Caramelized sugar | Citrus | Seasoned oak | Light & sweet

Dried apricot | Orange peel | Loads of caramel | Honey | Toasted oak | Delicious

Rye spice up front | Caramel | Green tea | Light fruit | Honey | Lingering sweet-spicy mix

New Holland Brewing Company has a unique style that permeates throughout their line of whiskeys. This is likely due to the fact that they distill on a prohibition era pot still as opposed to the more common column still, and their bourbon has a mashbill that swaps the typical rye and malted barley percentages, with 25% malted barley and only 5% rye. This has resulted in bourbons that have lively flavor profiles often underpinned by unique summer fruit and citrus notes. Their toasted series takes that one step further, finishing in toasted barrels. For this single barrel release, they also finished in a rum barrel, making this a triple-barreled bourbon. 2023D, alias “Sweet Tea” is one of four expressions that was released at the company’s New Holland Pubs and New Holland Tasting Rooms in March.

The 2024D release is true to its Sweet Tea nickname. Starting as a sweet, fruity bourbon, the addition of rum barrel finishing layers in additional sweet notes to the mix. This makes for a surprisingly easy-drinking whiskey for the proof that highlights its sweet flavors throughout the sip. It starts with a slurry of light, sweet scents, then transitions to fruit flavors on the palate with apricot and orange peel up front, along with honey, toasted oak, and loads of caramel on the palate. There’s a quick surge of rye spice in the finish, followed by caramel, green tea, fruit, and honey, with a lingering sweet-spiciness as it fades.

Because rum is a strong and distinct tasting spirit, finishing whiskey in rum barrels often overpowers the base flavors, making the rum the focus. The whiskey doesn’t set off the uniqueness alarm I thought it might, likely because the base Dragon’s Milk Toasted Barrel bourbon has a robust flavor profile to begin with. The rum barrel finishing simply accents and rounds out the bourbon’s existing flavors as opposed to overpowering them or even bringing distinct rum flavors into the mix. This pulls the whiskey deeper into its sweet territory, amplifying caramel the most and making for a very sweet, easy-drinking whiskey. Overall, Dragon’s Milk Origin Toasted Barrel - 2024D “Sweet Tea” is a home run from New Holland Spirits, and it would be great to see a rum finished bourbon as part of their standard lineup.