Widow Jane The Vaults 14 Year Old Bourbon Review (2019)

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B+

Brooklyn’s Widow Jane is one of many small distillers who mixes the trade of the negociant—acquiring, aging and blending whiskey stock for their own brands—with being a small distiller in their own right. Most of what one sees from Widow Jane is of the sourced variety, and their The Vaults series is based squarely on blending and releasing their most mature stock, drawn from sources in Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky.

This particular release draws on 20 barrels from Indiana and Tennessee, selected by the esteemable Lisa Wicker. On top of the thoroughly middle aged status of the whiskey, after blending it was finished in particularly special barrels, fashioned from new oak that had been air seasoned for eight years. This is four times longer than the norm for even well-seasoned wood. The extraordinary seasoning period should have removed just about anything tannic from the flavors imparted by the wood to the whiskey during the second stage of its double new oak maturation.

The end strength for the blend came out at 49.5% ABV (99 proof). I sat down with a sample flask just a few days ago, taking in my evaluation dram before dinner with a follow-up draw afterward… and then kept refilling and sipping until I finally went to bed some five hours later, flask drained. It was yummy; ’nuff said.

The Bourbon
A pour of this whiskey has a straight up amber appearance in the glass, and the swish and coat leaves behind loads of chunky, fast-moving tears.

A nosing gave me the base of vanilla and brown sugar, but with a substantial trimming of spearmint and fir tree-style evergreen scent, with just a hint of citrus oil to round things out. The flavor opened with that evergreen and mint spiciness before the sweet vanilla sweet side came up to occupy center stage again, only to be joined by notes of nuts and oak on the back end.

The finish was really the only thing that held this whiskey back from an A-. It ran with a light sprinkle of wood spices before fading quickly, lacking much in the way of substance.

The Price
You should pay $150 a bottle for this lovely item, but beware of unscrupulous retailers (to say nothing of the odious secondary market). I’ve seen some retailers online marking this bottle up to double it’s regular asking price.