Milam & Greene Very Small Batch Bourbon Finished With Charred French Oak
Since - for once - a brand did a great job describing their product and opening the curtain to its making, I’m going to do a different kind of writeup here.
The Milam & Greene Very Small Batch Bourbon Finished with Charred Oak Staves *breathes* is quite a good product. It retains the bourbon flavors you want in something called a bourbon while allowing a rarely-used technique with French oak staves to thrive on top of those flavors. So, we’ll go paragraph by paragraph on their release notes (their notes in bold italic, mine in normal text).
Master blender Heather Greene harvested 75 bourbon barrels to create the inaugural batch of Very Small Batch Bourbon. These barrels are a combination of bourbon distilled by master distiller Marlene Holmes in Kentucky using the proprietary Milam & Greene mash bill and barrels of Tennessee bourbon. The barrel recipe for Batch 1 is 20% of the precious Kentucky barrels and 80% Tennessee barrels. The barrels are divided into smaller batches to marry in 1,000-gallon vatting tanks before finishing.
Nothing to see here, really. 20% Kentucky and 80% is typical for the Milam & Greene bourbon line, including their proprietary mash bill for the Kentucky bourbon distilled by Marlene Holmes. The vatting for marrying (wish they’d just use blending, but I’m not going to press it here) also falls in line. The question I have off of this is why these 75 barrels? Why these 15 from Kentucky and those 60 from Tennessee? Was there something special about them that inspired a product? Or was there a product vision Heather and Marlene had in mind that these barrels fit into? I’ll have to follow up on that.
The Kentucky whiskey base is distilled by the Milam & Greene team using their signature mash bill of 70% corn, 22% malted rye, and 8% malted barley. The use of malted rye provides a rich texture and nuttiness that makes it approachable at a young age. For Batch 1, the barrels are aged in Kentucky and then Texas for just shy of 4 years. The Tennessee bourbon was distilled with a mash bill of 80% corn, 10% rye, and 10% malted barley. This batch is a reflection of the climate on whiskey from three different states: Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas.
The Milam & Greene Kentucky mashbill is no secret, but it’s still nice to have it mentioned for those new to the product or brand. If memory serves, I believe that Tennessee mashbill has also been disclosed before, but it also means it’s not from Cascade Hollow. I’ll admit here first: I don’t dislike Cascade Hollow bourbon as much as I thought I did, but I still enjoy this mashbill from Tennessee Distilling Group more. It’s being used in Heaven’s Door (meh) and Three Chord (hit or miss with high ceiling), and is different enough from the 84/8/8 mashbill from Cascade Hollow to be definitively its own beast.
The biggest question I have from this section is how long the barrels were aged in Kentucky vs Texas. The claim that the final product reflects the climate of three different states is a sweeter pill if the majority of the 3 ⅔ years of aging happened in Texas rather than just the final year or part of a year. What’s also notable is the outright mention of “just shy of 4 years.” A friend of mine had the opportunity to chat with Heather during an event for the product, and she posited that that was simply the right time for this bourbon. Yes, everyone wants that 4+ year age statement, but that doesn’t mean that’s always the right aging time. Whether it was by design or by providence, I applaud Milam & Greene for eschewing a higher age statement in favor of a better product, for I truly believe it would have become overoaked if aged in Texas just those extra few months.
Using very small batches as the heart of our new whiskey allows for greater control over the final product. It takes much more attention to detail to produce an elegant whiskey that showcases the esters that are produced during fermentation to bring out refined fruit, floral, and herbaceous notes. To perfect the precise wood flavor without overpowering these refined ester notes, Very Small Batch Bourbon is finished with French oak staves. French oak casks that once held both tawny port wine and then Milam & Greene’s award-winning rye whiskey are broken down, then “cooked” in the 100-degree Texan summer sun, and finally house-charred to a crisp on the outside only. These crispy-on-the-outside, rye-kissed on-the-inside staves are tied in bundles and then steeped in Very Small Batch Bourbon for about two weeks in the vatting tanks.
Here’s where it gets interesting, and seems to answer part of my first paragraph takeaway. By focusing on the selection of certain barrels before the French oak staves were introduced, this leads me to believe that they had an idea but wanted a specific bourbon profile with which they could use French oak staves to enhance the final product.
Which French oak staves to use furthers this assumption for me. French oak is prized for its aromatic, perfumed, and baking spice-heavy profile, hence its widespread use in the wine industry around the world and not just in France. It’s generally toasted - heavily, in some cases - but not charred to the level of a bourbon (usually a 3-4 char level). Again, this is all intuition and educated guessing, but I’m willing to bet that after holding tawny port wine (probably for a decade or more) and then Milam & Greene’s rye, these casks were probably exhausted. At minimum, a heavy toast would have been needed to reinvigorate them.
To char it, though, that’s different. That brings out a character to the French oak that even the tawny might not have seen. By charring the staves on the outside but allowing the inside to remain rye-seasoned, Milam & Greene skillfully married two spice-forward influences that were then steeped in the vatting tanks for two weeks. Just enough time to impart flavor without becoming too woody or losing the bourbon character.
Overall, this is a seriously good bourbon and one that enters my top 10 for the year so far. The flavor, skill, and restraint used throughout the process all add to the experience, solidifying Milam & Greene as a contender for top Texas whiskies in my book.
Well done, Heather, Marlene, and team, well done.
Thank you to Milam & Greene and Big Thirst Marketing for providing this bottle free of editorial constraint.
Milam & Greene Very Small Batch Bourbon Finished With Charred French Oak: Specs
Classification: Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Origin: Milam & Greene Distillery
Mashbill: Fractional - See Notes Above.
Proof: 108 (54% ABV)
Age: 3 Years 8 Months Old
Location: Texas and Kentucky
Milam & Greene Very Small Batch Bourbon Finished With Charred French Oak Price: $69.99
Milam & Greene Very Small Batch Bourbon Finished With Charred French Oak: Tasting Notes
Eye: Brewed black tea. Thin rims and legs with teardrops falling.
Nose: A wonderful, fruity marshmallow note hits first, the French oak staves aromatic with a touch of char. Black licorice and dark bourbon-esque notes flow out with malted rye underneath.
Palate: A pleasing fruit-led burn coats right away, with the French oak again front and center. Astringent and varnished, with dark red fruits joined by medjool dates. Proof isn’t hot, but you can still tell it’s a solid proof point for this bourbon’s flavors. Fruit leather and a tip-of-tongue baking spice, a full showing of charred oak.
Finish: Memories of campfires minus the fire (doesn’t make total sense but that’s what I’m feeling), coating finish that adds char and dark chocolate. Medium-length and full-bodied.
Overall: Great use of the charred French oak, with creamy and classic baking spice all over the profile. Dark fruit leather and a spot-on proof point exceeded my expectations. Strawberry marshmallows, anyone?
Final Rating: 7.6
10 | Insurpassable | Nothing Else Comes Close
9 | Incredible | Extraordinary
8 | Excellent | Exceptional
7 | Great | Well above average
6 | Very Good | Better than average
5 | Good | Good, solid, ordinary
4 | Has promise but needs work
1-3 | Let’s have a conversation
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