Redwood Empire Grizzly Beast Bottled in Bond Bourbon Review (Batch 2, 2022)

By Richard Thomas

Redwood Empire Whiskeys comes from the Sonoma-based Graton Distillery, who created and inaugurated the brand with the release of three expressions in 2019: Pipe Dream, Emerald Giant and Lost Monarch. They followed up on that  last year with the start of a bottled in bond brand extension, with two redwood forest themed whiskeys, Grizzly Bear and Rocket Top. Redwood Empire now continues on that extension with the second batch of those bonded whiskeys.

Grizzly Beast gets its name from two giants: Grizzly Giant, a giant Sequoia in Yosemite National Park, and Mattole Beast, a massive 375-foot coastal redwood in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Batch 2 retains the four-grain mash approach of the first batch, but almost doubles the amount of wheat in the mash: 66% Corn 23% Rye 7% Wheat 4% Barley. It’s spent five years in level three char, 53-gallon new oak barrels.

The Bourbon

As if nodding at the redwood theme, the bourbon has a reddened amber look to it. The low corn, four grain recipe really shows in the nose, which is softly spicy. It’s a sprinkle of white pepper atop a coat of vanilla, and I suspect it’s the increased wheat proportion that restrains the pepperiness. The flavor profile follows in that vein. Again, it leads with its spiciness, but this is softened. The sweet side is more rounded out on the palate than in the nose, expanding to fruit cocktail and vanilla.

The Price
My look at what online retailers are charging suggests one should expect to pay $90 a bottle.