Review #47: ASW Burns Night
This is our fourth review (out of 5) on whiskies released by ASW Distillery (Atlanta, Georgia). We originally visited Atlanta with friends from college: the group ended up being a diverse group flying in from New York, Seattle, an Atlanta transpalte, and us (San Francisco). During the trip we stopped by ASW Whisky Exchange, the huge tasting room and mini-Rickhouse offshoot of the Atlanta-based distillery.
So far, we have reviewed the following (links open in new tabs):
- Fiddler Union – their high-wheat bourbon (6.5)
- Resurgens Rye – a 100% malted rye mashbill (7.5)
- Duality Double Malt – malted rye and malted barley (8)
As always, an intro to the distillery (more about it is in our first review): it is a young distillery that officially began their Atlanta distilling operations in 2016. They have already released an broad portfolio of whiskies, with 6 available in the tasting room. The taste profiles range from wheated sweet bourbons to super-peaty. All their in-house whiskey is super young, although some of their whiskies are sourced.
The Burns Night is an obvious reference to famous Scotsman Robert Burns, for whom most Scotch lovers are well-familiar with (his birthday is an important annual drinking festival known as Burns Night). Usually, it is celebrated by drinking scotch liberally while eating haggis (Scottish sheep intestine pudding – which sounds disgusting but I actually have found it not bad – mostly because it was mixed with an amount of butter that Julia Childs would have approved of).
Burns Night ASW Distillery
- Score - 6.5/106.5/10
Overall
Tasting Notes
Nose: grass, wine gum candies, honey and malt, cherry coke, coated Scotch tape, smarties (candy), honey glazed BBQ sauce.
Palate: pear and stone fruit, chardonnay, light peat mid palate. Honey Chipotle BBQ, smoke that weaves through nostrils, vanilla and oak mid palate.
Finish: short, oak and toffee.
Summary
Overall: Interesting whisky but we drink a lot of peated whisky and it could have used a much longer finish and more complexity.
Bought for: 1 oz in a flight of 5 for $18 at the ASW Distillery Tasting Room. Retails for $53/bottle at the tasting room.
Quick overview of our scoring system – note that our “average” score is 5.
Additional Information
- ABV: 46%
- No Age Statement (but likely very young; their “Duality” whiskey was only a year old when it won Double Gold at the SF Spirits Competition)
- Distilled in Scottish-style copper pot stills
- Single-malt
- Mash Bill: two row malt 57%, Munich malt 25%, cherry-smoked malt 15%, chocolate malt 3%. Uses heads and feints from their “Tire Fire” super peated whisky (100% heavily peated malted barley from Iverness Scotland)
- Aged in new, char 3 American white oak casks
- Gold at 2019 SF World Spirits Competition
About
- The company started in 2011 but began their distillery in 2016 in Georgia. Their first release was a “silver” whisky (white dog) in Charleston called “American Spirit Whiskey”. Their first matured whiskey release was the Fiddler in 2016.
- Founders Jim Chasteen and Charlie Thompson met at University of Georgia
- Second licensed distillery in Atlanta since Prohibition and the first single malt whiskey in Atlanta