Black raspberry | Stewed cherries | Brown sugar | Molasses | Aged vanilla | Aged oak | Aged leather

Black cherry | Plum | Aged oak | Cigar wrapper | Molasses reduction

Bitter oak | Allspice | Brown sugar | Tobacco | Lingering baking spices

Woodinville Distillery started in 2010 by Orlin Sorensen and Brett Carlile in the state of Washington. The company sources all of their staple grains exclusively from the Omlin Family farm in Quincy, Washington. The grains are mashed, distilled, and barreled at their Woodinville Distillery, and then trucked back over the Cascade Mountains to the company’s private barrel houses.

This limited edition 9 year old release represents the culmination of over 10 years of work for the company, with a significant focus on the barrels used to age the whiskey. As a result of that experimentation, this whiskey was aged in heavily toasted, lightly charred Independent Stave Company barrels made from 24-month open-air seasoned staves. Tested by gas chromatography at the 4.5 year mark, according to the company, these barrels were discovered to “have significantly higher amounts of whiskey’s favorite core compounds: furfural (sweetness, almond, baked bread), vanillin (vanilla, creaminess), and phenols, namely guaiacol (smoky, spicy) and 4-methyl guaiacol (sweet, candy, clove, leather).” At the point of testing, Sorenson and Carlile found the whiskey to still have slight graininess, and ultimately continued to age for an additional 5 years before bottling.

Last year, we reviewed the company’s 8 year old release and found it to be “hands down the best Woodinville Whiskey Company bourbon to date,” which featured “an explosion of flavors that find impeccable balance.” Given what the 9 year tastes like in comparison, it’s fascinating the changes the bourbon went through with an extra year of aging.

The base of the bourbon flavors remains, leaning heavily on dark fruits, baking spices, tobacco, and aged oak. The bourbon tries hard to be balanced but falls short of being “impeccable,” a quality found in last year’s release. Much of that has to do with the amount of oak now present. While certainly a major player before, an extra year of aging has caused the oak to overtake the other flavors. It has also turned bitter, and when paired with the cigar wrapper and tobacco notes, it results in an incredibly rich but also punchy sip, similar to what you find in some double-oaked or small-barrel aged bourbons.

Some of what made the Woodinville 8 Year Bourbon so exceptional, unfortunately, gets overshadowed here by oak. But if you enjoy a bold, oak-fueled sip, then you’ll likely enjoy the 9 year. At the very least, Woodinville Bourbon Aged 9 Years shows just how divergent and unique small-sized distilleries’ bourbons are becoming versus larger, more traditional Kentucky and Indiana distilleries.

The bourbon in review is bottle number 6451.