Woodinville Cask Strength 2022 Store Pick Bourbon Whiskey

Cask Strength Single Barrel #6682. The mash bill for your Bourbon is 72% Corn, 22% Rye and 6% Malted Barley. It was distilled and barreled on January 2, 2017 and after spending five years and 3 months in barrel it was dumped and bottled at cask strength on April 18, 2022. The nose of this cask strength bourbon shows warm spice, clove orange peel, cigar box, and caramel. The palate is textured and almost creamy with wood notes of cedar and oak shavings balanced by sugar dusted funnel cake. D&M Tasting Notes

Before there was Woodinville Whiskey there were two friends that had grown up in that bedroom community of Seattle. They were friends first in high school and that friendship survived the jump from first college to very different career paths. Orlin Sorensen was a pilot who did flight instruction in Hawaii and flew regionally in the Northwest while his friend Brett Carlile was a bit of a serial entrepreneur. In the late days of the aughts they were independently furiously researching the burgeoning craft distilling scene. They had seen the tremendous growth of both the wine and brewing scene in Woodinville and when distilleries were allowed to open tasting rooms, the desire to open something of their own grew quite intense. As Orlin Sorensen has said: “It was one of those things that maybe didn’t make sense on paper, but we couldn’t stop thinking about it.” They were quite fortunate in who agreed to mentor them through this initial process: the late, great, Dave Pickerell. (Dave was a master at helping many many craft distilleries get their start in addition to the work he did for pay at Maker’s Mark, Whistle Pig, and Hillrock.) In 2010 Orlin and Brett invested all the money they could scrounge or withdraw into getting their distillery started in Woodinville, Washington. 

Woodinville from the start aimed to source local grain. The fact of the matter is that Woodinville, Washington is in the foothills of the Cascades, so any grain source would have to lie on the other side of that imposing mountain range. They are fortunate that they struck up a partnership with the Omlin family in Quincy, Washington. Quincy is 115 miles as the crow flies but can take over three hours to make the trip. The third generation Omlin family grows non-GMO grain on their property and leased land. From there it is harvested and sent west over the high mountains to Woodinville. There at the distillery it is mashed, fermented, distilled and barrelled. Then it boomerangs back to Quincy and the Omlin family’s property where it ages in newly built rickhouses. This aging where the grain is grown as opposed to distilled seems to work wonders on the final product. In mid-2017 Woodinville was purchased by Moet Hennessey USA, and Orlin and Brett remain at the helm today. The small little still that they started with has been replaced by a 16-plate bubble-cap “Superaromator” rectification column and a gleaming copper 1,320-gallon handmade pot still. Michael Kennel, D&M