I don't spend much time on the bourbon aisle, it's never quite been my thing. I might be able to trace my paternal family back to the Highlands of Scotland, but that same line of kinfolk later spent four generations farming the green hills of old Kentucky. So I'm a genetically programmed whisk(e)y drinker, but most of what I know about high end bourbon I learned from watching 'Justified'. Maybe I should start trying to acquire a taste for it the way I did with scotch, perhaps as my next blog. I'm not here for me today though, just shopping for stocking stuffers.
Right next to Richmond's own bourbon, Reservoir, sat a tastefully fonted label curiously eschewing American whiskey's telltale 'e'. Misplaced on the bourbon shelf sat Defiant American Single Malt Whisky, product of the Blue Ridge Distilling Co. (Bostic, North Carolina). The name registered as familiar from researching an earlier post regarding single malt whisky produced outside of Scotland, but I never thought to look for any of them amongst the likes of Jack, Jim, and Evan.
The bottle had been reduced for the holidays from $38 to $34. By comparison, my trip down the scotch aisle had yielded three untried options: Tamdhu 10, Talisker Storm, and Oban Little Bay, each a stiff $80. I can't justify dropping that kind of dough while I'm supposed to be here shopping for others. With a significantly lesser pang of guilt, I dropped the NC single malt into the basket.
I've lived in six states in my lifetime, Virginia for nearly 2/3 of it, but second place would go to North Carolina. Four years of college, OBX beach vacations, cruising the Blue Ridge Parkway down to Blowing Rock or Asheville, and yearly football/barbecue pilgrimages to the Tobacco Road triumvirate of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill. The prospect of tasting North Carolina's first single malt whisky seemed to me a natural companion to its Virginian cousins (Wasmund's and VDC).
Bostic is a town too small for a stoplight, deep in the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern NC. Scotland has some cultural roots in these neck of the woods. Just ask Asheville's Highland Brewing Company, or visit the nation's second largest Highland Games festival on Grandfather Mountain next July. The presence of a new whisky distillery among a population that has never cracked 500 has got to be one of the more exciting things to have ever happened in the Golden Valley holler.
The Blue Ridge Distillery Co. is perched directly over the underground aquifer serving as their water source. The idea behind this endeavor comes from a group of salvage divers, Defiant Marine Salvage, who were instrumental in the clean-up efforts after Hurricane Sandy ravaged New York and New Jersey in 2012. The distillery's website lays it on pretty thick with scuba references, perhaps going a bit overboard? Sorry, I can never pass up a chance at a groan-worthy pun.
American distillers must get creative to compensate for this problem, especially younger ones without the luxury of lengthy maturation periods. Defiant doesn't actually use oak casks at all, but rather stainless steel tanks, immersing 'spirals' of toasted American white oak into the spirit itself. This dramatically increasing the surface area with which the malt will interface, and maturation supposedly only takes 60 days with this method. Creative? Yes. Effective? Yes. Sacrilegious? And then some, but I have a sneaking suspicion that's exactly the reaction its distillers are hoping for (hence the name).
Defiant is distilled from 100% malted barley. Oddly enough, this is not a requirement for American single malt whisky, but here tradition is upheld. The proof is in the pudding, the maltiness on the palate is robust and full-bodied. I'm also getting vanilla, caramel, toasty notes, and a slightly sour green apple background. This is not a malt with which to spend time pondering its complexity, but the balance of flavor is as rounded and smooth as a Waffle House countertop (that's more Georgia though, I should have gone with Hardee's).
The finish was a step backwards for me I'm afraid. Maybe this is a result of lactones lurking in the virgin oak, perhaps a consequence of the accelerated maturation process, but on the finish there was an intensely bitter note followed by a lingering flavor of banana chips. I grew accustomed to it on subsequent occasions, but as a first impression it was a surprise.
I've enjoyed plenty single malts with a rough finish. To me, it's the least important part of the tasting process. I recognize the legal restrictions American distillers are saddled with versus their Scottish counterparts; but also their considerable allowances for tweaking traditional methods. Defiant's interpretation isn't as outside the box as distilling finished beer (hops and all) to make malt whisky, but the difference is notable for both its ingenuity and its outcome. Like any upstart distillery, the passage of time can only be in their favor.
Overall Grade: 81/100, B-
*Update: Upon finishing the bottle there was a considerable amount of particulate sludge in the last dram. A few tiny red crystals were strewn though it as well, like glitter scattered throughout fish tank sand. It probably would have been fine to drink, but my final dram went down the sink. Too bad.
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