Full Review

Eight Settlers

Eight Settlers
Ragtown Small Batch No. 17 American Blended Whiskey

Category: American Blended Whiskey

Date Tasted:
Country: USA
Alcohol: 45%
92 Points
Gold Medal
Exceptional
$49

Eight Settlers
Ragtown Small Batch No. 17 American Blended Whiskey

Category: American Blended Whiskey

Date Tasted:
Country: USA
Alcohol: 45%
Medium gold color. Aromas and flavors of cedar and green garden herbs, ginger and orange zest, and clover honey with a velvety, crisp, dry medium body and a tingling, intriguing, medium-length finish that exhibits accents of milk chocolate covered mint, salted caramel and orange zest, and honey and five spice. An approachable young Whiskey with a complex and alluring spice character.

Tasting Info

Spirits Glass Style: Spicy & Complex
Aroma Aroma: cedar and green garden herbs, ginger and orange zest, and clover honey
Taste Flavor: Same as aromas with accents of milk chocolate covered mint, salted caramel and orange zest, and honey and five spice
Smoothness Smoothness: Tingling
Enjoy Enjoy: in cocktails, neat, on the rocks and with drops of water
Cocktail Cocktails: Sazerac, Old Fashioned, Manhattan
Bottom Line Bottom Line: An approachable young Whiskey with a complex and alluring spice character.

The Producer

American Blended Whiskey

Spirits Glass Glencairn Canadian Amber.jpg
Serve in a Glencairn Ganadian Whisky Glass
Blended American Whiskey is required to contain at least 20% straight whiskey; with the balance being unaged neutral spirit or, in a few cases, high-proof light whiskey. It has a general whiskey flavor profile (most closely resembling Bourbon), but lacks any defining taste characteristic.

Blended whiskies date from the early 19th century when the invention of the column still made possible the production of neutral spirits. Distillers would blend one or more straight whiskies (Bourbon and Rye) with these neutral spirits in varying proportions to create their own branded blend. The taste and quality of these whiskies, then as now, varies according to the ratio of straight whiskey to neutral grain spirit. Early blends were frequently flavored with everything from sherry to plug tobacco. Compared to straight whiskies they were relatively inexpensive and bland in character. Modern blends utilize dozens of different straight whiskies to insure a consistent flavor profile. Blended American whiskies had a great sales boost during and just after World War II when distillers promoted them as a way of stretching their limited supply of straight whiskey. This sales spike did not last, however. Blended whiskies were considered to be too bland by Bourbon and Rye drinkers, and consumers with a taste for lighter spirits soon migrated to Vodka and Gin. Blended whiskies have been leading the pack in declining sales over the past few decades.