STR heads, take word: the Virginia Distillery Co. is slowly rolling out batches of its Braveness & Conviction Cuvée Single Cask, which sees the distiller’s single malt American whiskey aged solely in shaved, toasted, and re-charred crimson wine casks (STR casks account for simply 25% of the mix within the flagship Braveness & Conviction).
So, what’s the impact of pure, unadulterated STR-aging on this cask-strength (mine, cask 1266, clocked in at 59.2%) whiskey? For starters, there’s the colour. It pours a lovely, darkish tawny crimson within the glass. On the nostril, it conjures oak, raisin, and figs, resulting in an general impression of sticky, juicy desserts. There may be additionally a pointy tang of vanilla extract, and the bready sweetness present in shortbread cookies.
It begins on the entrance of the palate with the darkish, syrupy sweetness of prune juice, raisins, and treacle syrup, shifting to darkish crimson wine on the center because it heats up with a word of darkish oak. This shift is adopted by a dry spell of cherry pipe tobacco, cigar, and leather-based, earlier than we’re hit by a really warming, dry, and completely spiced end.
Braveness & Conviction Cuvée Single Cask is directly intensely juicy and syrupy in its darkish fruit content material, but bone-dry and spice-forward in its tobacco-and-leather tongue-drier of a end. Because of that spectacular spice profile, it’s additionally a single malt that really drinks like a bourbon or rye, with that full measure of wooden and spice craved by New American Oak devotees however served up in a deliciously totally different package deal by advantage of its STR maturation.
At press time, Braveness & Conviction Cuvée Single Cask is at present obtainable in choose liquor shops in Virginia, Texas, and Massachusetts. A full record of distributors may be discovered on the corporate’s web site.
★★★★
Stats:
— 59.2% ABV
— $150
