Cereal grain | Raisin | Hazelnut | Grain-forward

Rich grain | Frosted Flakes Cereal | Raisin | Dark fruit | Pleasant spice mix | Sweet

Light, mellow heat | Honey | Butterscotch | Butterfinger candy bar | Brown sugar | Remains sweet as it fades

Ragged Branch Distillery is a farm distillery located in Charlottesville, Virginia, that got its start with help from the late Dave Pickerell. They grow their own grains, distill, age, and bottle onsite. Releases include bourbons using rye or wheat as the secondary grain, a rye, and limited edition whiskeys. While the distillery sells single barrel bottles, the bourbon in review is a single barrel pick by Bourbon Steak in Washington, DC, and is not available for purchase, but can be tasted at the restaurant.  

The bourbon is grain-forward throughout, but in a rich, deliberate way. Raisin and hazelnut layer into the grain-focused aroma. Raisin continues into the palate and is joined by Frosted Flakes cereal, dark fruit, and a pleasant spice mix, though it leans sweet overall. A light, mellow heat develops at the start of the finish, followed by honey, butterscotch, Butterfinger candy bar, and brown sugar. Its underlying sweetness persists and remains as it fades.

The bourbon drinks surprisingly easily for its proof, developing less heat than would be expected and just a moderate amount of spice, of which can likely be attributed to using wheat instead of rye as the secondary grain in the mashbill. Its grain-forwardness makes it very much unlike “Kentucky” bourbons, and being a farm distillery in Virginia that grows its own grains, distills, and ages onsite one should expect it to have a different flavor profile than what’s typically coming out of Kentucky, which is a good thing in this case. From a critical perspective, the bottle label feels cheap, which doesn’t correlate with the whiskey inside the bottle or the authentic process Ragged Branch undertakes to produce it.

The bourbon in review is from barrel number 2305, bottle number 241.