291 Colorado Whiskey

Sweet nose on the tongue but as it goes down intense heat that leads into delicious vanilla then layers of spiced cookies

A sub-freezing night on Pearl Harbor Day. I dip into the samples and find one from @PBMichiganWolverine as part of a blind tasting pack. Perfect evening for an American whiskey. This is a nicely colored that is a rich coppered-ruby. The nose is a straight forward slice of autumn: candy corn, nutmeg, honey. Now, take those autumn aromas and place yourself in a pinewood forest. Pine needles and balsa with spearmint surrounds. Somewhat like an air freshener. Arrives spicy creating a pins and needles sensation which dominates and overpowers, blurring any sense of flavor. What can be detected is minimal. Vanilla, brown sugar, pinewood and sap. Spearmint and pinewood with a bitter wood with lemon oil. Water is a must with this to reduces the pins and needles, though they are still present. A bit more sweetness forward. Definitely a young spirit that seems to be infused with flavors as if the spirit was “aged” in fresh pinewood barrels. Not intolerable, but nothing I would actively seek out. [80/100][Tasted: 12/7/19]

I took a few sips after sending out some samples for @LeeEvolved @dubz @Telex @Scott_E and @Generously_Paul . If you ever get up one day and say “ damnit, I wonder what an aspen tree taste like”, wonder no more. Just buy a bottle of this, and your wish will come true. Tastes woody, young oak, a bit of hay. A wee bit of smoke. Some resin. Seems more fitted to something out of Deadwood than Aspen. I can see Al Swearengen drinking this, not really the socialites skiing down the CO slopes. This was bottled way too young. I totally get the desire to quickly release a product to market—-after all every day it’s stuck in the warehouse, it loses revenue. But this is where they should’ve maybe have been producing rum or gin to supplement cash flow while this whiskey matures. The idea was good—-think Colorado, and you picture the Rockies and those yellow leaf aspen trees. So inserting a few staves of aspen would’ve surely bought home the notion of local, but it just needed more time in the barrel. I bought this last year in CO, since I figured it’s only locally available. At $50, this was a waste. If I want local Colorado whiskey, that $50,would’ve been better spent over a few pours of Stranhan’s Snowflake. Lee, Paul, Jason, Scott, Dubz—-I sent this before tasting it—-sorry about that. On the bright side, the samples I sent are all blind tasting...you’ll be easily picking this one out from that lineup.