Here’s a little peek behind the scenes of my blog: Russell’s Reserve 10-Year bourbon is by far my most popular review, and by a significant margin. As of writing, it has around 23K views. The next highest individual review? Four Roses Single Barrel with roughly 12K. I’ve occasionally pondered why this is the case, yet I always find myself stumped. It’s far from my oldest review, doesn’t have any glowing or damning evaluations, and the product itself might be one of the least interesting that I’ve covered. As a 10-year, 90 proof bourbon with high availability and agreeable pricing between $30-$50, the widespread consensus has been that it’s relatively high-value whiskey that often lives in Eagle Rare’s shadow (since they share identical specs).

This then begs the question: Why revisit such a pedestrian product when I rarely do so for other bottles?

If you’re not up to speed with musings in various whiskey communities, then you may have missed the recent discussions surrounding bottle laser codes. The short version is this: bottles have codes laser-etched onto them (typically toward the bottom), usually indicating when the whiskey was bottled. In 2023, the big talk of the town came from Heaven Hill with certain bottles of Elijah Craig Barrel Proof C923. Attention surrounding the bottle was threefold: 2023 was the year Heaven Hill dropped the 12-year age statement on Elijah Craig Barrel Proof (starting with B523), C923 bore an elevated age statement at over 13.5 years, and many proclaimed certain bottles of C923 tasted noticeably better than others. People deduced that bottles with certain laser codes consistently lined up with this elevated drinking experience, leading many to pay more attention to the bottles they saw or bought.

Yet when it comes to laser codes, you’re not going to find a crowd more in-tune than Wild Turkey enthusiasts. David Jennings (aka Rare Bird 101) could even be credited for drawing attention to laser codes in the first place, albeit primarily for Wild Turkey products. There are a couple of reasons for this: learning the exact year that certain expressions were bottled, as well as referencing them for certain batches, which may have contained older barrels than the usual lots. And in 2024, another laser code fixation took hold in whiskey communities as claims of particularly good bottles of Russell’s Reserve 10-Year piled up. These claims, specifically over laser codes that began with LL/ME, soon snowballed into the possibility that barrels originally chosen for Russell’s Reserve 15-Year, a hot contender (and winner) for several Bourbon of the Year lists, ended up in the Russell’s 10-Year bottles.

As far as deciphering the Russell’s 10-Year (or just modern Turkey) laser codes go, LL indicates a bottle from between 2013-2024, with the letters after LL denoting the year, month, day, and time. Rare Bird 101 has a laser code guide that people have used to date their bottles of Turkey and Russell’s throughout the years; Bourbon Culture also laid out an easily digestible guide for the purposes of the recent Russell’s 10-Year runs, including but not limited to LL/ME.

If your eyes are glossing over and priming to roll like a Limp Bizkit song, I don’t blame you. The very nature of laser code discussion, especially as of late, makes one wonder if this is a natural part of enthusiasm for a hobby, or simply a pedantic obsession. That’s why I was largely reluctant to do this review in the first place; not to mention the contentious discussions that ensued from both C923 and LL/ME. I also felt some degree of skepticism over how different a particular bottling of Russell’s 10 could be from the one I reviewed in 2022.

Yet I did purchase a bottle. And I always do my best to review whatever comes my way, be it a bottle, sample, or rare-as-Pappy media sample. So without further ado, let’s see how the bottle I procured locally (for $40) fares. The complete laser code on mine is as follows: LL/ME200052

Nose: Creamy and fruity. Has a nearly pitch-perfect combination of cherry candy and vanilla notes with a leathery backbone. Some baking spices linger in the background, namely nutmeg and clove. Overall, it’s balanced and inviting.

Palate: Like soaking vanilla beans into a jar of cocktail cherries. Leans in on a darker brown sugar profile with a tangible amount of rich barrel char. Retains an underpinning of nutmeg and tobacco carried by a warm, mildly creamy mouthfeel.

Finish: The likelihood/presence of older (13-year?) whiskey really shows here with a balance of cream and char qualities. More lingering vanilla, nutmeg, and toasted brown sugar notes as subsequent sips linger. Candied cherry develops ever so slightly as well.

Part of me wishes I had another bottle of Russell’s Reserve 10-Year to compare this to, so I could see if there’s a placebo effect going on or not. Yet the last thing I need are more bottles cluttering my living space, especially if a different Russell’s rubs me similarly to the one I originally reviewed. So the best I can do is evaluate this specific laser code in and of itself, regardless of whether it’s fair to weigh other current bottles against it.

If the LL/ME bottles of Russell’s Reserve 10-Year were truly a limited run blended from more above-average barrels, then I’m conflicted. On one hand, this is some tasty bourbon that works great as both a low-stakes, simple sit-down-and-enjoy pour, and a fun one to pick apart. Not to mention batch variability, even for a shelfer, is all but inevitable, albeit to differing degrees. However, the possibility of this run of bottles being a one-off is disheartening and unfortunate, particularly when we consider the aforementioned Russell’s 15 associations. This is more with regard to the crazed way the bourbon market continues to be than the actual overlap of LL/ME with Russell’s 15.

All of this effectively beats around the bush that Russell’s Reserve 10-Year LL/ME became one of my favorite go-to pours while I had it. If all bottles tasted like this, then Michter’s US1 Small Batch would be supplanted for my current favorite Daily Drinker bottle (and at about the same price). Much of what I look for in a mature, balanced bourbon is present here, right down to the striking balance of oak, leather, and cherry notes. No shortage of bottles have burnt me by going overboard with any of those notes, but Russell’s 10-Year LL/ME served as a reminder that it’s possible to execute any (or all) of them without the common pitfalls. Perhaps this doesn’t reflect how well other Russell’s 10-Year bottles will fare going forward, but hopefully we can get another welcome shakeup every so often.