After last week’s Elijah Craig Barrel Proof review I’m keeping it in the US of A to conclude this series on +60% ABV whisky. We often tend to look at American whisky as 1 category, which in a way makes sense, as we do the same for Irish, Scotch, English, French and whatever whiskies. There is, however, one issue we sometimes tend to overlook I think: The US is big, as in: really big. You may think it’s long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to the States. To give you an idea: to put last week’s Kentucky Bourbon to this week’s Texas whisky in the same cateory (genrally speaking here), is a bit like saying London is the same as the south of France. So when we speak about American whiskies, it’s not a bad thing to bear in mind that there isn’t really such a thing as ‘American Whisky’. For that reason alone it’s useful, very useful even, to clearly state things like ‘Kentucky Bourbon’ or ‘Montana Rye’ or, in this case, ‘Texas whisky’ on the label. And even labeling a whisky as 'Texas whisky' might be stretching things a bit, as the Lone Star State takes ups some 268,596 square miles (695,662 sq km) of planet earth, which makes it bigger than France. Needless to say the geographical specifics (and the different climates that go with it), are pretty diverse: woods, deserts, grasslands , gulf coast, prairie land, all the way to swamps, hills and mountains. So it’s useful to keep those things in mind when thinking about Texas whisky as a category in its own right.
There’s no denying the rise and rise of Texas whisky in recent years: Garrison Brothers, Ironroot Republic, Andalusia, and of course Balcones are probably the best known of the give or take 25 Texas distilleries currently operational – most of them only active for less than 10 years. The success story of Balcones, up and running since 2009, has made them, probably unintentional, a bit of an ambassador for Texas whisky as a category. They too have a ‘grain to glass’ approach when it comes to their business philosophy. Located near Waco halfway between Dallas and Austin, pretty much bang in the middle of Texas, it has a humid subtropical climate, with (bloody) hot summers and (very) mild winters. Add to that the fact that Texas weather has a tendency for rapid and dramatic swings in temperature and weather conditions, and it explains why, when they put age statements on their labels, it’ll likely be months rather than years.
(Side note: Love it or hate it, there’s also no denying the role Crowded Barrel distillery have to play in this story. Arguably one of the smallest of the Texas lot, but the crowdfunded distillery that emerged as a sort of spin-off from the Whiskey Vault and Whiskey Tribe channel has contributed in no small amount to the attention we as enthusiasts now pay to Texas whisky . With some 750,000 subscribers between them, it’s fair to say they are the undisputed kings of WhiskyTube, even if you take into consideration the overlap in subscribers. And even if the whole whiskey marketing school they’re also running doesn’t sit well with you, what they have accomplished and what they are doing with the Crowded Barrel distillery is nothing short of impressive and a prime example of transparency taken to the next level. By pushing the envelope on what they’re doing with their own distillery and by getting involved with their fellow Texas distilleries, they have really helped putting Texas whisky on the map).
Balcones' Rum Cask Finish is a yearly limited release and the cool part (I think so anyway) is that Balcones also produce a yearly batch of their own rum, which gives them the opportunity to use their own rum barrels to finish their single malt in.
On the nose immediately notes of burnt and caramelized sugar. Demerara sugar, raisins, marzipan and almonds, white chocolate, toffee apples and bananas. All in good balance, and luckily and perhaps surprisingly not overly sweet. Let’s see what adding a fair amount of water brings to the nose. Suddenly there’s a wide array of red fruits: berries, figs, plums and chocolate covered raisins.
The palate ‘betrays’ the youth of this puppy (around 3 years) as I’m now getting a clear malty, bready – cereal note. Then again come marching in the notes of brown burnt sugar, milk chocolate, leather and wax. The mouthfeel is medium to very full with a syrupy, dense texture. After adding water the malt evolves to a dough-y, sweet cereal note, again the chocolate raisins, treacle and coffee.
The finish is long (even longer adding water) and dominated by the sugar and chocolate sweetness.
The rum casks leave their mark on this one, but they managed to avoid this becoming a bomb of sugary sweetness. It‘s a very enjoyable whisky, and a fine example of what Balcones can do in so little time. It’ s got plenty of flavour and character, but it perhaps lacks a bit of maturity – just a hint of some extra depth from longer maturation could perhaps turn this from a good into a stellar whisky, but with the dramatic angel’s share Balcones are dealing with, that’s really just me absolutely nit-picking. Balcones have managed to turn a challenging climate into a contributor to their whisky and they deserve full praise for that. I can only imagine how daunting the task must be to pinpoint the exact moment when a cask is ready to be bottled when it literally can come down to a matter of weeks, so you might as well just completely ignore that last remark. This is, quite simply put, a good whisky, just short of being very good.
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