Hops | Stout | Light oak | White grape | Baking chocolate | Roasted malt | Lightly roasted coffee bean

Coffee porter | Chocolate cake | Stout | Roasted malt | White peppercorn spice | Oak | Light honeydew | Faint syrup covered pear 

Roasted coffee bean | Roasted malt | Cocoa powder | Faint white grape | Hops | Toasted oak | Lingering roasted flavors

Charbay has been creating spirits, wines, ports, aperitifs, and liqueurs for 42 years in Northern California. According to the company, there isn’t another family in the U.S. that can “claim to hand-producing the scope of handcrafted wines & spirits than that of Charbay.” The company’s founder Milorad (Miles) Karakasevic traces their family’s winemaking and distillery experience to 1751 in the former Yugoslavia. After receiving formal training overseas, Karakasevic arrived in North America at age 21. In 2010, Karakasevic became the U.S.’s only Grand Master Distiller, which is the title of a distiller who has distilled all four of the major spirits categories: brandy, whiskey, rum, and tequila. 

Karakasevic’s son, Marko, is now master distiller at Charbay after a 26 year classical European apprenticeship with his father. According to the company, in 2009, Marko formally became a master distiller using the classical definition: he was recognized as having “equaled or bettered the skill of his Teacher, his father.” In 2017, Marko and his wife Jenni Karakasevic purchased the family distillery. Marko continues with the family tradition of pushing the creativity of the spirits and wine they craft.

The “S” on the front of the bottle stands for “stout” and Charbay Stout Whiskey Lot No. 2 is part of the distillery’s core lot of whiskeys, along with Double & Twisted and R5. This 686 case release is made by distilling Big Bear Black Stout beer sourced from Beer Republic in Northern California into whiskey. The company’s website states that this was distilled in February 2011, aged for 50 months, and bottled in 2015. 

The latest rendition of Charbay Stout Whiskey Lot No. 2 can best be summed up as a walk on the wild side. The additional doubling of aging time for Lot No. 2 vs Lot S211a is evident, as Lot No. 2 takes the best features of Lot S211a and enhances them. The sip prominently displays hops and roasted flavors, and that begins right from the get-go with an aroma that hones in on hops, roasted malt, and lightly roasted coffee bean. These roasted flavors appear as roasted malt in the midpoint and are joined with coffee porter and chocolate cake notes, along with light sweet fruit notes, which add an intriguing dichotomy to the composition of the palate. Ending on rich roasted notes, the finish pulls forward roasted coffee bean, malt, and cocoa powder, along with faint white grapes. The sip trails off on extremely pleasing, lingering roasted flavors. 

Charbay whiskeys are an extreme combination of flavors that will squarely fall outside of the range of a typical tasting American whiskey. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just a matter of truth. That has to do with the fact of how their whiskeys are produced, with so many being made of redistilled beer. In the case of Charbay Stout Whiskey Lot No. 2, the flavors delivered are bombastic yet also desirable and help the whiskey truly stand out from anything else on the market. It requires patience and an open mind, but for those willing to explore the limits of what they think an American whiskey can taste like, Charbay Stout Whiskey Lot No. 2 will reward them greatly.