Woodford Reserve’s New Single Malt is Worth Trying

Welcome to Taste Test, where every week our critic Jonah Flicker explores the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Sunday for his latest whiskey review.

You can’t really accuse the big distilleries of jumping on the American single malt bandwagon after the TTB finally codified the category late last year—after all, the whiskey was put into barrels many years before that happened. But surely there was some foresight involved. In the case of Woodford Reserve, the whiskey was distilled 12 years ago, a time when American single malt was really within the purview of small, independent distilleries. As I reported recently, Woodford just released its first foray into the category, the latest of the big names to do so. I finally got to try it, and it turns out that while it’s better than those released by other legacy distilleries, it’s still not as good as what the craft world is making.

Craft distilleries have been making American single malt for decades, with names like St. George Spirits, Westland, Westward, Stranahan’s, and Triple Eight all releasing their own takes on the style (some of those mentioned are now owned by large corporations). This was well before the regulations were established—American single malt must be made from 100 percent malted barley at one distillery in the U.S., bottled at a minimum of 80 proof, and aged in new or used barrels that aren’t required to be charred. Most of these distilleries were already following these guidelines, but the rules came as a relief to many, the culmination of years of lobbying for a legal definition.

Some distilleries choose to make American single malt more like bourbon in terms of maturation, aging the whiskey exclusively in new charred oak barrels. Stranahan’s ages its whiskey that way, at least before cask finishing a portion of it, and bigger brands like Jim Beam’s Clermont Steep, Bulleit, and Jack Daniel’s all do as well (the latter also gets a lengthy secondary maturation in sherry casks). Woodford Reserve, which is owned by the same parent company as Jack—Brown-Forman—took a different route. Like the smaller distilleries, the whiskey was aged for 12 years in used instead of new barrels, perhaps with the intention of releasing an older expression (the wood is less reactive in used barrels than in new charred oak).

So I was pretty excited to finally be able to try Woodford’s new American Single Malt, a limited release that is part of the Distillery Series that comes in smaller 375-ml bottles. My feelings about the whiskey are a bit complicated—I like it more than any other American single malt that I’ve tried from a major distillery, but I still enjoy the craft distilleries’ versions more. The core Woodford Reserve character is still there, despite being made from malted barley with no corn or rye in the mashbill (perhaps due to the proprietary yeast strain that is used during fermentation). That means nice fruity banana and chocolate notes lead the palate, but from there things deviate quite a bit with flavors of salted chocolate almond, dark-roast coffee, ripe blueberries and cherries, and a bit of sweet molasses and honey. The whiskey is bottled at the same 90.4 proof as Woodford’s bourbon.

I asked master distiller Elizabeth McCall last month if bourbon drinkers are being converted to American single malt, and she said she thinks (and hopes) so. I’m not as bullish on this, but I do think there are some truly fantastic examples in the category coming to market—one of my favorites is made in Kentucky by New Riff. Like I said before, Woodford has done a good job with this whiskey in terms of flavor, proof, and age, as this is much older than most American single malts. The small distilleries that have been at this for a long time may be making better ASM, but ultimately Woodford’s is worth tasting as well.

Score: 84