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A few of us just returned from Details, where they have just taken delivery of two bottles of Woodstone Creek bourbon — a craft bourbon distilled in Ohio. Only two barrels of this bourbon have been produced, so it’s relatively rare stuff.
My impression, for what it’s worth, is that it’s easily the most unusual bourbon that I’ve ever tasted. For bourbon aficionados, it’s definitely worth a try. It’s not very sweet at all; it’s actually almost phenolic, with a strong herbal overtone. As bourbons go it’s really, really unusual. People looking for a nice, smooth sipping bourbon will not find it; those looking for something really unique, on the other hand, will be very much in luck.
The bourbon, like Woodstone Creek’s vodka (also available at Details), is made by the husband and wife team of Linda and Don Outterson. When I wrote to Linda to ask about the bourbon’s unusual flavor profile, she responded that Don “was shooting for a profile of the pre-industrial bourbons of the 1800s. The only bourbon most people have ever had was made by a machine” — and that for many people this will be their first experience with a truly handmade, single barrel bourbon.
In either case, it’s worth the trip to check out an Ohio craft bourbon — not an opportunity that comes around every day.
Reviews of the bourbon can be found here.
More info on Details online at DetailsLounge.com.
I don’t have much to add. I just want to note that there is a lag between the submission of news articles and their publication… so before anyone asks, no, I did not just return from a trip to the bar at 10:16 a.m. ….
hey, even at 10:16 it’s clearly after noon somewhere in the world.
Nice review, can’t wait to try it. Sorry I missed Wings, meant to come but got caught up in the inauguration festivities. I think Woodstone Creek really needs to change the label on the bottle but I guess what’s inside is what really counts. Did this have an age? I’d have to think it’s still pretty young?
who is up for a drink? Tonight is kinda screwed for me (until 9pm anyway), but tomorrow evening should be free…
Fortunately Details is open well past 9. ;-)
Merc — I don’t know for sure; the review says 5 3/4 years, but I don’t know where they got that. There’s some info on Woodstone Creek’s website but I don’t see anything about the age of the bourbon….
I’m not much of a bourbon drinker myself, but that’s great to see them carrying Ohio-made products!
Interesting stuff. Not for the faint of heart.
The nose is unusual. Smokey but with a faint astringent and difficult to identify smell. In fact it took the wife and I quite a while discussing it before we really figured it out. Finally, she said “Carmelle acetone” and we both had an “a ha!” moment and toasted.
The flavor is unabashedly up front. Lots of in-your-face smoke. Not too much sweetness from the corn. I never liked the ‘corny’ bourbons much, so this works for me.
All in all, it’s an interesting addition to the bourbonosphere, certainly unusual. It packs a punch too. I noticed a bit of short-term memory erasing effect after only one, which is unusual for me. Usually it takes 5-6. Maybe I’m just tired.
I’ll drink it again. Big thanks go to the awesome Details crew for digging it up. If you are reading this and you haven’t been to Details yet, you need to turn the computer off and go. NOW.
In addition to what the Rockhubby says, I must also add that after two sips of this bourbon my sinuses POPPED open unlike anything I’ve had since Laphroaig. If the price was a little lower per bottle I’d want this for a toddy.
Funny you should mention Laphroaig… the combination of what I took to be a slight phenol note (I’ll defer, as I wouldn’t know carmelle acetone if it bit me in the ass) and smoke made me think of this as the Laphroaig of the bourbon world….
I still have no idea how I managed to get that combination of carmelle and acetone, but after a good sniff I just blurted it out. Maybe it was the result of too many hours waiting for my mother to finish getting her nails done at the salon. Meanwhile I still want that toddy!
All in all i think this stuff is the new end member on the bourbon spectrum. The spectrum being now defined (by me) as a three axis piper graph with phenols, wood, and corn. Put phenols on the bottom of the triangle with corn and wood as the left and right legs of the triangle. Corn goes from high corn on the bottom to low corn on the top, wood goes high to low.
Evan williams would be in the lower part of the left side. Low corn, moderate wood, low phenols. It’s buttery.
makers mark is on the lower middle. Too much corn and phenols for the wood.
woodstone creek would be on the top of the pyramid. All wood and phenols. Very little corn.
Bookers is in the middle. balanced.
I tend to like stuff that graphs in the middle and upper left on the graph.
Ok. I actually graphed this, but I did it by percentage and change the graph scales a bit which makes it completely different from what I described, BUT more readable and more intuitive.
I have defined “wood/peat” as the charwood flavor in bourbon or the peaty flavor of scotch, etc
“Phenolic” is the “chemical” flavor. Covers a lot of ground.
“grain” is the sweet grainy/corny flavor component.
Each of these components is rated (by my and mostly by memory this evening) on a scale of 1-100
There are places in this graph where NO whiskey will ever go. Nobody would ever sell something with 0 wood as whiskey, it would be called “white lightning”. Also, 100 percent phenol with no wood may be impossible. Even vodka is mostly grain.
The thing to note on the graph is where these things cluster. Similar flavors will all cluster in similar places.
Please submit your observations so I can add them to this graph! Rate each component on 1-100 and post it!
Woodstone creek is clearly an outlier.
er… forgot to change the title on that when I started adding non-bourbon whiskeys. please just imagine that the title says “whiskeys”
So, the American whiskey is clustered around the middle. Middle-of-the-road whiskey – all trying for about the same taste? Snoooooooooooooooz. I’m ready for something different! Frankly, I’m dying for something different. I also disagree with the other guy who says Woodstone isn’t sweet. It’s sweet enough for me . . . I freakin love it!!!!!! This is sippin whisky. I could sit down with a Woodstone and a nice cigar and sip all day.
What I said was that it’s not overly sweet like, for example, Makers Mark, which is too sweet for my usual taste. I would agree that the woodstone is a stand alone sipper. It’s closer to Oban (scotch) than most of the bourbon whiskeys are.
The reason most of the bourbons are clustered in the same general cluster is less about “trying the same thing” and more about the fact that “they’re whiskey”. The wood that all whiskey’s have to have that keeps them out of the lower right and far lower left end of the graphs. There are some whiskeys that do not have as much wood (see Jamison) but they end up balancing a grain flavor with the phenolic flavor.
By this scale if you have only “grain” with no wood or “phenol” tastes (the lower left part of the graph) you’ll find yourself in RUM country (sugar as grain overpowers the phenolic flavors). Even white lightnin’, where there is no wood to balance the grains and phenol taste would be more phenolic than sweet. “whiskey” will always end up somewhere in the area where some wood exists or it’s going to be pretty odd and likely only appeal to us hard core alcoholics who actually LIKE white lightnin’.
In the scotch world, you’ll notice that the over-riding peat of some scotches has pushed them up towards the top. It would be really really hard for a non-peat whiskey to pick up that much wood to the point where it overrides the other flavors that much. This is why the Woodstone has been described earlier as “the Laphroaig of bourbon”. Very woody, but with a slide towards phenolic (chemical) flavors that laphroaig would probably have if the peat were not so overpowering.
The POINT of this graph was NOT to show anything is “better” than anything else, but as a tool to describe things that are similar (like bookers and bushmills) and show where things are different (like Jamison and Bookers).
There’s a time and a place for every taste! I’m just attempting to quantify them.
Hi Bourbonv, and welcome to the site!
I agree entirely that the Woodstone is different. In fact, I devoted the bulk of my original review to writing exactly that. But I’d arrange Mike’s graph a bit differently: I’d push most of the whisk(e)ys over to the left, reflecting that most of them give me some balance of wood and grain with very little phenolic content at all. Laphroaig I’d… well, probably leave about where it is; lots of peat, some phenols, but a lot of other stuff going on. On the other hand, I’d tentatively attribute more of the flavor of the Woodstone to grain than to wood… so I’d swing it down toward the bottom of the triangle, still heavily phenolic though.
I’d underscore Mike’s final point, that none of this is is a value judgment, necessarily. Laphroaig and Woodstone are both big outliers. That’ll appeal to some people and not to others.
The variance in Mike’s and my scoring, as well as my own reaction to the Woodstone, makes me wonder whether whatever compound we’re both picking up and identifying as phenolic might be detected to different degrees by different people — much like cilantro, which is quite mild to some people and overwhelming to others. To me, it’s easily the most prominent part of the taste profile, but I’m not sure there’s consensus on that point. One or two tasters almost seem not to know what I’m talking about, which is incomprehensible to me, while others mention it without prompting. It’s really odd. Anyway, the difference in Mike’s and my experience along that one dimension might explain the more or less across-the-board shift in our “codings” of the different whisk(e)ys.
I have been told that my taste picks up some things more than others, but I think everyone probably tastes things differently. I suspect that for different people, the graph looks much different.
I also suggest that MORE RESEARCH MUST BE DONE on this subject.
I would also add (since you cannot edit news comments here anymore) that I taste these tastes I am describing as “phenolic” in EVERY booze I drink with few exceptions. It may be related to my profession, which involves, among other things, hydrocarbon compounds of various sorts.
I emphatically agree with the Rockmaster about more research.
And, re bourbonv’s comment that “I also disagree with the other guy who says Woodstone isn’t sweet” — I think I’m “the other guy,” and I forgot to address this earlier. My point was basically, like Mike’s; in fact, when I first tried it I mentioned that I had a hard time believing that it was bourbon because it didn’t taste like it was 51% corn liquor. Subsequent communications with the distillers have confirmed that it contains “bare minimum corn.” So I think it’s fair to say that it’s less sweet than most. For me, for what it’s worth, that’s actually a plus: I prefer a dry whiskey. (I actually lean more toward rye than bourbon, truth be told.)
I would like to know if bourbonv has a good toddy recipe for this particular potent potable. This is the season for them and I’m interested to see how it tastes when warmed with a few extra ingredients.