Butterscotch | Straw | Orange marmalade | Touch of raspberry | Oak

Sweet corn | Caramel | Fresh bread | Nougat | Oak

Raw cinnamon | Rye spice | Tannic oak | Touch of clove | Medium length

Musician Neil Giraldo founded Three Chord Bourbon, and the company’s Backstage Series takes his background and fuses the two. According to the company, the series brings together iconic bands with each of their unique bourbon blends in bottles adorned with the band’s artwork. First released in 2023, their 2024 follow-up includes 11 new releases.

For this release, Three Chord partnered with Dinosaur Jr., an American rock band formed in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1984. They released 12 albums, with “Feel the Pain” as their breakout hit in 1994. The bottle is adorned with a foil label depicting what has become their bug-eyed mascot. The blend is a union of Kentucky-distilled straight bourbons finished in toasted oak barrels.

Dinosaur Jr.’s Three Chord showing starts in a great place. Its aroma is multi-layered with butterscotch and straw upfront, and orange marmalade and raspberry providing a nice complement. The palate is much more straightforward, with sweet corn, caramel, fresh bread, and nougat creating a very level-headed flavor profile. It lacks many highs and lows at this point, and its finish tries to offset that with raw cinnamon, tannic oak, and a touch of clove. As Three Chord fittingly states, the finish features “just enough heat to ‘Feel the Pain’” with rye spice ramping up near its end. Overall, there isn’t much to get excited about with this blend, but it will likely be hard for fans of the band to resist.