Continuing our whiskey coverage this time we break into something new that we’ve tried before, and are now comfortable in reviewing. Moonshine or white whiskey is quite simply all whiskey before it’s been thrown into some burnt wood for a few months or years. This is also our third time looking at Bully Boy, this time instead of the aged whiskey, or the clear vodka spirit we have gone for the middle of the two with the unaged white whiskey. It has more of the wheat that you would want in the whiskey, but has some parallels to the cream of the vodka.
I would like to say that at my heart I do appreciate the effort they are making, but as I’ve said before too much of this feels manufactured to a focus group that I just can’t really get behind in support of Bully Boy. However they and others have been championing the white whiskey movement to the point that instead of being a moonshine product not seen outside of a family reunion it is now something seen on shelves everywhere. Which is great news for us that now we have a large enough sample size to start reviewing them in earnest.
What they Say: “Bully Boy Distillers is proud to carry on Boston’s tradition of small batch distilling with our signature wheat whiskey. All whiskey comes off the still as a clear spirit; it is the aging process that imbues whiskey with its deep brown hue. Made using traditional distilling techniques, Bully Boy’s wheat whiskey is clean and mellow. As with all our spirits, our whiskey is made in small, numbered batches. Thank you for choosing Bully Boy.”
Taste: 6.0 – You really get almost a nice vodka like creamyness, and you can really kind of taste the wheat. That being said this isn’t like a whiskey you’ve had before with smoke or caramel or sweetness. That being said the taste isn’t bad.
Aftertaste: 3.5 – Here sadly you get less of that cream and wheat and more of the alcohol taste itself. It’s a bad way to go, but it could have been much worse.
Burn/Smooth: 2.0 – At first this burns like satan’s arse. The 3rd time in and it still burns quite a lot, but there’s an intense warmth it provides.
Aroma: 3.0 – Whoa. So I know white whiskey is a new category for us, and that we aim to judge against others of it’s kind – this still packs a fucken wallop. This works like a smelling salt would in awakening the brain, coughing, and not really caring about the ‘flavor’.
Honesty: 7.5 – The bottle is similar to others, but very iconic. (Although I again disapprove of the Ferrari esque logo). Nothing they say is a lie, and while mellow is not the word I would use here a case could be made for it. Again this is a classic case where keeping your mouth shut, your branding tasteful, and your spirit powerful gets you good points.
Mixability: 4.5
W/ Rocks: 2.0 – That really elevates the aftertaste to an awful degree. I wasn’t exactly sure how this would pan out on rocks, but it appears not well at all.
Whiskey and Coke: 7.0 – It’s not sweet, and it’s not adding a lot of smoke to it either (obviously). It is however crisp and tasty like a nice white rum, with less sugar. I quite like it.
Value: 5.5 – So at this point this is actually pretty okay value. The issue being that white whiskey is right now split into the two categories of artisan or rotgut, with the pricing to match. However we look forward to finding that spirit that is good value, but also doesn’t kill your inner demons and organs at the same time.
Google Shop Average: $26
Website: http://www.bullyboydistillers.com/
Reviewer Scores:
BuffaloJern: 5.0
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Metric Score: 32/70 |+| Metric Average: 4.57 |+| Reviewer Average: 5.0
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Final Thoughts: While I like this – the short fact is that I much like the aged whiskey better. At a price difference of 6 dollars I am of course paying for the time it has to sit in a cask somewhere, but I’m fine making that small tradeoff, even if this is slightly better in coke.
