Whisky : Balcones 2 Year for K&L

Country/Region : United States/Texas

ABV : 64.1%

Cask : New American Oak

Age : 2 Years (Distilled 17 Dec. 2017?, Bottled 4 July 2019)

Nose : Rich malt, bitter chocolate, and fruit.  Freshly baked loaves of pumpernickel and dark rye bread gave way to notes of bitter dark chocolate and oily fresh roasted coffee beans.  Sweeter notes slowly emerged with dark cherries, grapefruit, ginger cola, and tapioca boba balls.

Palate : Thick and tannic with notes of dark chocolate, fruit, and spice.  An oak bomb with notes of vanilla beans, toasted desiccated coconut flakes, cassia bark, and a bitter woodiness.  A few drops of water turned the dram toward fruity notes of black cherry, vanilla, cherry cordials and chocolate cherry cakes.  On the back end were hints of black licorice, cherry cola, and roasted cacao pods.

Finish :  Lingering dry spice, brown sugar, and cherry.  

Score : 4

Mental Image : Barrel Aged Cherry Coke

Notes :  I am unsure the actual age on this.  The K&L website gave the age as two and half years, but bottling-distillation dates that only add up to one and a half.  I wonder if someone counted backwards incorrectly and meant 2016 for distillation?  Whiskybase was no help on this as it gives a calculated age of 3 years, which seems just as incorrect.  I suppose I am given to take the K&L statement that this was two and a half years at face value and assume the error is somewhere else.  Count me also a little surprised that someone was working the bottling line on July 4th in Texas.

This was nicely tannic with a lot of wood driven notes— nothing really out of the ordinary for Balcones, though there were some interesting rich malty and fruity notes on this that are a bit less common.  This did not have quite so many cola notes as I usually pick up from the distillery.  As with many Balcones, this was best with a few drops of water which helped break up the tannins and reveal more flavors.

Overall, this was just a bit too closed off and tight for my taste.  Water did open things up a bit so that the dram became more pleasant, but I felt as though this took a lot of work to really get into.  I think there are other Balcones that have been much more welcoming and easy to enjoy.  This might develop quite nicely in an opened bottle over time as the abv. slowly drops and the tannins soften.