Review: Southern Star 2024 Carolina Panthers Paragon Bourbon
The 2024 NFL season marks the 30th anniversary of the Carolina Panthers. As the official craft bourbon of the Panthers, Southern Distilling Company in Statesville, North Carolina kicked off the season by releasing a limited expression to commemorate the occasion. Officially called Southern Star 2024 Carolina Panthers Limited Series Paragon Cognac Finish Cask Strength Wheated Straight Bourbon, the whiskey is a blend of 9 choice barrels of the distillery’s highly celebrated wheated Paragon bourbon finished using virgin French oaks staves from barrels that previously matured Cognac for at least two years. The 2024 edition is matured for 6 years before finishing and is bottled at 106 proof. Paragon’s mashbill is comprised 0f 70% corn, 16% wheat, and 14% malted barley. While the unfinished 2023 Panthers commemorative release of 6 individual single barrels only yielded 1000 bottles, the batched 2024 release produced 3000 bottles.
Southern Distilling allocates a significant amount of its resources to contract distilling for other brands. While the North Carolina distillery runs a plethora of custom mashbills for clients, the wheated Paragon is the face of the distillery. This special offering combines Southern’s beloved mashbill plus some excellent age for a young distillery along with the celebration for a NFL franchise located 40 miles away. Over the past several seasons, the Carolina Panthers have brought more heartache than joy to their devoted football fans. So how will this celebratory bourbon compare? Does Southern’s special release bourbon bring joy or heartache? Let’s get the bottle on the playing field and find out!
Paragon’s kickoff offers a pleasing, buttery toffee aroma followed by heavily toasted marshmallow produced by campfire. The sweetness continues with the scent of white cake batter. With time to breathe, the sweet aromas meet the influence of French oak staves as toasted coconut and a wisp of coffee round out the nosing experience. Southern opens the game strong and plays a clean first half. Is that the smell of victory in the air?
Starting the second half with the lead, the palate opens with a familiar culinary recollection from childhood by way of Cinnamon Toast Crunch breakfast cereal. The bready wheat combines with cinnamon and sugar to create memories of breakfast while watching Saturday morning cartoons in front of the TV. The icons of General Mills then transition to vanilla and nutmeg. The palate offers oak notes that generate a pleasurable drying mouthfeel to balance the sweeter notes. The third quarter ends, still in the lead.
Heading into the finale, Southern is playing with a comfortable lead and shows no signs of taking its foot off the gas or playing conservatively. French vanilla continues on the palate, but soon meets brighter notes toward the finish, as grapefruit zest and ginger add vibrancy to accompany some juicy apricot. Southern’s gameplan was strong and victory was never in doubt, as it clears the field after a moderate amount of time to celebrate.
Southern Distilling has released an excellent bourbon to celebrate 30 years of its local NFL team. Younger expressions of Paragon have been received well, but these older barrels with a finish applied are a nice step up. The level of joy that will result from the Carolina Panthers in 2024 is still to be determined, but the joy derived from Southern Distilling’s commemorative bottle is a much safer bet.
106 proof.
A- / $100 / southerndistillingcompany.com
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