I'm not a huge pappy fan (but do drink it from time to time) but nothing from Diaegos orphan barrel compares. I don't mean to belittle your choice in whisky because it's ok whisky for the most part. My biggest problem is how Diaego has marketed the whisky. They've ridden the coatails of both the names of Stitzel Weller and George T Stagg; two icons in bourbon which honestly aren't at all related to the Diaego products. They play up the limited release nature but some numbers I've seen for the Rhetoric place the run to almost 40k bottles (for instance I think George T stagg this year had 14k bottle run, which was the largest of the buffalo trace). Finally they have tried to make a good story up about the spirit, which is all the new rage but mostly just marketing BS. Orphan barrel? This idea that they stashed it in the back of Stitzel Weller and forgot about it? BS. All barrels have tax paid on them so nobody forgot about them. The truth of the matter is all of the honey barrels are gone at this warehouse and this is just stuff that didn't make the cut. It's still ok stuff but not anywhere what they claim it to be.

So in summary it's ok stuff but Diaego has pumped up the marketing on it so that it just turns me off. I'm fairly sick of all the marketing rhetoric that's going on these days (templeton, whistle pig, etc).

Fdw