Southern Grace Distillery Conviction Amarone Ualpolicella Cask

This is an interesting bottle a friend of mine picked up in Mt Pleasant, NC from Southern Grace Distillery. It’s a 2 year old “bourbon” finished in a single Amarone cask and bottled at cask strength of 51.7%, unfiltered and uncolored.

Bottle opened for 2 months. Neat in a Glencairn.

Nose: You can quickly tell that the amarone cask they used to finish this was very active. There is a prominent graincorn note that I would expect with younger whiskey with a 51%+ corn mashbill. But it’s behind a LOT of wine. (I’ve noticed that bourbons seem to amplify wine notes when wine casks are used. Hot climate?)

Palate: Despite being pretty 2-dimensional, this is quite nice. The two notes are basically corn and sweet red wine. The palate is very sweet and very “winey.” Bourbon is already sweet, and the amarone makes it even sweeter. If you have a sweet tooth, this is for you. And I mean dessert, sugary sweet.

Finish: The finish is basically grape juice. I couldn’t distinguish it from a brandy.

Overall: This is a very unique take on whiskey. It satisfies one’s sweet tooth and is very unique from anything I’ve tried before. This was a seriously active amarone cask. If the corn note wasn’t there, you’d think you were drinking a strong fortified wine or a brandy. But since the corn note is there, you recognize it as an American bourbon, combined with a very active wine cask. I’m not sure I’ve had anything distilled in the US with this much influence from a wine cask. And I can’t think of a whiske I’ve had off the top of my head that was this sweet.