Review #180: Reservoir Fahrenheit 144 picked by Maldonado’s Whiskey Business (BLIND REVIEW)

MASH BILL: Blend of rye whiskey and bourbon

PROOF: 144

AGE: Blend of 8 yr rye and 10 yr bourbon

COST: $130 for 750mL bottle (I’m reviewing a sample.)

I did this review completely blind  and I did NOT expect it to be what it was! Once I got the reveal, I was really impressed by it, even if it didn’t entirely sit with my palate well. The technical details of this whiskey are interesting and something to nerd out about. Let’s dive in! 

Reviewed neat in a Glencairn (unless otherwise noted).

APPEARANCE: A dark, ruby brown (1.9); very oily looking. I expect the mouthfeel to be thick, viscous, and oily. 

NOSE: Very hot nose. I went full send right away and think I singed some nose hairs at first whiff. This is dark and sweet smelling. I get a lot of burnt brown sugar and vanilla frosting up front. There’s a wall of tannic oak that’s hard to get past making this seem rather straight forward, but after I continue nosing and try and get past the ethanol and tannic oak, there’s a great blend of more subtle notes: dark stone fruit, black pepper, chocolate, port wine, and cardamom. (With a few drops of water, I get a lot more rye spice on the nose and a little maple syrup.)

PALATE: This is not as thick and oily as I thought it would be, but I think it’s due to the proof as I get that sort of astringent evaporative sensation on the palate. I’m guessing this is 125+ proof. A comforting spice of clove and nutmeg, stewed red fruits (slight Luxardo cherry even), and vanilla lead off. The spice starts to ramp up with the addition of ginger and dark chocolate with a chili powder dusting. A note of margarita salt and citrus make a brief appearance late in the sip. There’s a large amount of tannic oak ever-present that provides minimal flavor but a lot of dryness. As the sweeter notes fade going into the finish, that dryness really settles in and makes me want to get a drink of water. (With a few drops of water, brown sugar, a touch of rye, and the red fruit (very cherry with a good chew) notes are more dominant. That citrus note has more clarity and orange zest like.)

FINISH: Very long, dry finish with a big ol’ bear hug right in the center of the chest. Burnt brown sugar, caramelized oak, heavy vanillin notes, expressed orange peel, and black pepper spice and cinnamon provide heat long after the sweet notes are gone. The dryness persists long after the flavors have fallen off. (With a few drops of water, the brown sugar is more prominent, the spice notes are still there but the vanilla and orange have been diluted. The oak note comes across more flavorful as well.)

RATING: 6.1/10

GUESS: 125+ proof, 12+ year bourbon. While I’m not guessing it’s finished, I would not be surprised if this was some sort of cognac/port/sherry finished as well because of rich dark fruit notes.

REVEAL: Reservoir Fahrenheit 144, a bou-rye private blend by Maldonado’s Whiskey Business. 10yr 100% corn bourbon in a 53 gallon Kelvin barrel blended with a 8 yr 100% rye in a 5 gallon Gibbs barrel, 144 proof.

OVERALL: This drank hot to me (this made me lol after the reveal…no shit, 144 proof? you don’t say?…), but once I settled in with it and got past the proof heat, I was certain this was a well matured, layered bourbon. In my guess, I didn’t even think about this being a bou-rye blend, and that makes perfect sense for the notes I was getting. So, what I like about it: cherry, layered, aged oak. What I didn’t like about it: hot and very dry. The few drops of water added to it were a double-edged sword: while it did cut the heat, it also tamped down on the vanilla notes and general sweetness went down and the spices shown through more. I’m not a proof hound, but this would be a bottle I would be happy to have in my bar to share with others and nerd out about and talk whiskey.

Behind the Bottle

Reservoir Distillery is based out of Richmond, VA. A “terroir” focused, farm-to-glass, craft distillery who is going against the grain with their refreshing take on how they’re doing whiskey.

They have a focus on single grain whiskeys. That is, their core line up is a 100% corn bourbon, a 100% rye, rye whiskey, and a 100% wheat, wheat whiskey. Their “custom whiskey” program has 3 options: a custom-etched bottle filled with one of their standards single grain whiskeys, a custom mash bill where you choose a custom blending of their 100% single grain whiskeys, and then a private selection program where you can pick barrels that are exclusively picked for their top-tier quality, including some finished barrels and non-single grain mash bill whiskeys. This particular whiskey that I sampled happened to come from the custom mash bill option.

This particular whiskey was a custom blend of 10-year 100% corn bourbon and 8-year 100% rye rye whiskey. With a relatively high age statement, this is quite the pick! The grain ratio of the blend isn’t completely apparent as I don’t know the angel share from each barrel, but the bourbon was from a standard, 53-gallon Kelvin barrel and the rye whiskey was from a 5-gallon barrel. I’m going to take a guess that around 70% of each barrel was left after 10 and 8 years. So that would yield a grain ratio of somewhere around 90% corn and 10% rye. However, as we’ve seen with Found North expressions, the right rye barrels can really show up in the flavor profile even at a small ratio. I think the smaller 5-gallon barrel of the rye whiskey likely made it more robust and helped it shine through with a decent amount of spice, but obviously from my notes, the sweetness still made quite an appearance.

While this 144 proof whiskey leaned a bit hot for me (go figure), it still came across lower proof than what it was. I’m definitely planning on dropping into Reservoir next time I’m in the Richmond, VA area based on what I’ve learned about them and tried here. There are some fairly scathing reviews of Reservoir’s core lineup online (very astringent, too hot, too expensive, etc.), and from what I have seen this is one of the more well reviewed bottles of theirs. But I love what they’re doing and how dedicated they are to whiskey category specifically. They’re willing to experiment, play with blending, use a variety of barrels, use local grains, etc. They’ve garnered my interest at least, whatever that’s worth…

1 | Disgusting | ...I've not subjected myself to this level

2 | Poor | Balcones Lineage

3 | Bad | High West Double Rye, Jefferson's Ocean 28

4 | Sub-par | Weller's SR, Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select, Hillrock Estate Sauternes CS

5 | Good | Buffalo Trace, Sazerac Rye, Green River Wheated

6 | Very Good | Blanton's, Holladay Bourbons, Eagle Rare

7 | Great | Baker's 7yr SiB, BBCo Origin High Wheat, 1792 BiB

8 | Excellent | Most ECBP batches, Maker's Mark Wood Finishing releases, High West MWND Act 11

9 | Incredible | Woodford Reserve Batch Proof 121.2, BBC DS #7, Four Roses OESQ

10 | Perfect | Found North Batch 08, RR15

 

Check out all my reviews: Woodgrain & Whiskey.