Bend & Steal American Whiskey
Reviewed neat in a glencairn.
Appearance: Yellow gold in color. Make very tiny beads on the side of the glass quickly and then slow thin legs to follow. After a few minutes though, the side of the glass looks like what water would look like beading on the glass (overall, looks thin). And worth mentioning, it looks a little cloudy (I’ve had this bottle for almost 2 years and this is my last pour…so maybe something there…)
Nose: Honeysuckle…the dominant scent…which is crazy to me because the floral notes are normally more subdued to me. There’s a mix of hay and honey that round out the dominant components of the nose. I really don’t pick up much else. When I try and take some really deep whiffs, I get a little young oak but it’s competing with ethanol at that point and tough to distinguish.
Palate: A light burnt white sugar accompanies a slight almond note (marzipan if you want to be more precise or sophisticated). It is a sweet, light nuttiness, not an earthy nuttiness. There’s a slight grassiness, but not much else. It’s very monotone, but there’s nothing abrasive about it. It’s thick, but doesn’t coat the mouth well. This is a pretty weak mouth feel because it leaves my mouth feeling unbalanced leaving me feeling the burn in one half but not the other sort of way.
Finish: There’s a somewhat almond extract profile that lingers. It’s not real pleasant (If you’ve ever tried just straight almond extract, you know what I’m talking about. It burns, but the olfactory aspect of it is nice.) There’s zero hug with this. It leaves me wanting more of what I got on the nose.
Rating: 4.0/10
Overall: There was nothing that was “bad” in the sense of off-putting for me with this one. However, it just had a too many things making me long for something more (for me) to get it above a 4.0. It’s just overall very boring…and young.
Behind the Bottle: Firefly Distillery is located in Charleston, SC. Bend & Steal appears to be its own brand, made by Firefly, but separate from the rest of the things that Firefly distills… Maybe they’re just trying to keep the “Bend & Steal” name separate from Firefly because of a quality concern? But that’s complete and utter conjecture on my part. I really don’t know why else unless it has to do with some legal thing I don’t understand because alcoholz lawz are dumb…IDK…can’t really figure it out. But I digress.
On the back of this bottle, it says the whiskeys blended to make this bottle were distilled in Kentucky, Indiana, and South Carolina. I can’t find anything online that suggests what distilleries the whiskeys might be sourced from, but I’m going to go out on a limb and take a guess that the Indiana is MGP, the South Carolina is obviously Firefly, but the Kentucky…I’m not real sure… If it was Tennessee, I would say I would have a greater than 50% chance of it being Dickel, but Kentucky…IDK, too many options. Any thoughts?
I picked this bottle up when we visited Firefly Distillery after a day of hitting up various breweries (Charleston breweries > Charleson distilleries). We did one of their tastings and I really appreciated the Bend & Steal in that moment (probably because compared to the various moonshines, vodkas, and then all the beers for the previous 6+ hours, it was a familiar flavor profile for me), but after getting it home, I found myself mostly using it for mixed drinks and in general reaching for other things first because it was just boring. So, in the end, it wound up sitting in my bar for far longer than most bottles.
I don’t want to take anything away from Firefly distillery. They were only established in 2021. To me, this expression would say there’s hope for them. It’s just way too early to judge what they’re capable of with something so young and not knowing what the ratio of the blend is.
1 | Disgusting | So bad I poured it out.
2 | Poor | I wouldn’t consume by choice.
3 | Bad | Multiple flaws.
4 | Sub-par | Not bad, but many things I’d rather have.
5 | Good | Good, just fine.
6 | Very Good | A cut above.
7 | Great | Well above average
8 | Excellent | Really quite exceptional.
9 | Incredible | An all time favorite
10 | Perfect | Perfect
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