Aged oak | Old leather book | Raspberry thumbprint cookie | Dark caramel | Faint brown sugar crumble | Touch of roasted coffee | Summer fruits | Light chocolate shavings

Raspberry | Mixed berry jam | Juicy grape | Rye spice | Oak | Heavy berry influence | Leather | Brown sugar | Black peppercorn spice | Caramel

Rye spice | Leather | Dry aged oak | Baking spices | Faint berry jam | Lingering dry oak & spice

Shortbarrel Bourbon is a passion project turned company from friends and founders Adam Dorfman, Clinton Dugan, and Patrick Lemmond. Starting in 2015, the group selected over 350 barrels in the following 5 years, and in 2021 decided to formally launch the Shortbarrel brand. Based out of Norcross, Georgia, the company expanded into Atlanta proper with the purchase of Old Fourth Distillery in 2023. Originally established in 2014, Old Fourth Distillery was Atlanta’s first legal distillery since 1906.

For Batch IV, the company puts their own unique spin on what it thinks a cigar whiskey should taste like, thanks to their mindset of being inspired by the progression of a premium cigar versus designing a whiskey to pair with a cigar. In order to create Batch IV, the company finished the whiskey in more than 50 separate Armagnac, Cognac, rum, tawny port, and sherry casks. They go on to state that “rather than finishing one completed blend in multiple cask types, Shortbarrel matures components independently and evaluates them individually before determining their role in the final whiskey.”  

The resulting sip certainly displays many of the individual components well at times, but it comes at the cost of overall cohesiveness. The whiskey opens with an aroma that displays a decent amount of individual scents ranging from sweet to earthy, and with each fairly strong, there isn’t a single throughline to pull them all together. The midpoint finds a heavy berry influence from the Cognac, sherry, and tawny port casks, which butts up against spice and sweeter notes of caramel and brown sugar. The finish delivers a final surprise, as a noticeably dry aged oak note dominates and lingers, almost to the point of distracting from the overall sip.

Having so many individual components and finishing barrels involved is ultimately a double-edged sword for Batch IV. You can clearly taste the individual influence from various finishing types, but they tend to stand alongside one another rather than integrating and working together. Add in an overly dry finish, and the result is cigar whiskey that stands out for its uniqueness but not necessarily the overall sip it delivers.