Bhakta 2013 Bourbon Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: C-

Although the company was notionally started earlier, it’s been  more than a decade since WhistlePig 10 Year Old Rye was first released. The product was very much a creation of opportunity and moment. Raj Bhakta, a former investment banker, Apprentice contestant and Congressional candidate, wanted to start a whiskey company. Bhakta sought the advice of the late and legendary Dave Pickerell, and in a move that helped cement the now familiar pattern of building a brand with sourced whiskey while making the capital-intensive investments to build a distillery and release in-house product, imported aged stocks of 100% rye from Canada for bottling in Vermont.

Bhakta was later forced out of WhistlePig under a cloud, eventually selling his stake in the company and signing a non-compete agreement. That agreement has now expired, and so the man who started WhistlePig is back with a new, namesake company, Bhakta Spirits. The new negociant company is engaged with many types of spirits (I also got to try their sourced cognac, which was great stuff), but in our wheelhouse is their Bhakta Bourbon 2013.

This is a 9 year, 5 month old sourced bourbon, made with a 99% corn mash bill (!), and finished in Armagnac casks. It’s bottled at cask strength, which in this instance proved remarkably low at 100.6 proof.

The Bourbon
My pour held a light amber, bronzed look in the glass. I found the nose grainy, a little sweet and quite spicy, kind of like a toasted corn and oat biscuit frosted with cinnamon. The flavor pivoted towards caramel, with a touch of barrel char on the back end, with the finishing changing directions yet again. The bourbon went down leaving behind a sliver of oak with a sprig of mint wrapped around it.

I was underwhelmed by this first stab at Bhakta Bourbon. I can’t tell you if it is the root bourbon or the Armangnac finish, but I feel something here is just plain off, and the whiskey never really gelled into finding its place. It’s OK, but these days one expects a little something from a mature, 9 year old bourbon with a cask finish on it.

The Price
This item is priced at $149 a bottle.