More Angelic: Angel's Envy Cask Strength 2015

The marketing firm for Louisville Distilling Company was kind enough to send me a sample of the new edition of Angel's Envy Cask Strength.  As with the regular Angel's Envy, this is bourbon finished in port casks. This year, they are releasing 7,500 bottles of the Cask Strength. It is the first new release since Bacardi purchased the company.

Angel's Envy Cask Strength, 2015 Release, 63.95% ($170)

The nose has honey and some nutty notes. The palate opens with rich butterscotch. It develops some spice and then turns a bit medicinal. The finish is where you get some port notes which blend well with the caramel. Water brings out some soapy notes.  I prefer it neat - while it's high proof, it doesn't feel hot or alcohol heavy.

This one has improved a lot since it first came out. An earlier batch I tasted was dreadful, but this one is quite good with a nice richness and complexity to it.

Thanks to Aaron at Ro-Bro Marketing for the sample. 

Angel's Envy Cask Strength: The Angels Can Have It

Angel's Envy Cask Strength was one of the most popular releases of last fall's bourbon season, at least on Facebook bourbon pages.  It is a casks strength version of the Angel's Envy port finished bourbon.  As with the regular 86 proof version, it has no age statement and is made by an undisclosed distillery.


Angel's Envy Cask Strength, Batch 20, bottled 2013, 61.5% abv ($150)

The nose is very similar to the regular Angel's Envy with sweet corn notes and some chemical notes.  The palate starts out with nice caramel but it quickly develops a burning plastic note, sort of similar to sulfur that you'd get in a sherried malt (maybe the port barrels were sulfur treated?).  It's quite hot and needs a dash of water, but even then, that burning chemical note is quite strong and off-putting.  After taking notes, I looked at Tim Read's review on Scotch & Ice Cream (and thanks to Tim for this sample), and he describes the off note as a hair salon smell which is a perfect description; it's like burning hair.

While this starts decently enough, it quickly goes down hill, and fast.  There are different batches of this bourbon so there may be some batch variation, but I certainly wouldn't recommend this one regardless of what you read on Facebook.

Angel's Envy Rye

It feels like almost every day brings with it a new rye from Midwest Grain Products (formerly LDI, formerly Seagram's) in Indiana.  Today I try Angel's Envy Rye from the Louisville Distilling Company, the bottler of finished bourbon founded by the late Lincoln Henderson, formerly of Brown Forman.  Angel's Envy is an MGP rye finished in Caribbean rum casks. 

Angel's Envy Rye, Batch 1F, 50% abv ($72)

The nose is pure LDI, mostly mint with that slight whiff of pickel juice and some juniper notes, like a dirty martini made with pickle juice instead of olive juice.  On the palate, I expected the typical burst of rye similar to the nose and readily found in other LDI ryes, but no, something different.  It starts with vanilla, then a touch of mint, and then the rum sets in with fresh cane sugar juice.  The finish is a perfect balance of sweet rum and the briny rye.

This was a really surprising and fun one.  It had all of that LDI brininess but the rum cask influence tempered it and added a sweet counterbalance.  If anything, the rum is maybe a bit too influential, making it a tad too sweet, but all in all, it's a successful and interesting whiskey.

Devil or Angel: Angel's Envy

Released earlier this year, Angel's Envy has been on of the most touted new bourbons of the year. The brainchild of Lincoln Henderson, formerly of Brown-Forman's Woodford Reserve, Angel's Envy is a Kentucky Bourbon from an unnamed distillery finished in port casks.

Wine finishing is huge in Scotch but still relatively rare in bourbon. Jim Beam tried it about ten years ago with a few, very expensive special releases, Woodford Reserve finished one of their Master's Collection bourbons in chardonnay casks, a few of the Buffalo Trace Experimental Collections have included wine finishes, and the upcoming annual release of Heaven Hill's Parker's Heritage Collection will be a Cognac finished bourbon. As far as I know, though, Angel's Envy is the first bourbon to be finished in port pipes since the Beam releases a decade ago (independent bottler Big Bottom now also appears to have a port finished bourbon). How does port interact with bourbon? Let's see.

Angel's Envy, 43% abv ($42)

The nose is full of sweet, floral notes. It's like a rose garden. The palate is also very floral and perfumy. There's a very light character to it. The port is most evident in the late palate and into the finish, which is where it really shows, so much so that the finish recalls port finished Scotch.

This is a decent enough bourbon, but I don't think it lives up to the hype. I should admit that light and floral are not my favorite notes, so in part, this just isn't my style of bourbon. Beyond that though, it's not particularly complex. If you like light, floral and sweet, give it a try.