Cedar

Balcones Rumble

Balcones was founded in 2008 in Waco, Texas. The beginning was bringing the different elements together until they could begin distilling in 2009. Two tenets of the distillery from the beginning has been to use ingredients that spoke to the heart of Texas and the other was to be boldly creative. Whether using Baby Blue corn or a remarkable single malt, they have looked to forge their own path of American whiskies. The Balcones Rumble is so creative as to be almost in another category of offerings altogether. It is, in fact, not a whiskey at all. So why are we reviewing it? Because when it was first poured out for us, we couldn’t tell it wasn’t a whiskey at first blush. So call it whiskey adjacent? Good enough for us to explore further. The Rumble is a Texas wildflower honey, turbinado sugar and fig spirit aged in small oak barrels for an undisclosed amount of time.

By Adam | December 15, 2024 | Foreign | No Comments |

The Balvenie have been pioneering creative endeavors with scotch for a long time. Taking advantage of a gap in production schedule, the distillery began making peated whisky exactly one week out of the year starting in 2002, which resulted in their first release of Peat Week in 2017 and was a limited release. This Week of Peat, also aged 14 years, is the second part in Balvenie’s Stories range, which was launched in 2019. Balvenie, besides having the legendary David Stewart as malt master, is one of only seven distilleries in Scotland with its own malting floor that is used in at least some of its whisky.

By Adam | November 5, 2023 | Speyside | No Comments |

Westland Distillery was founded in 2010 in Seattle by Matt Hofmann, and the Westland Sherry Wood is one of the three core offerings, along with the Peated and American Single Malt. Like those offerings, the Sherry Wood was moved to the distillery’s Heritage Collection in 2022 to make room for a new signature single malt expression. The base spirit of this whiskey is the same as the American Single Malt, fermented with Belgian Saison Brewer’s yeast, but then finished in ex-Pedo Ximénez and Oloroso sherry casks for an undisclosed amount of time. While there are supplies out on liquor store shelves and this single malt is still available for purchase via the distillery’s online store as of this review, there is no more being currently produced.

By Adam | May 5, 2023 | Foreign | No Comments |

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