First sip is a little more watery than its contemporaries. It still has pleasant taste to it that is similar to the smell, but not quite. It has more nuts and even light coffee there with the water. I suspect that they really wanted to make this a mild beer, so they added more water to it. That explains the arbitrarily low 6.9% ABV (which is about half of what the other bourbon barrel beers have).
Tip-in is very light carbonation with sweet caramel malt and oak. The middle is very smooth oak, toffee, vanilla, light coffee, and a bit of chocolate. The finish is a wave of bitter and earth before trailing off into burning twigs. The smoke trails off.
Bottom Line: Not bad at all, but a bit too mild for either a stout or a beer aged in bourbon barrels.
3.25/5