Whiskey Tasting: Rabbit Hole Cavehill Bourbon

The new year is here and holidays have calmed down a little, so onto the 4th whiskey from my seven whiskey guided tasting. Today is the other "new distillery" I added into the mix, it was the newest out of all of them, in fact. This whiskey wound up being the crowd favorite of all the whiskeys, which surprised me a little. I didn't pick it as the best from my initial tasting, but it definitely resonated with the palates of most of the attendees, and I understand why. I'm happy to try it again and share it with you out there.

Whiskey Tasting: Rabbit Hole Cavehill Bourbon

The distillery

Rabbit Hole is a fairly new distillery, like Bardstown Bourbon Co, that opened up in Louisville, Kentucky in 2018. Their marketing seems to place them as a "destination distillery" in that they seem to be making their distillery with a large visitor center, modern architecture, highly visibile mash and distillation process, and so on. Rabbit Hole started as an independent distillery but a year later had a majority stake purchased by Pernod-Ricard, a major spirits conglomerate. This feel pretty unusual, but the world loves whiskey right now.

They’re fairly transparent with their spirits, listing the breakdown of grains in their mash bill and offering surprisingly accurate tasting notes. Along with tonight's 4-grain bourbon, they also make another bourbon, some ryes and a ridiculously expensive Mizunara finished bourbon. I'll leave it up to someone with deeper pockets than me to try that one.

The whiskey

The Cavehill bourbon is Rabbit Hole's "original 4-grain recipe". It has won a flurry of awards since being released and is quite impressive for a 3-year-old operation. The "4 grains" here are:

70% Corn 10% Malted Wheat 10% Honey Malted Barley 10% Malted Barley

So we might dicker about whether Honey Malted Barley is distinctly different from Malted Barley, but the malting technique for Honey Malted is specific to Gambrinus Malting and different from other traditionally malting techniques, so we'll let it slide. I wish they would talk about what yeasts they use like Four Roses does, but I think this is pretty good regardless.

They offer notes for aroma

Spice Honey Fresh Apples

Palate

Creamy flavors of Orange Honey Mint Hints of toasted grain

And finish

Vanilla Custard

Normally I'm suspect of "creamy" bourbons, but from my original notes, I know this one stands up to that. So let's dive in.

Look

This whiskey is a nice ruddy orange with bright gold highlights. It's very clear and a little light and forms to a lot of slim, but sluggish, legs on swirlign.

Nose

So this bourbon has a lot of citrus on the forefront, but orange and lemon standing out. Keep inhaling and you get grassy rye and cinnamon, and a layer of sweetness beneath it all. Hiding in the back is just a touch of oak too, a little wood to go with your grass. It's a little like taking a deep breath in an orchard when the fruit is in season.

Taste

So this whiskey has a kind of creamy/buttery quality to it. It lays over everything in the palate which starts with nice honey sweetness and then opens up with the alcohol into cinnamon, minty rye and a little oak hiding out. The finish goes on for a long time, giving you creamy vanilla with that fading spicy cinnamon.

After water

The citrus sits down when you add some water and the oak comes out more. You still get a little orange, but then grassy rye, stonger oak and cinnamon and vanilla. The nose certainly starts to be like the taste at this point.

The palate is much calmer now as well. The sweet honey in the beginning is there, but the cinnamon now takes longer to build up without the alcohol to carry it as well. It comes on slowly and then burst with a surprising amount of cinnamon heat. That creamy mouthfeel remains and the finish continues to be long-lived cinnamon and vanilla.

Summary

The group dug the amount of sweetness, cinnamon, and the buttery texture of the whiskey. It made it a total crowd pleaser. The vast majority of the attendees noted how this is a "dangerous" whiskey they could accidentally drink a lot of. My initial assessment was that it was a desert whiskey, it's a little dry for that strict categorization, but it's like a whiskey version of a crème brûlée or flan... both of which I could eat any time. The "custard" note in the finish is surprisingly accurate and really does remind me of that. It's not eggy, but the richness of the body with the sweetness, vanilla, and cinnamon lend it to feel like that. I would highly recommend this whiskey to any whiskey lover out there, it's a crowd pleaser and both and easy to drink whiskey that has a good range of flavors that compliment each other well.