Bulleit Whiskey Sour RTD Review
By Richard Thomas
Rating: C+
(Credit: Diageo)
Another entry in Bulleit’s line of bottled, ready-to-drink (RTD) classic whiskey cocktails is the Whiskey Sour, readily identifiable from its bright yellow bottle. This one is such a recent addition that Bulleit had not updated their website to include it at time of writing. It’s made with real lemon juice, honey, Bulleit bourbon. That is the first drawback of this particular bottling. Whiskey Sours use egg whites, and even the label of this Bulleit bottle suggests adding them, so it’s not an RTD in the strictest sense. Although most prefer to add garnishes like cocktail cherries, cinnamon sticks, fruit peels and chunks, and/or mint sprigs to their RTDs, the core cocktail itself is supposed to be complete. That is not the case here, and although I suspect technical problems prevent the inclusion of egg whites, it still rankles. Part of the reason one buys an RTD is to not bother with doing things like separating out the egg white for the cocktail.
Without the egg white, the cocktail as is very sour indeed. It’s not so tart that it wholly overpowers the honey and bourbon, but those two elements are definitely taking a back seat. So, without going to the trouble of making and adding egg whites, the bottle essentially holds an unbalanced lemonade with bourbon. Putting egg whites brings this into familiar territory, but the bottom line remains the same: if I’m going to go to that trouble, I may as well make whiskey sours from scratch. I’ve always found fiddling with egg whites the most troublesome part.
The Price
This comes in 375ml bottles for $10.99 and 750ml bottles for $19.99.
