H Clark Distillery Tennessee Black and Tan

This will be another Oat spirit keeping with the theme of my last review.

H Clark Distillery is a newcomer in the world of spirits. They operate a VERY small distillery in Thompson's Station Tennessee south of Nashville and produce VERY small batch spirits. I was on hand last week to witness the production of this particular product, the Tennessee Black and Tan.

From the bottle: "We craft a rich, black oatmeal stout mash that is distilled then tanned by time in oak." This particular batch was aged a mere 5 months in a small barrel. (I'm not up on my barrel sizes but it looked like 10US gal.) I hesitate to call this whiskey because technically it is not being aged such a short time. I had the pleasure of tasting the "new make" spirit as it came of the still as well. Yummy stuff.

Nose: Fresh sawdust, green fruits, banana pudding, pineapple. Some coffee. Not picking up any oatmeal stout notes other than slight coffee.

Palate: Banana pudding, milk chocolate, lemon, vanilla, charred wood. Very creamy texture and smooth for such a young spirit.

Finish: Banana pudding, then a BIG hit of root beer that lingers for a few minutes then turns into chocolate and sawdust.

Overall: This is suprising and much better than I expected it to be. This distillery is releasing a BiB product next year to celebrate 4 years and I'll be keen to try it.