, tackling two matchups per post (first round in two posts, second round in one, championship in the final update). 

Ok without further ado, an intro to the contestants and their seeds, then onto the first two matchups. Worth noting, I’ll provide more info on each as they are bounced from the tournament as sort of a eulogy to these mighty fallen vanity projects. We’ll be tasting:

1. Virginia Black (Drake) - 133M IG Followers

2. Brother’s Bond (Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder) - 24.1M

3. Blackened (Metallica) - 9.6M

4. Wild Turkey Longbranch (Matthew McConaughey) - 7.3M

5. Digits (Scottie Pippen) - 1.9M

6. Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan) - 884k

7. Sweeten’s Cove (Andy Roddick and Peyton Manning) - 521k

8. Bradshaw (Terry Bradshaw) - 91.1k 

First Round - Virginia Black(1) vs Bradshaw (8)

Pour 1:

Nose: Black licorice, caramel, vanilla. Kind of alot of black licorice, some oak spice

Palate: Harsh, tastes young, corn pops. Caramel, vanilla. Hints of oak and baking spices.

Finish: ROUGH. Cinnamon, a slight earthenness

2/10

Pour 2:

Nose: Flat cola. Liquid caramel. It just smells artificial.

Palate: Dirt, earthy, grapey? Bad jam. Flat cola again

Finish: Jammy still. Is this finished? Earthy, grapple. Root beer candies, kind of plasticy.

1/10

Notes from the Panel: “One of them at least tasted like whiskey, the other one tasted terribly artificial.” Our blind panel guessed correctly nearly unanimously which one was Virginia Black. To quote a panel member “this feels like a ‘one of these has to win situation.’”

Winner Pour 1 which is… Bradshaw!

Send off for Virginia Black: Good riddance to this 80 Proof 2 Year American Whiskey. Just hold on you're going home.

First Round - Longbranch (4) vs Digits (5)

Pour 1:

Nose: Sweetcream, cornbread, orange marmalade.

Palate: Cola, caramel, oranges. Hints of citrus.

Finish: A fair bit of orange here, gentle oak influence, some nutmeg and allspice

4/10

Pour 2:

Nose: Hints of cherry, brown sugar, sugar cookies

Palate: Nice baking spices, cherry notes, berries and buttercream frosting.

Finish: Sugar cookies, caramel and baking spice finish.

4.5/10

Notes from the Panel: “These both taste way more like actual bourbons than the last two. Both of these are drinkable.” Many of us thought Longbranch, being a Wild Turkey product, would be a tournament favorite coming in. This was a tighter than anticipated vote, going 4-2 for…

Winner Pour 2 which is… Longbranch!

Send off for Digits: Their site is a bit of mess, one area claims Digits is a 5 year old blend of Indiana and Tennessee components (so almost certainly MGP and DIckel), the fact sheet just says Tennessee. Regardless, I full expected “No Tippin Pippen” to have just slapped his name on this and collected a check… but this was at least much better than Terry Bradshaw’s cash in.

Bradshaw (a beneficiary of our seeding method if there ever was one) and Longbranch advance to round two! Next post will see Brother’s Bond (2) square off against Sweeten’s Cove Kennessee Bourbon (7), and Blackened (3) vs Heaven’s Door (6). Stay tuned!