This has a great old dusty nose with tons of caramel and some oak but then a few soapy notes come out. The palate is much drier than I would have expected with medicinal notes and some spice but not much beyond that. It's dense in a way that it seems like there should be more to it, but if there are more layers of flavor, they aren't showing themselves. The finish is dry with some spice and then medicinal.

This had some good notes, and it's much more complex than most current Beam, but it felt like it was missing something. These decanters sometimes have looser seals than regular bottles, and this one had seen some evaporation, so I wouldn't use this to pass judgment generally on older Beam bourbon.