As the horses prepare to run for the roses, we’re prepared to drink the roses. Specifically – Four Roses Yellow Label.
Four Roses has been a staple in the bourbon industry since Paul Jones Jr. founded the distillery in the mid-1880s. As the story goes, the bourbon was named for Paul Jones Jr.’s love story with a southern belle. When he proposed, she said that if her answer were “yes,” she would wear roses on her gown to the next ball. She turned up with four roses on her gown and the rest is history. And while good ol’ Paul might have gotten his belle, Yellow Label isn’t exactly the belle of our ball.
Four Roses Yellow Label is the O.G. of the Four Roses line, compared to its other single barrel, small batch, and limited edition bourbons. Yellow Label is also the affordable, budget-friendly bottle and boy does it taste like it.
Yellow Label begins with a tiny, peppery bit and then transitions into a watery sip that’s vaguely, kind of, sort of, fruit flavored. After really concentrating we landed on pear as the fruit flavor, but it’s almost impossible to identify specifics. The experience ends not with a bang, but with a whimper of leather and oak. All together, there’s nothing offensive about Four Roses Yellow Label, but there’s nothing exceptional about it either.
Now for only $23 a bottle you may be thinking, “What’s so wrong with inoffensive and uninteresting, anyways?” and you’d have a fair point. But for less than $23, you can buy flavor stand-outs like Benchmark Old No. 8, Old Grand-Dad Bonded, or Evan Williams Black. So in that case, why reach for Four Roses? Well for the thrill of the brand of course. In fact, in our opinion, if this bourbon didn’t have a Four Roses label on it, it wouldn’t be popular at all.
Not every bourbon can be perfect and every rose may have its thorns, but in the case of Yellow Label, this rose is just wilted. We’ll stay optimistic about the rest of the Four Roses collection and in the meantime, enjoy our other budget-friendly bourbons.
STATS: Four Roses Yellow Label Bourbon
- Price for us: $23 for 750 mL
- Proof: 80
- Aged: NAS
- Distillery: Four Roses, Owned by the Kirin Brewery Company
- Recommendation: Mixer
