Laws Whiskey House Four Grain Bottled in Bond Bourbon Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B

Whenever I’m confronted with a well-meaning whiskey nerd—the type who isn’t as well-informed as he thinks he is, but isn’t actually toxic—I’m often confronted with the notions that “all craft whiskey sucks” and this is because “they are all young and aged in tiny barrels.” What I usually find upon engaging said enthusiasts in conversation is they are repeating misinformation passed onto them by someone in their circle or club or online forum, and a description of the source invariably leads me to the conclusion of that individual being a toxic nerd.

Said nerd is repeating a meme that is now a decade old and, like kudzo, is a pernicious weed that is stubbornly hard to eradicate. It had some truth to it then, but very little now. A major part of the proof is the growing maturity to be found with the whiskeys made by small distillers, whiskeys like Laws Four Grain Bonded Bourbon.

This particular expression brings together two trends found in craft whiskey, one old and one new, and both firmly embedded in what they do at Colorado’s Laws Whiskey House. The old crafty sector practice is to innovate and go where the big distillers aren’t by trying new grains and expanded mash bills, which is why the bourbon made at Laws Whiskey House has a four grain mash bill: 60% Corn, 20% Colorado-grown wheat, 10% Colorado-grown rye, 10% Colorado-grown barley.

The newer trend is the move towards bottled-in-bond expressions by small distillers, which is coincidentally meeting the Kentucky and Tennessee Majors in the middle. Under Federal law, bonded whiskeys must be at least four years old, draw on stock made at a single distillery and in a single distilling season, mature in a government-supervised warehouse (hence “bonded”) and be bottled at 100 proof. Bonded expressions started to become popular a few years back, as age statement and single barrel whiskeys became scarcer. At roughly the same time the big distillers responded by introducing or expanding on their bonded labels, small distillers had grown their stock to the point that they too could introduce bonded whiskeys.

Laws Whiskey House is solid with both of those practices. Most of their whiskeys use some type of non-traditional grain or mash bill and many of them have bottled in bond versions. The Laws Whiskey House Four Grain Bourbon is particularly noteworthy in that regard, as it is not the minimum four years old, but is instead aged for six years.

The Bourbon
The Laws Four Grain Bonded Bourbon (note that this particular whiskey isn’t entitled “AD Laws” like most of their others) has a light and red-tinted amber look in the glass. Swishing it leaves a curtain of slow-moving tears behind.

The nose is a sweet one, like someone stirred crushed candy corn into a dish of vanilla pudding, with a sprinkle of finely chopped ginger and mint on the top. The flavor sits squarely in bourbon territory, albeit with an earthier aspect than the nose suggests. It has the expected brown sugar and vanilla core, but the spiciness runs to cinnamon and nutmeg, and a trace of tannic, earthy cocoa is entwined around it. The finish is quite light, which is the only thing that really holds the whiskey back in my book; it opens sweetly, but turns dry and a spicy on a dime and fades quickly.

The Price
Online retailers are asking between $100 and $110 for this bottle.