Heaven Hill Malt Whiskey

[cowdery]

Craig Beam has been messing around with a malt whiskey. When it's finished aging, it will be called Straight Malt Whiskey which, in the US regs, means it has to be at least 51% barley malt. It fact, it is exactly 51% barley malt. The rest is corn. They're aging it in new, charred barrels. What I tasted has only been in wood for I think it was six months, so I wasn't able to get much of a fix on it. It was also tasted amidst much other eating and drinking. Initial reaction by everyone in the room was not so great, come back to us when it has a little more age on it.

[SBOmarc]

A guess? How long do you think it should be in the wood?

[Gillman]

Interesting, certainly something different.

Gary

[cowdery]

It probably will need a full four or five years to get to the point where we can get a real sense of it. The Bernheim wheat, for example, is five.

Like I said, I might have been able to evaluate it better if I had tasted it earlier in the day. By the time I got it into my mouth, it had a lot of company. It tasted very white-doggy.