Editor’s Note: This whiskey was provided to us as a review sample by the party behind it. Per our editorial policies, this in no way influenced the outcome of this review.
Washington’s Woodinville Whiskey Co., founded in 2010 by Brett Carlile and Orlin Sorensen, represents a slightly older breed of craft whiskey makers who established themselves before the “craft” movement was well off and running in the whiskey space. The two, only armed with a desire to prove “the best never-sourced, real craft whiskey could be made in Washington state,” turned to the late David Pickerell, former Master Distiller for Maker’s Mark, for help with creating a distillery that would stand the test of time.
The process of making Woodnville’s award-winning whiskeys is pretty straightforward – mashing and cooking of grains from the Omlin Family Farm in Quincy, Washington; a controlled fermentation over four days; distillation through handmade, custom-designed 1,320-gallon German stills made of copper; and aged at least five years in the distillery’s Central Washington private barrel houses inside barrels made from wood seasoned for 18 months in open air, wind, rain, and snow before being coopered.
The results of their labors have been a steady stream of awards and industry and consumer recognition over the years, including winning a Double Gold and the title of “Best Straight Bourbon of 2020” for their flagship bourbon at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
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What’s in the bottle
The whiskey being reviewed here, Woodinville Straight Bourbon Aged 8 Years, represents a super nerdy whiskey experiment turned unique bottling. Carlile and Sorensen, working with barrel maker Independent Stave Company, tasted eight distinctly different barrels to see which would produce the best flavor profile they were looking for. The barrel types tested included #1 Char Standard Kiln-Dried, #2 Char Standard Kiln-Dried, #3 Char Standard Kiln-Dried, #4 Char Standard Kiln-Dried, #3 Char 18-Month Open-Air Seasoned, #5 Char 18-Month Open-Air Seasoned, Heavy Toast/Light Char 24-Month Open-Air Seasoned and Thin-Stave Barrel.
Brett and Orlin filled the eight test barrels with new-make whiskey and waited. Four-and-a-half years later, the whiskeys were ready for analysis by gas chromatograph at ISC. The heavily toasted, lightly charred barrel made from 24-month open-air seasoned staves was found to have significantly higher amounts of “whiskey’s favorite core compounds,” but for them, it wasn’t quite right yet.
They let it age further, ultimately settling on something with an eight-year age statement. However, as they explain it, it is actually “two years of stave aging, four and a half years of initial aging, and four additional years in the barrel. 2 + 4½ + 4 = 10½ years of work, patience, and hope represented in this liquid, one of the most balanced, complex, refined bourbons” they feel they’ve ever created.
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Woodinville Straight Bourbon Aged 8 Years, distilled from a mash bill of 72% corn, 22% rye, and 6% malted barley, was bottled at 100 proof and priced at $129.
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