Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon Review [In Depth]
Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon
by: ALEX WANG
Founder, writer
Founder, writer
Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon Details
Distillery: Buffalo Trace
Type & Region: Bourbon, Kentucky, USA
Alcohol: 43%
Composition: Buffalo Trace Mashbill #1
Aged: At least 4 years
Color: 1.2/2.0 on the color scale (chestnut, oloroso sherry)
Price: $15-20
From the company website:
Bourbon that matures on the top warehouse floors tends to age faster as heat rises. Bottled at 86 proof, this top floor whiskey is smooth and well-rounded to be enjoyed straight, with ice, or in your favorite cocktail.
Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon overview
Up next in my slew of Benchmark bourbon reviews comes Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon, which is one of many variants under the affordable Benchmark Brand umbrella. Not to bias my review too much, I think that Benchmark Old No. 8 is pretty bad but the other versions I’ve had so far have been major improvements.
The other Benchmark versions are Top Floor (the topic of this review), Small Batch, Bonded (Bottled in Bond), Single Barrel, and Full Proof Bourbon. It appears that there are two goals with this: 1) make money sooner with younger bourbon (probably 4-5 years old) because Buffalo Trace and Eagle Rare take longer to age, and 2) explore various ways to blend / age bourbon.
The “top floor” idea is quite interesting and I don’t think that it’s really been explored outside of single barrels. It makes sense with single barrels, as some people find certain locations to be more desirable. For example Four Roses Private Selects from “Tier 5” and “Tier 6” locations in the rickhouse, which are the higher floors.
There is a method to Buffalo Trace’s madness: barrels aged on the higher floors / higher-up are exposed to very different conditions than barrels on the lower floors. If you live in a house or multi-story residence, you’ve probably already noticed that the higher floors are warmer than the lower ones. In the summer, you may go downstairs / to the basement more often to escape from the heat.
Unlike people, barrels can’t just get up and move downstairs to get away from the heat. Unless a person physically moves it, it will just sit there until it’s taken away and dumped. While it’s aging there on the higher floors, it’s exposed to more heat, humidity, and temperature fluctuations, all of which mean that the oak and liquid interact more intensely as compared to barrels aged on lower levels.
Usually, that means that the whiskey will pick up more oak influence, which can range from more sweetness, oak, spice, and more. In a sense, it undergoes an accelerated aging process. It’s not an exact science, as every barrel is different, but Buffalo Trace is trying to capture that unique dynamic in Benchmark Top Floor.
Compared to the “standard” Benchmark Old No.8, you also get at least one more year of oak aging, 3% more ABV, and different barrel selection that’s focused on the higher sections of the rickhouse.
Let’s find out if any of that makes a difference in this Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon review.
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Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon smell
Benchmark Top Floor starts with gentle honey, apricot, fennel, vanilla, cinnamon, toasted oak, pineapple, earthy pumpernickel, starfruit, and strawberry. This is the Benchmark bourbon that probably smells the closest (emphasis on closest but not the same level) to Buffalo Trace because of the bright, herbal, and fruity scents that feel a bit more developed than Benchmark Small Batch.
I was expecting a more oaky and spicy experience because it’s aged in the top floor of the rickhouses, where the oak interaction should be the strongest. It smells pleasant, although it’s muddled and not particularly rich. At the same time, it also avoids any overly earthy or weird notes, so I’m not put off by it.
After swirling and rest, I smell honey, vanilla, apricot, licorice, roasted oak, cinnamon, clove, caramel nougat, pineapple, starfruit, mint, and a little earthway pumpernickel. Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon smells pretty good. It’s sweet, fruity, herbal, and floral with pleasing background oaky and sweet darkness, which are all good things.
It’s just so flabby and just a bit too thin. I get it, it’s youngish and 43% ABV so I can’t expect that much, but I’m still evaluating it as it is. The scents are pleasing but not compelling. That’s not inherently a bad thing for a bourbon like this.
Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon taste and aftertaste
I get honey, apricot, orange peel, roasted oak, licorice, cinnamon, vanilla, some earthy caraway seed, and starfruit. Benchmark Top Floor starts sweet, fruity, and herbal, but more dry oak, roasted grain, and earthiness come out in the back. It’s not a lot, but it’s noticeable enough that it throws off the more sweet, fruity, and herbal personality that comes out first. I got the same thing with Buffalo Trace, so I wouldn’t call it a specific thing with barrels from higher floors.
Other than that, Benchmark Top Floor has decent flavors and viscosity, but is very flabby and unstructured. It’s not as close to Buffalo Trace as it is in the scents, but it’s not painfully off either. But you know, it tastes fine.
With intense “chewing”, I get darker honey, some caramel nougat, dried red apple, more toasted oak, herbal, fennel, cinnamon, vanilla, clove, pumpernickel, and mint. It tastes better now, as the sweetness and fruitiness open up some and push back some of the earthiness and dryness. There’s a bit more viscosity and body too, but it’s still very flabby.
The earthiness and dryness are better controlled now, but there’s still a noticeable presence. The “Top Floor” woodiness also comes out more in the flavors than the scents do.
The aftertaste leaves gentle honey, starfruit, apricot, dry and roasted oak, earthy pumpernickel with lingering caramel, dryness, and earthiness. It’s not bad, but a bit more dry and earthy than I’d like.
So overall, Benchmark Top Floor tastes alright, but I’m not that impressed. The flabbiness / blobbiness holds this back a lot.
I’ve unfortunately lost some Glencairn’s while in transit, and that made me very sad. So, I wised up and bought this Glencairn Travel Case that comes also comes with 2 glasses so I don’t need to worry so much about them breaking. I think it’s great, and I think you’ll love it too.
Seriously, if you already have glasses, protect them.
Benchmark Top Floor Bourbon Rating
Benchmark Top Floor isn’t bad at all. It’s not amazing, but it’s still very solid for under $20, where there are a lot of bad whiskeys out there waiting to trap you and make you wish that you hadn’t bought it. It has budding sweetness, fruitiness, and herbalness that are good enough.
Since I haven’t done any comparison to the other Benchmark offerings, I don’t know exactly how blending barrels only from the upper levels of the rickhouse actually affects the final bourbon, but from memory I think that this is marginally better than Benchmark Small Batch. Benchmark Full Proof and Benchmark Bonded are still my winner of the lot, but the added Full
Proof ABV amps up everything and takes it up a notch.
That said, for only a few dollars more, Benchmark Top Floor is a hell of a lot better than the standard Benchmark Old No. 8, which you should avoid at all costs.
All things considered, Benchmark Top Floor is a solid value and a good option for $20. I’ve seen some places sell it for closer to $16, and at that price…why not?. It won’t blow your socks off for sipping, but it will still get the job done for that situation, and probably hold up well-enough in cocktails. It won’t break the bank and won’t break your senses.
Meet the Author: Alex
I have far too much fun writing about whiskey and singlehandedly running The Whiskey Shelf to bring you independent, honest, and useful reviews, comparisons, and more. I’m proudly Asian American and can speak Cantonese, Mandarin, and some Japanese.
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