Review: Dogfish Head Distilling x Rolling Stone American Single Malt Whiskey

Dogfish Head‘s distilling arm continues its growth with this odd collaboration, produced in collaboration with Rolling Stone magazine. (Mind the distinction: The Rolling Stones, the band, have their own collab with Jose Cuervo.)

As is the norm for Dogfish Head, this isn’t some boring old sourced whiskey. Rather, it’s a 5 year old American single malt that is matured in 12 different cask types, including Dogfish Head refill whiskey barrels, brandy casks, and Samuel Adams Utopias beer barrels. It’s only available in Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington D.C., and Massachusetts, and in limited quantities, so if the below review sounds appealing, hop on it.

Dogfish Head Distilling x Rolling Stone American Single Malt Whiskey Review

American single malt can often come across as underdeveloped, but this five year old feels like it has made some remarkable progression. While it could stand a few more years in the barrel(s), there’s ample nuance here that’s worth investigating.

The nose is as complex as anything matured in 12 barrel types could and should be. It’s quite grainy at first blush, and time in glass narrows the aromatic focus to the influence of wood. But traditional lumberyard and sawdust elements aren’t the play here: Notes of peach wood and apple wood, laced with gentle fruitiness, are surprisingly heady, alongside lighter but persistent aromas of floral incense and toasted spices.

The palate hits with a gentler cereal tone, but with more exotic elements close behind: toasted coconut, sherry-soaked citrus peel, and peppery hops all swirled into a core of cookie batter, part sugar, part gingerbread. Mildly but increasingly smoky as it develops on the palate, the whiskey drops some of its sweeter elements to allow a more savory character to develop on the finish, baked apple meandering toward red apple skins and back to apple wood. In the end, hints of tobacco ring the edges — if that ain’t rock ‘n’ roll, I don’t know what is.

90 proof.

B+ / $70

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