Today we have a bottle of Western Gold Straight Old Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey Sour Mash.
Western Gold is a bourbon made for Lidl. This bourbon is 40% and costs £12.19, so it’s quite low priced, although this is probably reflected in its taste.
Kentucky Fried Chicken Bourbon
Many people online have been saying that Western Gold is just Jim Beam with a different bottle. I haven’t drank Jim Beam in a long time, but I remember it not being very delicious. The bottle is very similar so it could either be the same thing, or a cheap knockoff. Jim Beam costs over £6 more than Western Gold, so if it does taste similar it would be a good thing.
The front label says the bourbon is “Distilled and aged under supervision of the United States government” and I for one am comforted knowing my whiskey is looked over by Barack Obama. I’m not sure how big a role he plays in the manufacturing of this whiskey, but the fact he’s involved in the production of Lidl’s drinks at all is quite amazing. The side of the bottle proudly boasts that Western Gold is “Based on best American grain, pure water and the knowledge of experienced distillers” which is quite disappointing after reading the front label. Western Gold doesn’t even bother claiming to be “Made with” pure water, just based on it. Either way, this bourbon is setting itself up to be either massively fantastic or completely undrinkable.
Straight from the bottle, Western Gold smells like vodka mixed with a shoe. It smells quite dull and not much like whiskey at all. It tastes like some kind of murky brown thing and burns a lot. If this tastes like Jim Beam then I must really have hated Jim Beam. Adding ice however, completely changes the drink. The shoe smell transforms into an oaky scent and it becomes much more drinkable. It still isn’t a fantastic bourbon, but ice definitely makes it much better. You’ll probably want to drink Western Gold with something like coke, as it isn’t very enjoyable to sip at.
Western Gold is cheap, but not very delicious. It’s fine when mixed with something but it’s pretty shitty to drink on its own.
Booze Review rating: 5/10 deliciouses
