Southern Star Cask Strength Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Honey Barrels (2025)
- Grain to glass
- Limited
- Proof
- 108.4
- Age
- 7 yr
- Style
- BourbonStraight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Honey Barrels
- MSRP
- $49.95
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“Seven-year bourbon finished a year in barrels that had held wildflower honey, so the honey runs from nose to finish.”
Tasting notes
- nose
- wildflower honey and butterscotch, with nougat, candy corn, vanilla and a peppery edge over toasted oak and orange peel
- palate
- creamy and silky, with spiced honey, toffee and caramel on brioche, then cinnamon, white pepper, rye spice and a thread of milk chocolate
- finish
- long; honey and milk chocolate linger with green peppercorn and oak tannin, drying out slowly as the sweetness fades
Mash bill
Full grain split not published.
Corn, malted barley and either rye or wheat; Southern Distilling has not published which of its two bourbon recipes this release uses. The house high-rye bourbon is 60% corn, 36% rye and 4% malted barley, and the wheated Paragon recipe is 70% corn, 16% wheat and 14% malted barley. The distillery buys its grain from farms within about 20 miles of Statesville.
- Cask
- New charred American oak; finished in returned barrels that had held wildflower honey
- Finish
- 12 months in wildflower-honey barrels
Why it's craft
The finish began as a favor: a local honey producer borrowed a Southern Distilling barrel to age honey, and when it came back still coated inside, the distillery filled it with bourbon that had already aged for years and left it in the rickhouse another 12 months. This 2025 edition is the second batch of that program, sold at the Statesville tasting room and North Carolina ABC stores. Southern Distilling, founded by Pete and Vienna Barger in 2013, distills and ages the bourbon itself.
Southern Distilling Company
Family-owned · Est. 2013 · Tours