Seven Stills Chocasmoke A Smoked Chocolate Oatmeal Stout Whiskey Wonder

In the world of craft spirit start ups, having a lot of buzz going out the gate and a unique product that quickly creates its own demand can help a young distillery get a leg up, especially when it comes to whiskey. Such is the case on all fronts it seems like with one Seven Stills in San Francisco, California, which is rapidly selling through its new Chocasmoke whiskey created from craft beer.

Chocasmoke, of which only 350 or so bottles scattered around San Francisco and some points beyond are available, is made from a smoked chocolate oatmeal stout that was courtesy of Mill Valley Beerworks and that had roughly 20 percent peat smoked malt added to. How does this work exactly? As Seven Stills describes it on their website, “we use actual craft beer recipes to make our whiskey.  The first step to make a whiskey is traditionally to make a very low quality beer, and then distill it into an unaged whiskey.  We threw this idea immediately out and decided to make beers that tasted outstanding as a beer, and then distilled them into different whiskeys.”

Tasting notes from the distillery for this first limited edition release, of which each 47% ABV bottling is hand wax dipped and hand numbered, indicate a young whiskey that “opens up with dark roasted aromas and sweet honey. Upon first taste you will discover rich chocolate, malted barley, vanilla and honey. The mouthfeel is silky smooth, and finishes with a subtle peat smoke.”

In case you miss out on this whiskey, fear not, as Seven Stills is in the process of creating its “Seven Hills Series: a project to create a unique craft beer inspired whiskey for each of the seven hills of San Francisco.” As for the Chocasmoke, you still may be able to find a 375 ml bottle for around $55 or so.