Balcones Baby Blue, Batch: BB16-5?, Date: 1-9-17, 46% abv.

The juice that essentially made Balcones famous, Baby Blue is made from 100% roasted heirloom blue corn. I guess to be different, former Master Distiller Chip Tate selected the locally available blue corn to make a variety of aged malt product lines, with this bottling being the introductory as well as the "youngest" of the bunch. I heard blue corn isn't really used for much, but it contains characteristics that make it good for whisky making. It has won a variety of awards, perhaps mostly for it's uniqueness, but many bars are still a little hesitant to fully recommend it to customers due to it's interesting taste.

Nose: major whipped cream, some vanilla, totally smells like a cake. I hate the whipped cream on cake.... reminds me of IT, aka Pennywise.

Palate: plethora of weird distinguishable flavors, I'd say this is the Willy Wonka of bourbon. Perhaps something in between vanilla, butter, burnt vegetation, vegetable leaf juice, and/or cooking oil.

Finish: long, coffee.

This one was confusing, not so enjoyable in the sense that there is a lot of stuff going on and I don't know how to interpret it. But now I know what blue corn whiskey tastes like, quite distinct and has its own texture. Strange and peculiar this one, something in between, or a combination of, vanilla, butter, burnt vegetation, vegetable leaf juice, and/or cooking oil. Bartender warned about this one. Had this at 7 Grand, Los Angeles, USA.

Grade: C-

Whiskyanalysis.com, 8.29 ± 0.70 on 11 reviews
Thewhiskeyjug, Josh Peters, 82/100
A variety of numerous awards.

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

🇭🇰 🇺🇸(LA, SF) -> 🇯🇵 (京都, 東京) -> 🇰🇷 (서울, 부산)