Review: Southern Star Bourbon Finished in Honey Barrels (2025)
When the story of American whiskey gets told, Kentucky and Tennessee still claim most of the pages. Lately, though, voices from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and a handful of other places have started pushing back, reminding everyone that distillation once thrived far beyond the Bluegrass and the Volunteer State. Even with that renewed attention, North Carolina’s chapter still tends to sit quietly in the corner, waiting for someone to notice.
The earliest written record of a still in the state shows up in 1768 at the Williams Distillery, but the Scots-Irish who poured into the Piedmont and mountains after 1700 almost certainly brought copper stills with them and fired them up long before any clerk bothered to write it down. What North Carolina lacks in colonial-era history documentation, it more than made up for during the long moonshine years. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, Wilkes County alone ran more hidden stills than any other county in the country. Federal agents didn’t bother with polite nicknames; they flat-out called it the “moonshine capital of the world.” While Kentucky filled barrels for Uncle Sam, mountain men in Wilkes were turning corn into clear firewater the government never saw.
Legal distilling finally returned to the state in 2005. Eight years later, Pete and Vienna Barger opened Southern Distilling Company in Statesville, building an operation that now ranks among the largest in North Carolina. From the start, they set out both to honor what the old-timers did in the woods and to prove the state could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone on quality.
In the fall of 2025, Southern Distilling released the second edition of Southern Star Straight Bourbon finished in Honey Barrels, totaling 5,000 bottles holding 375 ml. The mashbill features a familiar mix of 60% corn, 36% rye, and 4% malted barley. Every drop was distilled on site, with a substantial share of the grain grown inside North Carolina. Open-top fermenters worked for roughly 52 hours before the mash traveled to a Vendome column still. The new-make came off the still at 130 proof and entered the first barrels at 108 proof. Those barrels came from Canton Cooperage in Marion County, Kentucky, and the whiskey rested in them for at least 7 years.
After that extended maturation, the bourbon was transferred to casks drenched in wildflower honey produced within 5 miles of the distillery for an additional 12 months of aging. Prior to aging local honey, the casks previously held Southern’s Paragon Wheated Bourbon.
The initial honey-barrel release in 2024 had earned strong praise. The lingering question around the 2025 edition is straightforward: did the honey enhance an already well-aged bourbon, or did it overwhelm it with sweetness? Combining the inherent sugar of bourbon with honey has often proved a risky move that has tipped into excess.
Did Southern Distilling find the balance, or did Statesville end up with 5,000 bottles of liquid candy?
Southern Star Bourbon Finished in Honey Barrels (2025) Review
The first inhale brings roasted caramel corn straight from the kettle, the kind where the sugar has just tipped past golden into something deeper and darker. That heavy, almost grain-tinged caramel hangs for a moment before an old cedar cigar box steps forward, trailed by prunes and a dash of honey. The honey-barrel effect never shouts; it waits its turn and slips in quietly, content to color the edges rather than repaint the whole picture.
On the tongue, the roasted sweetness returns as pecan pralines, then slides into the thin syrup clinging to canned pears. Honey appears again, but only as a latecomer, soft and understated. As it recedes, the glass fills with challah French toast brushed with butter, carried on a medium-thick mouthfeel. The finish finally gives the honey barrels their say: a strip of Bit-O-Honey, that almond-honey nougat, followed by the gentlest touch of clove.
Most honey-finished bourbons collapse under the weight of the cask. This one never does. The 7-year-old straight bourbon underneath keeps its shape, and the honey ends up exactly where it belongs.
Did Southern Distilling thread the needle on a finish that usually breaks the bottle, or did restraint pay off in a way few others manage? I think the needle was threaded with finesse.
108.4 proof.
A- / $50 (375 ml)
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