Review: Balcones 5th Anniversary Brimstone Resurrection (60.5%, OB, 2014)

• Category: Texan corn whiskey
• Origin: Balcones Distillery
• Bottling: Official
• ABV: 60.5%
• Cost: ?
• Score: 90/100

What they say:

One fateful day, an accident happened at the Balcones distillery in Waco, Texas. A batch of corn got burnt to the bottom of one of their stills (which Chip and the chaps built themselves). Whoops. Some people might try to move on and forget about the mistake, but not Chip Tate, oh no! He wanted to make it work, so he sent the spirit through a special smoking process and left it to mature in a heavily charred barrel.

The result is the Balcones Brimstone Resurrection, the whisky that escaped catastrophe. It was released as part of the distillery’s fifth anniversary celebration to quite a fanfare. In March 2014, it won the World’s Best American Whisky Award at the World Whiskies Awards 2014. Not bad for an accidental whisky, eh?

Nose: Initially dark with clove and leather book covers before sweet potato, rum, treacle and vanilla all emerge. The star here though is the sweet, slightly smoky note of Jerusalem artichoke.

Palate: Sun damaged leather, macchiato and more of those sweet vegetable notes, roasted sweet potato and again increasingly Jerusalem artichoke.

Finish: Extraordinary. The smoke becomes more pronounced to start with before being balanced by pumpkin soup. After this, it seems to never, ever end with sweet barbecue char stretching on and on.

What I say:

Dram #5 from the Balcones Distillers Selection Private Barrel Tour Twitter Tasting.

Colour:

Amber red

Nose:

sweet honey, tropical fruit, pineapple fritter, oaky wood, orange oil, savoury BBQ maple-smoked bacon

Taste:

treacle, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, struck-matches, mesquite-smoked honey-glazed bbq pulled pork and toffee-apples

Would I buy it:

Yes, but sadly only available as 3cl over here…

Thanks to Balcones Whisky, Chip Tate, Winston Edwards, Steve Rush (@TheWhiskyWire) and Emily Harris (@emilymayfox) for organising samples and tasting event.