Angel's Envy Port Finished Bourbon

Angel's Envy was founded by the legendary father-and-son team of Lincoln and Wes Henderson. Lincoln Henderson was a master distiller with decades of experience at Brown-Forman, and Angel's Envy was his passion project in retirement. As for the name — we all know about "Angel's Share," that percentage of the liquid the angels take for themselves in exchange for maturing the whiskey, about 5% per year. After tasting his creation, Lincoln Henderson reckoned that the angels might have wanted a bigger cut. Thus, Angel's Envy was born.

Back in 2013, Angel's Envy was considered a trailblazer — it helped take a cottage industry inside of the bourbon world and make it mainstream, paving the way for barrel-finished bourbons to become accepted by whiskey drinkers everywhere.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Orange segments, flaky pastry, and cinnamon sticks. Creamy vanilla, cedar spice, and the start of red berry sweetness. Coconut chips, vanilla, maple wood, and honey. Spices — mainly cinnamon — with creamy caramels and macerated very ripe summer fruits and berries. Oak and port wine seep hand in hand from beautifully balanced sweet aromas.

Palate: A big helping of dark chocolate, red grape, and a light waft of aromatic herbs. Caramel corn and fruit — dates and berries — with cinnamon and nutmeg spices and just a hint of oak. Vanilla, red apples, maple syrup, cocoa, and rye bread. 

Finish: Dried apples and bananas, vanilla, sweet and long with a slight red wine tartness. The port influence is a delicate balance — it is there but does not overpower the subtler notes of oak, spice, and citrus that give this whiskey its layers.