Okay, so the backstory: I was out in Chicago back in June for work and stopped in at a highly recommended honey hole liquor store on the west side of the city to do a bit of bourbon hunting. Anyone that’s caught the “bug” knows the struggles of passing a perfectly good store wondering if they passed on something great. I did pick up a few Orphan Barrel bottles at a ridiculous price, but that is coming on another more upbeat, positive review…in this instance I knew what I was buying and got sucked into the vortex of bottle porn. It too is a very real thing. Bottle Porn: An adjective naming the attribute, added to or grammatically related towards a bottle of whiskey to modify or describe it in an attractive fashion above that of your basic boring container i.e. “that bottle is fucking sexy”, “it’s got great curves” or “weight in the right places”.  Anyways the juice inside the bottle in this instance wasn’t up to par and therefore the only thing Lusty Claw has going for is the bottle itself. Sad really that after my initial tasting and one subsequent “review” this will most likely sit on the self until the sun enters the red giant phase and envelopes the earth eviscerating everything in existence, because under no circumstance will there come a day that I actually come home and say “damn I really feel like a dram of Lusty Claw” and if I do feel compelled to break my promise, you have my permission to beat me within an inch of my life.

Nose: Terpentine, Faint Wood, Rotting Apple (yes, I know this is unpleasant) & pleather, yes plastic leather…that fake shit that people thought was cool back in the nineties.

Taste: Corn, caramelized sugar, week old baked goods, cheap leather & cheaper cigars.

Finish: Surprisingly smooth mouth feel, very tannic finish (you’ll need water trust me) before the finish leads you off the same cliff the lemmings that probably love this juice are headed. One note, less depth and as shallow as a mud puddle. Same color too. As a characteristic tannin adds both bitterness and astringency, as well as complexity this comes from aging in wooden barrels and this definitely has both.

Worth The Cheddar: No, no & fuck no. The bottle will make a cool decanter when I dump the contents down the drain. I am calling them contents because the legal definition of this is in fact bourbon, but I refuse to call it that. They couldn’t get away with claiming this fucking garbage is Bourbon Whiskey otherwise. Can you say INFINITY BOTTLE, because eventually it’ll taste like something else…THANK GOD! Unless you just want a cool looking bottle for your shelf, please pass on this. Don’t drink it, but if you do I want you to understand this is a daily drinker compared to Bloody Butcher. That’s how bad Bloody Butcher is, so drink accordingly. The design of the bottle will help them with sales, which is unfortunate because some other poor asshole is going to look at this bottle on the shelf and say, it can’t be that bad…let me give it a try. Lusty Claw is probably not for the crowd that actually cares about what they’re drinking, but still I’m sure there’s some ignorant “bourbon aficionado” that thinks this swill is actually palatable. It’s like getting sucked into a restaurant simply because they have a nice website. It’s the #metoo movement of bourbon. I got sucked into the vortex on this one. #bottleporn is a real thing. Don’t think so, go hunting long enough and you’ll get there too. Fuck me, this stuff is awful.