Sweet apple juice | Fresh grain | Light vanilla | Dab of oak | Incredibly light

Summer fruits | Caramel creams | Strawberry | Vanilla | Rye spice | Nice balance of sweet & spice

Rye spice | Vanilla cream | Oak | Light lingering heat

Opened in August 2021, Village Garage Distillery is based out of Bennington, Vermont in a former garage for Bennington’s highway department which was aptly nicknamed “the Village Garage.” Currently the distillery is barreling the first batches of in-house made bourbon which is expected to be released during the Summer of 2023. In the meantime, the company sources their bourbon from a fellow Vermont distillery to Village Garage’s specifications that uses locally sourced Vermont corn and rye.

The current iteration of the bourbon is a mixed bag. The nose doesn’t convey the 5 years that the bourbon spent in barrels, instead delivering an incredibly light experience that offers little to showcase its age. The palate however, makes up for this shortcoming, delivering a nicely balanced midpoint of the sip that is full of sweet and spicy flavors. Sliding backwards, the finish ends on just an average note. It will be interesting to see how the company’s own distillate turns out when it’s first bottled, however in the meantime the current iteration of Village Bourbon is acceptable, but otherwise offers little to get your attention.

The bourbon being reviewed comes from batch number 5.