Time again friends for another Whiskey Wednesday. I must confess, my palette seems inexperienced once again as I come to the end of this 90 day fitness challenge, all the while avoiding many tasting experiences, hopefully not in vein!
Here we have a local distillery I've featured before, Park City's 'Alpine' Distillery, the bottle: Spur Whiskey.
Apparently the folks up at Alpine were out dining with friends and operators of the Spur Bar & Grill when they came to an experimental thought; "What if we combined both our stand alone bottles into one?" That is, the every impressive Alpine 'Traveler's Rest' American single malt, and their second offering, the 'Lafeyette' Bourbon. A combination that, upon consideration, should be almost obvious to most other distilleries that offer the two spirits, with Alpine being one of the first to do *only* those two styles. Let's get into the details.
- Blended from Bourbon & American Single Malt
- Alpine Distillery
- 88 proof, 44%
- Bourbon sourced from KY, Single Malt distilled and bottled in Park City, UT
- $39.99
Nose - Oak and vanilla, with bits of banana and corn, grain, and brown sugar.
Palette - very light at the beginning with the classic youthful bourbon tastes of oak, vanilla spice, and caramel that quickly gives way to that seemingly spectral lovely banana flavor, that all gets tossed out the window rather abruptly by heavy heat and rye effect.
finish - the spice fades considerably and leaves the mouth with a strange earthy note, almost nutty in nature, very reminiscent of a 'game-y' mushroom, with bits of herb and an astringent quality, nothing like a wine but definitely noticeable. Remarkably, my palette feels almost synthetically clean, almost like the scent of a fountain in a vegas hotel. Sorta strange, but I dig it.
Overall Thoughts - The Spur has some really interesting things going for it, most notably that awesome banana note, which as I read more, seems to come from their 'Lafeyette' bourbon, which I will have to get my hands on as soon as possible. The Spur is a cool bottle that I'd recommend to anyone who is really into local spirits, especially someone who is specifically looking to avoid some of the price points offered by another (incredible) Park City distillery. The only problem I have with the Alpine Spur is that it seems too juvenile, too sharp; I'd love to see them leave the blend in an oak barrel for 6-8 years more and see what comes out, because really the only thing this could really benefit from is more time in a cask. With that said, a proper cowboy spur must always be sharp enough to get a horse moving with haste, so many the edge should stay for names' sake.