And we're back with another of Woodford Reserve's Master's Collection! This is the Bourbon icon's 19th Edition of its Master's Collection - the Sonoma Triple Finish!

Whilst most would recognise Woodford Reserve as being synonymous with the grand Kentucky Derby, fewer might know that the distillery is one of the Bourbon pioneers that's helped to create the Bourbon industry as we know it today! The distillery, established in 1812, is even gazetted on the National Register of Historic Places and is a designated National Historic Landmark! It's also responsible for helping to formalise the sour mash process by which Bourbons are produced, along with codifying pot distillation and several key aspects of whiskey maturing!

Woodford Reserve - a historic Bourbon icon!

The distillery is also rather unique in that it operates three pot stills that together allow for a triple distillation which in turn creates a more aromatic spirit - yet, to give the Bourbon more body, the spirit produced at the Woodford Reserve Distillery is subsequently blended with Old Forester spirit from the Brown Forman Distillery - creating a Bourbon that is traditionally bottled at 90.4 Proof (or 45.2% ABV), made using a 72% Corn, 18% Rye and 10% Malted Barley, and is typically between 6-7 years old at the minimum.

Each year, beyond the flagship releases, Woodford Reserve also showcases a more experimental side through its annual release of the Master's Collection wherein the distillery utilises creative techniques and innovations from different mashbills to maturation techniques and flavour profiles.

Sonoma County is home to a great number of equally great wineries!

And so today we're going to review the 19th Edition - the Woodford Reserve Master's Collection Sonoma Triple Finish - which takes inspiration from the 2014 release of the Master's Collection featuring the first ever Pinot Noir finished Kentucky Bourbon in history (a Sonoma-Cutrer Pinot Finish), as well as the 2016 release which saw the first ever American Brandy Cask finished Bourbon. These experiments ended up having a pretty big effect on both the whisky and wine world where more distilleries began to follow suit and wineries as well had began to age their wines in Bourbon barrels! And so in following along that tradition, the goal with the 19th Edition was to do a three part combination where Woodford Reserve whiskey would be finished in Sonoma County barrels that too had been used to previously mature Woodford Reserve whiskies - in sum, the Bourbon here would be finished in three casks, from Sonoma County Pinot Noir barrels, to Brandy and then former Bourbon barrels used to age red wine!

Let's give this a go!

Bourbon Review: Woodford Reserve Master's Collection Sonoma Triple Finish

Tasting Notes

Colour: Copper Amber

Aroma: It's immediately fruity and rich, opening up with sweet cherry frosting, vanilla of cedar wood, black grapes - tanghulu candied grapes in fact, along with more on brown sugar and maltose candy. Moving outward, there are wafts of brighter tones of peanut shells and a herbaceous bit of parsley.

Taste: It kicks off punchy, satisfyingly so, giving it good presence, and then mellows out into brown sugar richness and sweetness, with more on black grape and black grape gummies, and raisins, before moving brighter towards more on cherry frosting and cherry hard candy. There's a little bit of sense of some charred oak here as well. Medium-bodied, mellow and rich, well filled in in its body.

Finish: Some rancio comes through here, a combination of mustiness and dried sour plums. As it moves along, more on prunes and plums, mulled wine, grape gummies and then some savouriness kicks in too. Some more earthy tones of leather, cloves and moss, with more on sweet oak. A long drawn yet mellowed and rich finish.

My Thoughts

The fruity grape-y wine qualities definitely does come through with this expression and does so in a way that cradles both being brighter and more confectionary, as well as also on the other side of the spectrum, taking on a denser and more stewed form - and yet finds a way to fit itself snuggly into the Woodford Reserve flavour profile.

I'd say that the wine finish doesn't alter much of the core Woodford Reserve flavours, but on the wine side of things, the Bourbon has clearly amalgamated with the wine flavours - this translates into the classic Woodford Reserve flavours being completely intact, with some additional layers of grape-y fruitiness that has been slotted in.

Now, as mentioned, those wine flavours have clearly taken to the Bourbon, and out of that comes more candied fruit - in the form of grape gummies and maltose coated grape candies- as well as fruit that comes in a more confectionary form where it's been cooked and baked, like how you'd incorporate stone fruits into a baked pie or a cobbler. And so it's pretty obvious that the Bourbon has given the wine notes a richer profile.

All in all, a very interesting expression that's found a way to on the one hand keep the Woodford Reserve DNA, and on the other, push the Bourbon in a direction where it's unique and bold, and really quite unlike anything else you've had before - perhaps the closest of which would be Armagnac, except in this case you'll find more richness and layers to it.