Northwest whiskey is coming of age. Just two months ago we saw the release of the first craft bourbon to be aged to the same specifications the bourbon industry’s most established brands. And hot on its coattails came the release of the prolific Batch 206 Distillery’s own flagship straight bourbon whiskey, which had been waiting patiently in barrels since the Seattle-based operation opened in 2012.
Crafted from 100 percent Washington-grown ingredients (51 percent corn, 49 percent malted barley), this whiskey pays tribute to a once-ubiquitous pre-Prohibition style of whiskey: Old Log Cabin. First conceptualized by one E. G. Booz as a way to market his distillate, the original version (then simply called Old Cabin Whiskey) was actually sold in cabin-shaped glass bottles, which are today some of the rarest and most collectible bottles out there—some examples fetch thousands of dollars. When Batch 206 owner Jeff Steichen couldn’t find any Old Log Cabin whiskey on the market, he decided to resurrect it.
This 86-proof bourbon—aged 19 months in charred new American oak barrels and proofed with water straight from the Cascade mountains—yields an aroma of liquor-infused caramel as the cork first leaves the bottle. It opens in the glass to reveal a mix of smoke and hay. On the palate, the rich toasted oak, corn and barley are readily apparent, and are followed by an aromatic, honeyed vanilla finish.
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