Wathen’s Single Barrel Bourbon, Barrel #818
The story of Wathen’s bourbon is a bit of a puzzle that I put together after scouring far too many websites and whiskey forums. Here’s how it goes:
The Wathen and Medley families are intertwined in the production of Wathen’s Single Barrel, and both have long histories of distilling in Kentucky, generations in fact. They’ve intermarried several times, and thus their distilling histories and paths began to overlap at some point. I’ve even read that a Medley has been a master distiller somewhere in Kentucky from 1812 until 1991, not a bad stretch of time. The Medleys at one point owned three distilleries in Owensboro, and the current Charles Medley Distillery site is one of these.
Charles Medley, the owner and master distiller of Wathen’s Single Barrel, is the former master distiller at the Glenmore, the former distillery located in Owensboro that was closed after its purchase by United Distillers in 1991. After the purchase, United sold the property and brands to Barton Brands (makers of the 1792 Ridgement Reserve bourbon), but neither company wanted the existing stock of aging Glenmore whiskey. So Charles Medley purchased it and transferred the barrels to a warehouse at the old Medley Distillery. He later began bottling this whiskey under the Wathen’s Single Barrel label, hand-signing each bottle.
Today, the whiskey is bottled and distributed by a company in Missouri, but it is distilled in Kentucky. It doesn’t appear that the whiskey being bottled under the brand is still from the old Glenmore stocks, but it’s not clear where it does come from in this case. Speculation has it that the source is the Medley distillery, but I haven’t seen this confirmed anywhere.
So there you have it – a brand of whiskey named Wathen’s Single Barrel, begun by bottling stocks of whiskey distilled at Glenmore Distillery that were purchased and later bottled at the Medley Distillery by the master distiller who oversaw their making. Oh, and named after the Wathens, a historic distilling name in Kentucky, but none of whom are directly involved in the making of this whiskey.
My only wish is that I knew the answer to the following questions:
- Where the whiskey in this bottle was distilled
- What the different proportions of corn, rye, and barley were
- How old this whiskey is
In fact, the last one is my biggest question, how old is this whiskey? Buy a bottle and you’ll be asking the same question. On the one hand, I have this naive assumption that any single-barrel bottling is going to aim at the higher-end of the market, and therefore be a shade older – at least 8 years for instance. But having tried this whiskey, I’m not so sure that’s the case here. I may be wrong, but you come away with an impression of youth after drinking this bourbon.
In any event, this bottle contains whiskey from barrel #818, and was bottled on July 14, 2009. It’s bottled at a respectable 47%.
The appearance is a light amber gold, and lightening considerably at the edges. The nose has notes of lemon curd, citrus rind, oak resin, and a hint of vanilla, with citrus the dominant note. The mouthfeel is very light and spry, lightly textured, without much oiliness, and quite dry. The citrus theme continues, with lemons, limes, and oranges providing a surprising amount citrus acidity. This is underscored by flavors of butterscotch and pecans. The alcohol is pretty hot, giving a sense that this is a young whiskey. The citrus begins to wane a bit on the finish, giving way to vanilla, caramel, and resin.
On the whole, the flavors give the impression that this is a fairly young whiskey. How young I don’t know, but if I had to guess I’d say right around 5-6 years. It doesn’t have much of the body or depth of sweet flavors that other bourbons typically bring to the table. But in place of this is a pretty refreshing bourbon that has lots of citrus underscored by a layer of austere sweetness that helps to round it all out.
Yet, in the end the alcohol is much too hot and rough around the edges, and the citrus element a bit too bracing for my tastes.
I have to admit though, I like the label, with the look of old paper, the simple graphics, and the printed handwriting talking about the whiskey…
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