Tasting notes

nose

Cinnamon and clove over dark roast, with mocha, demerara sugar and a hint of candied orange

palate

Creamy, with toffee and caramel giving way to milky coffee, oak spice and a resinous pine note

finish

Medium in length; chocolate and baking spice hold on, with oak and a soft echo of coffee as it fades

Mash bill

70% corn, 20% rye, 10% malted barley. This is FEW's house bourbon recipe, with a fifth of the mash in rye for spice and a small share of malted barley; the distillery buys its corn mainly from Indiana and its malted barley from Wisconsin. What sets Cold Cut apart is not the grain but the water: the bourbon leaves the barrel at full strength and is brought down with cold brew coffee from a Chicago roaster.

Awards

• World's Best Flavoured Whisky — World Whiskies Awards 2020
• Silver — Beverage Testing Institute 2022

Why it's craft

Cold Cut starts as FEW's own bourbon and takes its coffee character entirely from the proofing step: cold brew replaces the water normally used to bring cask-strength whiskey down to bottling strength. Both the whiskey and the coffee are local, the bourbon from FEW's grain-to-glass distillery in Evanston and the cold brew from a Chicago roaster. FEW opened in 2011 and has been part of Heaven Hill since 2022.