Breckenridge Bourbon

VA ABC- $49.99

Total Wine - $43.99

Class VI - $XX.xx

ABV - 43%

AGE - NAS (No Age Statement)

Breckenridge Distillery

9 Dec 24

From the VA ABC website:  Deep honey-amber hue with warm, pronounced aromas of under-ripe banana and brown sugar, with spicy notes of white pepper and toasted sesame. Light body with warm texture and long sweet oak, vanilla finish with a touch of bitterness to balance. Reminiscent of a slice of toasted rye bread with honey drizzled on it.

Billing itself as the world’s highest distillery, Breckenridge, Colorado now has another reason to visit.  But, how does their whiskey taste?  Our friends from Distiller.com provide us with this helpful information:  Breckenridge Bourbon is a blend of straight bourbon whiskeys. They produce a portion of it at their distillery in Colorado which is made from a high-rye mash bill of 56% corn, 38% rye, and 6% malted barley. Once distilled, it is aged in char #3 new, American oak barrels for about three years. Their bourbon is blended with straight bourbons from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana.  

So this whiskey is a ‘straight blend’.  All the whiskey in the bottle follows the requirements for it to be straight whiskey (no additives, coloring, or anything else we don’t want in our whiskey).  However, they took straight whiskies from several different distilleries and blended them together to get the right taste that the master distiller wants.  The blending helps create a consistent product.  So if you like Breckenridge today, you’ll still like it ten years from now.  And we see ‘Indiana’ in the list of whiskies.  I think it’s safe to assume that they source some of their juice from MGP (that’s neither good nor bad - you can find my discussion of MGP here.  It’s the Templeton Rye writeup from 20 May 24).  Barrel charring ranges between char #1 - a light char, and #4 - alligator char.  A #3 char is considered a heavy char so it will really affect the whiskey in a way that a #1 char will not.

Colorado has become a whiskey destination with over 13 distilleries built in recent years.  Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey is best known but the list also includes

Breckenridge Distillery, 10th Mountain whiskey and Spirits, Bear Creek Distillery, Distillery 291, Elkins Distilling Company, Laws Whiskey House, Denver Distillery, The Block Distilling Company, Woody Creek Distillers, 3 Hundred Days Distilling, Deerhammer Distillery, and Axe and Oak Distillery.  Colorado residents are indeed fortunate.

Some useful tasting notes from Distiller.com: 

"The nose is full of oak, corn (due to immaturity), toast, and butter. The palate has corn front and center, but once you get past that you can catch honey, vanilla, and baking spices. The finish is quick, once again due to age, but shows more oak, cinnamon, and corn. While the product is good, it could use a bit more time in the barrel. As the distillery matures in age, the product will likely improve as well."

Looking around several whiskey websites I noticed that the word, ‘immature’ was often used to describe Breckenridge.  That’s not uncommon for the newer distilleries.  If the base whiskey is good (as it is with Breckenridge), the distillery is worth supporting.  We all look forward to seeing what they have instore for us years from now.  

Ember nen!

Cocktail - FA LA LA LA NOG

RECIPE

2 oz Breckenridge Bourbon

4 oz egg nog

1/2 oz vanilla liqueur

3 dashes walnut bitters

Garnish: sprinkle of vanilla bean sugar.

INSTRUCTIONS

Shake all ingredients with ice. Served up.