Boasting “…big dreams, bigger goals, and the biggest pot still in the state” Boulder Spirits Distillery brings us their Peated American Single Malt. The recipe is simple: distillers malted barley, a Scottish pot still, #3 char American white oak barrels, aged in an arid high elevation climate, and cut with the celebrated Eldorado Springs water. Their outlook is that peat can be a piece of the whiskey, and not the defining attribute. Aged for a minimum of three years, the Boulder Spirits Peated Malt uses is a lightly peated single malt made in the tradition of Scotland, with American ingenuity.
Distillery: Boulder Spirits
Region: Foreign
Age: NAS
Strength: 40%
Price: $49.99
Maturation: New American oak barrels
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Nose: Butterscotch, wintergreen, almond furniture polish, candy
Palate: Molasses, peat, walnut, hazelnut
Finish: Tannin, oak
Comments: Water can take a little of the edge off but mutes some of the other elements enough that it does not seem a beneficial trade.
Adam – The wood is omnipresent here in the Boulder Spirits Peated. If you enjoy woody elements through your whiskey experience, this one will do you nicely. It’s not a one-note wonder, though, with the butterscotch and light wintergreen on the nose paired with a little peat finally entering into the fray on the palate, though not dominating, before finishing in tannin land. It is far from an unpleasant experience, though I wonder what a few more years aging might do to bring out the sweeter elements hovering around the edge of the palate school yard, waiting to be invited into the game of kickball. I could see using this to kick off a tasting of America single malts and have it serve as the control against which everything else was compared.
Kate – I appreciate the nose on this, I just don’t like the rest of the experience. It’s like a beautiful, finely crafted table leg. I just wouldn’t want to put it in my mouth.
Bill – Like walnut dust, both in a way that I like but also one that’s offensive at the same time.
It’s like a beautiful, finely crafted table leg.
Henry – Wintergreen and butterscotch on the nose yielding to burnt hazelnut and molasses. Wintergreen, malted cereal, and a nut tannin – verging on acrid – undertone dominates the palate. The finish is so tannic that it seems over-oaked, with wintergreen returning right at the end.
Ben – Like almond scented furniture polish. Just like if you were chewing on oatmeal without cooking it, there’s a slight bitterness at the finish. The bitterness needs all the other things to make the Boulder Spirits Peated worth putting in your mouth.
