Sunday Evening Review

 

This week if you are a fan of craft distilleries, this will be the week for you. The reason is that Iron Vault Distillery is a craft distillery in every sense of the word. Now being craft is all well and good but what they produce is far more important. Today I will review 2 of their limited-edition selections with their Star Spangled Bourbon and also the Bloody Butcher Bourbon. Let’s find out if this is going to be like fireworks in my mouth or what may be considered a crime scene. Let’s get to it.

 

Make sure you put in the comments any bottles that you would like me to review.

 

NAME – Iron Vault Star Spangled Bourbon

 

PROOF – 90

 

AGE – non-age stated

 

COLOR – baked butternut squash (1.3 russet muscat on the Whiskey Magazine Color Chart)

 

NOSE – Buttered corn on the cob, vanilla, clover honey, sweet oak and a slight milk chocolate

 

TASTE – Sweet corn pudding, vanilla cream, cinnamon sugar, and new oak

 

FINISH – I would call this a medium finish. The sweet corn, vanilla and cinnamon last the entire trip.

 

NAME – Iron Vault Star Bloody Butcher

 

PROOF – 90

 

AGE – non-age stated

 

COLOR – toasted corn bread (1.3 russet muscat on the Whiskey Magazine Color Chart)

 

NOSE – Honeysuckle, grape jelly, vanilla bean, toasted oak, and a hint of tobacco

 

TASTE – Sugar Smacks cereal, orange zest, vanilla pudding, and some Kit Kat candybar

 

FINISH – I would call this a medium finish. The vanilla and chocolate hangs around for the finish

 

REVIEW – Pretty clear that the Bloody Butcher is the more complex and interesting bourbon. It took me awhile to really figure out what I was tasting. Both have youth which was expected but not offensive as some young bourbon can be. The Star Spangled Bourbon would be good at a 4^th July picnic as it is an easy drink and could be easily added to some coke at the picnic.

 

Bloody Butcher really is on the verge of being a really great bottle. It reminds me of Whiskey War when it was a 2 ½ year whiskey and then when High Bank added 2 more years to the blend, they won San Francisco. You add 2 more years to the Bloody Butcher and you would have something to write home about.

 

FINAL COMMENTS – Like I said before Iron Vault is a craft distillery in every sense of the word. They have never sourced any of their juice. The grain is all from Ohio and they are doing interesting things with 5, 10, 15 and 20 gallon barrels.

 

Both selections are using heirloom corn from Ohio. The Star Spangled uses a red, white and blue corn in its mash (see what they did there). The Bloody Butcher uses a heirloom red corn that is named the same.

 

Do yourself a favor sometime and make the short drive to Galion, Ohio and check them out. Make sure of their hours as they are limited to the public as like I said this is very craft and small operations, but you won’t be disappointed. Great tasting and make sure to ask to try their Aquavit. It certainly is an experience.

 

To find out more check it out here – Iron Vault Distillery

You can look at all the past Sunday Evenings Reviews and I would still love to hear what your personal reviews are from each of the whiskies reviewed.