Review #229: Conviction Straight Bourbon Whiskey, SiB Solitary Confinement

MASH BILL: 88% corn, 12% malted barley

AGE: minimum 4 years

PROOF: 117

COST: $40 for 750mL bottle

Conviction Bourbon was loosely on my radar when I started seeing it pop up in liquor stores around me in late 2024/early 2025. I then saw the SLB guys talk about it in a couple YouTube videos and figured I might want to pick up a bottle to try just in case their praise created a rush on it. I happened to come across this particular single barrel pick I’m reviewing at one of my preferred local stores. When the store owner saw me reading the bottle in hand, he sweetened the deal by telling me I could get a bottle he knew I had been hunting for MSRP if I picked up this Conviction bottle too. He assured me I wasn’t going to be disappointed with it though and even told me if I didn’t like it, I could bring it back to him even after opening it and he’d give me my money back. How am I going to say no to that!? Well, here I am at the very end of my bottle and getting my review out on my last pour… So, it wasn’t bad enough for me to return it, but how good was it? Let’s dive in!

Reviewed neat in a Glencairn.

APPEARANCE: Golden auburn color (1.5), oily looking with lots of slow, fat legs.

NOSE: Fruity sweetness on the nose with lots of caramel, cinnamon apples, golden raisins, and fig jam. Seasoned oak adds a touch of woodsy earthiness as does a slightly earthy wildflower honey note. Light baking spice, but overall quite sweet. Occasional whiffs are robust on that fruit sweetness, but generally a light nose but with well defined notes.

PALATE: A very creamy mouthfeel indicative of vanillin rich oak. The sweetness from the nose transfers over very well. The fruit notes are more prominent with a compote of figs, plum, and cherries. Dollops of honey. Baked apples with pads of butter, nutmeg, and cinnamon sugar. Toasted vanilla, cedar, and malted grain add a distinct earthiness on the backend going into the finish. A good chewing can really bring out the cherry!

FINISH: The finish is long and sweet but lighter than the nose and palate. The earthier notes from the backend of the palate transfer over along with a well defined black peppercorn note. Some caramel sweetness lingers while the fruity notes have all be disappeared. Toasted vanilla and seasoned oak started to die off and that stewed fig and plum note start to come back in late in the finish. Baking spice and campfire smoke trickles in towards the end as this fades away.

RATING: 7.1/10

OVERALL: Southern Grace Distillery uses a barrel entry proof of 105 for this bourbon and it was bottled at 100.2 proof. This suggests a lot to me about the whiskey: it was likely aged in a cool, humid environment since the proof decreased over time and it likely extracted more flavor from the barrel because of its lower barrel entry proof since the sugars in the wood are more soluble in water than alcohol. Somewhat anecdotally, the combination of lower barrel entry proof plus a decrease in proof with maturation I have typically associated with a creamy, robust, dark, fruit sweetness. All of this more or less proved true for me. What I was not expecting from this whiskey though was how much the earthy profile of that 12% malted barley component would stand out! My guess is this was in part due to the low barrel entry proof as I suspect the congeners in the distillate were different/more robust than the congeners typical in higher proof distillate. (Obviously, this is all complete speculation as I don’t know all the details about this whiskey. Specific grain varietals, yeast, distillation methods, etc. can all play a role as well, and I wasn’t successful at getting any of that information about this whiskey.)

In general, the flavor and profile of this matched my expectation. The big corn component provided a lot of sweetness while the 12% malted barley gave it some earthier character more than what the barrels could alone. The low proof yet still at cask strength resulted in robust flavor without any proof heat. I particularly enjoyed the big fruit sweetness. I think a little more time in the barrel could have rounded out that malty grain note on the backend of the palate (almost beer like to a degree) and made the profile darker and more complex. I really enjoyed this bottle though! While I was motivated to get it due to the bundled deal I mentioned in the intro, based on my experience with this bottle I’ll be picking up Conviction again as well as adding a trip to Southern Grace Distillery to my radar considering its only a few hours away from me.

 

1 | Disgusting | see my 1/10 ratings

2 | Poor | see my 2/10 ratings

3 | Bad | see my 3/10 ratings

4 | Sub-par | see my 4/10 ratings

5 | Good | see my 5/10 ratings

6 | Very Good | see my 6/10 ratings

7 | Great | see my 7/10 ratings

8 | Excellent | see my 8/10 ratings

9 | Incredible | see my 9/10 ratings

10 | Perfect | see my 10/10 ratings