Brewer’s Coalition Whiskey
Virginia Distillery, various expressions $49.99–$54.99
While beer is our first love, we have a similar passion for interesting and creative distilled spirits—it’s all one extended family, after all—and this series from Virginia Distillery brings them both together in a process mashup that also makes flavor sense. The conceit? Take those spirits barrels that brewers then used to age beer and bring them back to the spirits world for another round of cask maturation, post-beer.
If you’ve tasted white whiskey before it’s barreled, you’ll understand just how much character the spirit derives from that wooden vessel, and the same can be said for this series: The blenders clearly lean into the barrel character, with cask flavor profiles that complement the whiskey. The samples we tasted—finished in casks that once held Hardywood Gingerbread Stout and Central Waters Black Gold stout—each showcased smart use of blending as well as the beer flavor’s impact. The Hardywood edition amplified the cinnamon and baking spice, while the Central Waters embraced cooler chocolate tones…