Creme brulee | Bubblegum | Maple syrup | Lightly toasted oak

Honey | Caramel | Rye spice | White pepper | Slight tobacco | Smooth

Baking spices | Maple sugar butter | Vanilla custard | Lingering sweetness

In baseball, a five-tool player is a player who can do everything well: Throw, run, field, hit for average, and hit for power. Paying tribute to the concept with this blend, B.H. James Distillers combines five different mashbills spanning three classifications of whiskey in an attempt to construct a more complex blend. It’s the company’s 5th batch of American whiskey constructed in a manner that brings together various whiskey types, similar to their inaugural release of Rookie Season: Opener. B.H. James Distillers is known for their attention to detail, and as a result, a more detailed breakdown of the blend by individual barrel, including entry proof, dump proof, make and dump date, exact age, evaporation loss, and cooperage can be found here.

Bringing together multiple whiskey types can enhance flavors, mute them, or put them in (unappealing) opposition to one another. With Five-Tool Player, B.H. James Distillers does a good job building off the whiskey’s bourbon base, with some spice and a surprising amount of sweetness that seems to be driven by the small light whiskey component, though it’s impossible to know for sure when drinking the final product. The whiskeys in the blend all mingle well together, resulting in a nicely balanced whiskey. Compared to the company’s first release, this one is not transformational, but instead, a slight variation revealing a level of consistency from batch to batch.

Editor's note: We incorrectly stated in one part of this review that the whiskeys in this blend were from five different states. They are all from MGP.