Tasting notes

nose

honeycrisp apple, kettle corn and graham cracker, with roasted chestnut, molasses, brown sugar and toasted oak

palate

honey, sweet cream and candied pecan up front, then gingerbread, cream soda, sandalwood and leather

finish

medium-long; fudge, chocolate malt and toasted oak linger with baking spice, drying to a tannic grip and a wisp of smoke

Mash bill

Roasted blue corn, Texas-grown wheat, Texas-grown rye and malted barley, in proportions that are not published. Blue corn is the majority grain, as bourbon requires at least 51% corn, and it is roasted before mashing, the same grain Balcones uses for its Baby Blue corn whisky. Balcones' blue corn is a hybrid grown for it by Sunny State Farm in the Texas Panhandle. Carrying both wheat and rye makes this a four-grain bourbon.

Why it's craft

Balcones makes this bourbon grain to glass in Waco, on the large copper pot stills Forsyths built for it in Scotland rather than a column still. The distillery says pot distillation gives a rich, viscous spirit that can take new charred oak without losing its character. Balcones was founded in 2008, and its Baby Blue was the first Texas whisky on the market after Prohibition. Diageo has owned it since 2022.