Tasting notes

nose

Honey and crisp green apple lead, with vanilla, fresh-baked cookies and caramel underneath and a wisp of charred oak

palate

Vanilla and honey up front, then crisp apple and brown sugar, settling into cereal-rich malt with a faint damp-earth note and a turn toward milk chocolate

finish

Fairly long; bready malt and milk chocolate sweetness stay on the tongue, with a little oak warmth as it fades

Mash bill

100% malted barley. Andalusia mashes a mix of Texas-grown malt and malt brought in from outside the state; the split for this bottling is not published. Unlike the distillery's Stryker and Revenant Oak, none of the barley here is smoked, so the grain shows as honeyed cereal and baked bread.

Why it's craft

Andalusia takes the Irish route with this malt, giving it a third pass through copper pot stills to strip it down to a lighter, sweeter spirit before it goes into charred oak. Everything from mashing to bottling happens at the small Blanco distillery, which collects rainwater for production. Its sister bottlings are smoked; this one leaves the barley unsmoked so the malt itself carries the flavor.