This bottle brings a smile upon my face. As a kid born in 1990, like many others, I grew up playing several pinball machines in front of a whirling PC with a CRT monitor when it poured outside. When the sun shined, you had to find me outside. Playing an outlaw on the run, a brave but clumsy gunslinger.

Life was pleasant before the internet was a common thing. And here we are, typing our reviews and sharing it with you, like social media has been there all along.

It’s a strange symbiosis, because whisk(e)y makes us spending time offline more than the other way around. Enjoying a glass while being part of our surroundings. Or just closing our eyes and be part of the story the glass tells us.

This bourbon sure has a story to tell. From the packaging to the taste, and the detailed information on the origins of the spirit on their website, there’s an overall theme of both playfulness and serenity. Like the cowboy on his horse, riding through the lonely desert, while unaware of being part of a wild environment of lights, sounds and colours.

This bourbon comes out of the hat of the Horse’s Spirit Company from the Black Forest in Germany. A small craft distillery on the pursuit to make something special with both their knowledge of distilling and American whiskey. And so Horse with no Name was born, it’s a 4yo Texan bourbon, which is infused with a habanero pepper distillate from the Black Forest. The latter doesn’t really sounds like something for us. We like our bourbons bold, but smooth. We leave everything hot and spicy to the food we eat. But let’s just taste and see:

This truly awakens the outlaw gentlemen in us. A lovely bourbon with an exotic twist which is rather softening than spicing things up. Like pretty much up our alley. Shortly after tasting, we learned that through distilling, the spicy habanero chili loses their heath. Not so strange after all. The end result is a very well balanced bourbon with a great backstory. We like how they seem to not take theirselves too serious, but you can clearly taste that this bourbon is made with a lot of passion, love and craftsmanship.

Now back to playing again, it’s up to you to imagine whether we go outside or go tilting a virtual machine. Or maybe we just take another dram, which might be for the better.