Balcones True Blue

Still sitting here, playing with some interesting new corn whiskies from Texas. It's the start of the week and it's already been a crazy one, so crazy in fact that I havent had any time to sit down and enjoy some good whiskies, so when I got home tonight, I decided that come hell or high water I was going to enjoy a dram by god!

So I'm sitting here watching American Gangster, staring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, with a dram of Balcones True Blue 100% in my hand and I'm really impressed.

Not just with the movie, which I already knew was good, but this whiskey, or to be more honest, with these corn whiskies.

I'd always thought of corn whiskies as being moonshine, white lighting, high octane, unaged, alcohol that you used to just get completely smashed.

But instead I'm encountering a whiskey with startling complexity, much more complexity then I'd have thought.

The nose is surprisingly rich with mangoes, lychees, apricots, slight citrus, cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice, vanilla ice cream, covered in brown sugar, and dark cocoa powder.

Wow! That's a huge step up from the normal 46% abv.

Time for a taste!

Sweet, oodles of vanilla, dark chocolate, tobacco, oranges, caramel, couch leather, soft bananas, charred oak, cinnamon, nutmeg, buttered caramel popcorn and a hint of corn.

Very nice whiskey, very nice! Totally enjoying this while I watch my movie.

The finish lingers for a long time, 4, 5 minutes after my last sip with again the rich vanilla, lots of dark chocolate and some fruity hints lurking in the background, trying to track what fruits down without success, all I know is that it's delicious!

It's a very dry whiskey, making you want to grab another dram, it is very good. Too good in fact as I feel like I could drink it all night.

Running at roughly $150 AUS a bottle a whiskey like this makes it very easy to see why Balcones is considered one of the top American craft distilleries. If you're looking for something delicious and a little bit different this just might be up your alley!

First vapor: Dark maple with cherry cough syrup.

Nose: Like walking into a fudge confectionery that happens to be next to a large crop field. There are loads of sweet butter in the air; sweet an buttery kettle corn. Other fudge elements come out besides the sugar and the butter-- there's the nutty penuche, there's the french vanilla of divinity fudge; and even some mint fudge hinting at rye. This latter sharpness becomes more prominent with time.

Palate: Entry is bitter-hot like amaretto and tabasco; then the hot sauce appears to have flambeed some maple syrup into char. Rather like hot kettle corn. Before the finish, a frame of charred pear and dried fig passes into orange-infused maple with clove. This combination gives the impression of having eaten gingerbread cookies.

Finish: A creamed corn dish, with minced red chilies and sweetened with cinnamon.

There is really a lot here. The only complaint is the throat-sting on the entrance, but this levels off and continues into an amazingly rich palate. The deep sweet flavors are really big and full; you can lick the butter off your lips. I need to award the dominant thrill to the nose, though-- an incredibly thick aroma that evokes walking among the summertime confections of a state fair by a cornfield. Americana complete.

Balcones from Waco, Texas is starting to pop on the east coast as of late. The bottle I'm tasting is from batch TB12-3, with a date of 8/13/12. This is a cask strength bottling so I've added a touch of water to make this nose-able.

The nose is full of sherry aromas: beautiful roasted nut flavors, white chocolate, and unctuous maple syrup. Smells out-and-out DELICIOUS and DARK.

Very round mouthfeel, this enters sweet with caramel and fudge flavors. I see "pear" in a lot of Balcones tasting notes, and would agree there. The finish is rounded out by spicy red pepper and cinnamon notes.

I think this is very well done, and that Balcones is making some of the most interesting things available right now. I'm anxious to review the rest of the lineup (Baby Blue, "1" Texas Single Malt, Brimstone, Rumble, and Rumble Cask Reserve). Balcones says that they will be releasing a True Blue 100 in the near future, but I don't see that having an easy time compared to this cask strength version. Seriously, Bravo!

Balcones Distilling in Waco, Texas 'imports' blue corn from New Mexico to make this unaged undiluted True Blue corn whiskey from 100% mash of Blue Corn. They also make a version named Baby Blue aged for 4 months in miniature new oak barrels, and bottled at 46% ABV. The natural pigment of the blue corn gives this unaged spirit an aged-whisky-like colouration. True Blue is sold at undiluted distillation strength (it would be 'barrel proof' if there were barrels involved). The reviewed sample was from Batch TB10-7, which was bottled on 22 Oct 2010 at 61.8% ABV/123.6 proof.

Nose: moderate corn nose which has a deeper character than that from either white or yellow sweet corn. The nose is very slightly sour, but much less so than is typical from new make corn whiskey.

Taste: very big flavour, distinctively of blue corn, which is deeper than other corn varieties. Initial sourness gives way to a balance of sweetness and slight sourness which, very interestingly, tastes as though it has been aged in new wood, for, maybe, six months. There is nothing here, though, except for the blue corn to give these flavours. This is quite interesting and different in the category of taste sensations.

Finish: These flavours linger a long time and the sweetness fades out to a very mild sourness, with the blue corn flavour intact until the end.

Balance: Tasting this whiskey represents for me a further exploration of the taste of grains without additional variables added to the equation. In my opinion, corn, especially, is so weak and subtle in flavour that it is virtually untastable if its flavours are combined with oak, rye, or wheat. For nothing but the pure taste of one sub-variety of grain going on here, there is a lot of complexity in the True Blue. Personally, I prefer the brighter flavours of white or yellow corn to the flavour of blue corn, but, that said, this is a very interesting new whiskey to add to your mouth's encyclopedia of tasting experiences. This is quite pleasant to drink if you like the experience of new whiskies without the influence of wood.