HEALTHY SPIRITS American Whiskey Club 

Welcome again to the Healthy Spirits American Whiskey Club. This one is, for me, a full-circle situation. About one year ago, I wrote up my first set of notes for the Whiskey Club. That bottle was a single barrel cask strength rye from Balcones. And here we are a year later with another single barrel cask strength rye from Balcones, only this time it’s been finished in Port and Kentucky bourbon casks. Yes, please!

Based in Waco, Texas, Balcones fired up its copper pot still in 2009 and has been blazing ever since, garnering national attention, awards, and popularity for its array of powerful whiskies that achieve incredibly complex, mature flavour profiles at very young ages. The Balcones regular whisky line-up includes

• Baby Blue – a roasted heirloom blue corn whisky bottled at 88 proof.

• Brimstone – using roasted blue corn smoked with sunbaked Texas Scrub Oak.

• Lineage – a single malt whisky made with barley from both Scotland and Texas, and aged in a combination of refill and new oak barrels.

• Texas Single Malt Whisky Classic Edition – all Texas barley all the time!

• Texas Pot Still Bourbon – a 92-proof whisky made from Texas-grown corn, rye and barley.

• Texas Rye – using a 100% rye mash bill of four rye grains: Elbon Rye from Northwest Texas, plus crystal, chocolate and roasted ryes.

• True Blue 100 – a 100-proof release drawn from the same select barrels used for the annual True Blue Cask Strength release. 3 In addition, Balcones offers an array of sought-after annual releases:

• Mirador Second Fill Barrel Malt

• Peated Texas Single Malt

• Rumble Cask Reserve

• Single Malt Rum Finished

• Staff Selection Texas Single Malt Single Barrel

• Texas Blue Corn Bourbon Cask Strength

• Texas Cask Strength Rum

• Texas Wheated Bourbon

• True Blue Cask Strength All Balcones whiskies are bottled without added colour or chill filtering, to preserve as much of the distillate’s natural flavours as possible. Many offerings are bottled at 100+ proofs, or left at cask strength, to likewise preserve the intensity of flavour. This allows whisky fans to experiment at home with adding this or that many drops of water, to bring out additional flavours. Balcones brings Texas flair to Scottish traditions, forging a unique brand of whisky that is genuinely, uncompromisingly bold. It’s incredible what that intense Texas heat pulls out of the local grains and water in such short ageing periods.

Often you’ll find the age of a Balcones whisky indicated not in years but mere months. And yet the complexity and vibrancy of the flavour are incredible. This month’s club pick is a prime example. If you’re already familiar with Balcones Distillery, you may have seen and/or tried their standard release Texas Rye. Bottled at 100 proof, it’s a lively beauty. And if you’ve been with the Healthy Spirits Whiskey Club for over a year, you’ve of course also tasted that rye at cask strength. That 2021 club pick leapt right out of the glass! I loved it and still have a bottle tucked away. Our latest private barrel pick shares some basic stats with last year’s barrel, only with decisive variations in its maturation. Here are some stats on this particular barrel… 4 Barrel No. – 28373 Still – double batch copper pot Mash Bill – 100% Rye, roughly 85% Raw Texas Elbon Rye, and the remaining 15% is a mix of Roasted, Crystal, and Chocolate rye from Weyermann's of Germany. Maturation – 2 years 7 months in a 60-gallon new American oak barrel; 9 months in a used Port cask; 8 months in a used 53-gallon Kentucky bourbon barrel Bottling Proof – 126.4 Age – 4 years And now to try the whisky itself. After letting it sit in a Glencairn glass for 15 minutes, which I recommend to let the alcohol lift a bit, here is what I picked up… COLOR – dark russet orange with plum-red glints, like a fire on the horizon at midnight

NOSE – rich brandied raisins, crisply toasted cinnamon and sugar, molasses, pan-seared plum in butter, dried tarragon and sage, dried apricot skins, finely ground black pepper, hazelnut shell.

PALATE – dark plum, thick but refined and smooth oak, apricot baked in brown sugar and butter, dried sagebrush, chocolate FINISH – a fiery flare on swallowing, then tart apricot, black cherry, plum, a whiff of the sagebrush and also of jalapeño

OVERALL – Wow! There is a lot going on here, and I love it. 5 I’m definitely going to try this next to last year’s cask strength Balcones rye Whiskey Club selection. To my sense memory, this is a more complex, fruitier version of that rye. The port cask has definitely made its mark here. But rather than overwhelming things, it leaps into the fray alongside those brash Balcones flavours I’ve come to expect. Then the Kentucky Bourbon barrel rounds things off nicely around the edges. A little goes a long way. Adding water opens up more and brighter layers of flavour, so experimenting with water or a large ice rock is a must. But even neat and at its natural 126.4 proof, this is remarkably approachable. Or maybe I’ve been sipping too much cask-strength whiskey lately! Balcones is one of those distilleries that is fun to explore. They have a recognizable sensorial quality, a brashness, whether it’s their ryes or blue corn whiskies or single malts. They are endlessly experimenting with carefully selected grains, mash bills and barreling processes. The famous Texas heat is arguably a magic ingredient, ripping flavour out of the oak barrels in a remarkably short amount of time. Balcones whiskies are all quite young, rarely over four years.

Aged longer one can imagine they might become unmanageably charred and woody. This makes Balcones a brand that proves age isn’t everything, and that terroir can be utterly decisive in making any whisky what it is. After you’ve tried it yourself, stop by the store and let us know what you think. Cheers! Mark