Whiskey Row Cask Strength Bourbon Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B

One would think that 2025 is not the year to start a new whiskey brand. Not only is the trade experiencing a sale slump in the post-Pandemic era, but the trade war started by President Trump seems set to hit the American Whiskey industry especially hard. So, the business seems set to take the next couple of years (at least) in the teeth, while it remains doubtful consumers will see little or no price relief from it. Challenging times for a new brand indeed!

Yet starting a new company has a lead time, sometimes a quite lengthy lead time, so the timing of a new start is less strategy and more luck. One suspects that is how at least a few folks at Whiskey Row Bourbon feel about it. Named for the historic part of Louisville’s Main Street that saw the offices of so many whiskey companies in pre-Prohibition times, as well as so much bourbon tourism today, the company launched a trio of expressions last month. One of them was a cask strength version of their bourbon.

By “version of their bourbon,” I mean their root bourbon as made under contract by Kentucky Artisan Distillery. The company flagship bottling is a triple cask-finished small batch bourbon, but there is no indication that either this cask strength bottling or the bonded expression are spun out of that finishing process. Instead, the line looks more like three branches coming off a common root. The description says it has spent “extra time” in the barrel, but just how old that means is unstated. This particular batch of cask strength is clocking 54.3% ABV (108.6 proof).

The Bourbon
I found the whiskey leaned very much towards that corner of the standard bourbon profile that is dark, fruity and syrupy. The nose had a sweet current drawing on molasses and fig newtons, plus the customary vanilla. Sipping yielded more molasses, figs and vanilla, plus a sliver of dry oak. The finish that rolled off that sliver turned to hay, but the fig and molasses aspects continued right off into the sunset, which was very appreciated.

The Price
The whiskey is listed at $70 a bottle.