Stranahan's Diamond Peak Review

There are a lot of craft distillers out there these days and most of them are either selling really young spirits or selling someone else's spirits while their own distillate matures. In the self made category, frankly there's a lot of shitty whiskey out there. In that sea of crap however Stranahan's is one that stands out in terms of quality as I was surprised by how much I enjoyed their standard product. The combo of new charred oak and malt makes an interesting profile despite the fact that it's not very old. As with most craft whiskies though, the biggest deterrent from me buying it again was the price. That's why I was very intrigued when Stranahan's announced Diamond Peak which is basically the same product but aged at least twice as long with a ~$15 price bump.

No Age Statement (so at least 4 years); 47% ABV; $70; Batch 001

Nose: Grapes, cereal grains, roasted coffee. Smells like my memory of the original product.

Taste: Tastes like the nose. Roasted barley, coffee, and raisin bran cereal with extra raisins. Again, this tastes a lot like the original product though with less raw new make and ethanol notes. The extra age has helped smoothed things out and give it a little more depth, especially in the finish.

Thoughts: It's a nice step up over the standard Stranahan's which these days I'd rate about a C / C+. It has the same core profile as the regular but with extra depth and more refinement. If you're a fan of the original you'll love this and probably never look back to the other one. While it's a nice change of pace and certainly very unique compared to a bourbon or rye, I would have a hard time bringing myself to buy another one of these again. At $70, there are many whiskeys available with more age, depth, proof, and quality at a significantly better price. 

Rating: B- / C+

Additional Notes on Batch 002: I also had a sample from batch 002 on hand. Tasted side by side, I found batch 001 to be noticeably better in terms of richness and depth of flavor. Batch 002 was thinner and had less intensity in the finish so I would knock it down to C+ territory.

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.

Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey Review

Tonight is another review of a bottle I'm powering through to make room in the bunker for the impending bourbon monsoon this fall. I first heard about Stranahan's when I took a tour of their distillery back in 2012 on a trip to Denver. Here's a picture of my tour group, that's me in the striped shirt. The tour was pretty cool and the guides were very knowledgeable - our guide wasn't just a guide but someone who was very active in their distilling process. I bought a bottle as a memento because at the time it was not sold in my home state of TN. That bottle was the new post-proximo style bottle and not the one I am reviewing here. This bottle is a pre-prixmo bottle that I later found collecting dust last year.

47.0% ABV; Aged "a minimum of 2 years"; Batch #62; Distilled 09/10/2008, $60

Whoever bottled it was listening to CCR. I think the current music is a nice personal touch on the label.

The nose is unbelievably fruity. I tend to get lot of intense banana flavors in young bourbons. I would say this is similar except replace the bananas with grapes, prunes, and raisins. It might be the fruitiest nose I've ever experienced in a non specialty finished whiskey.

The taste is a wild ride with lots of odd flavors for someone who usually drinks bourbon whiskey. I know the mashbill here is primarily barley like scotch and while I don't have a lot of scotch experience outside of Islays this tastes nothing like scotch either. It's intensely fruity - all of the notes from the nose are heavily reinforced. Raisins, prunes, nugrape soda, blackberry wine. With all those comes lots of inherent sweetness. Towards the finish though comes perhaps my favorite note about Stranahan's: coffee. I swear the finish tastes like dark roasted coffee. I'm not one to add water to something below 100 proof but I have added water to this in the past and I know water makes the coffee note even more present. That combination of notes is really, really odd but rather remarkable in a batshit crazy way.

This is a very strange one. It's really good in some ways but it's also not so great once you pick it apart. On the fruit scale it's off the charts and coffee note is unlike anything I've ever experience in a whiskey. That's also all it really offers as those two elements really dominate everything else. It's worth buying a bottle at least once to see how it suits you but I'd probably pass on future bottles at this price point. Having said that, I would love to revisit this at 4, 6, or 8 years. I think it has real potential if they would let the wood smooth out some of the odd characteristics and give it some layers.

Rating: B-