Review: Dovetail Cut Throat Oat Whiskey
When asked to name a distillery associated with Nevada, the bulk of whiskey drinkers will certainly come up with Frey Ranch or Smoke Wagon. After nearly 20 years of working as a chef in some of New York City’s finest restaurants, Nicholas Cataldo launched a small distillery in northern Nevada that hopes to catch the eye of whiskey enthusiasts. Located in Mound House, Cataldo seeks to apply his culinary skills to the world of whiskey through Dovetail Distillery. As founder and distiller, Cataldo cites an oatmeal cookie as his inspiration for whiskey as he utilizes grain that would have been available during the frontier days of Nevada. Adding to the intrigue, Cataldo malts and mills his grain in-house.
Dovetail Cut Throat Oat Whiskey features a highly unique set of grains by way of oat groats, wheat malt, and whole wheat. Dovetail is currently choosing not to disclose the exact mashbill, but shares that oat groats make up more than 60% of the mashbill with the wheat malt comprising just under 10%. The unique mashbill is fermented for 4 to 6 days before meeting a pot still manufactured by Still Dragon in West Palm Beach, Florida. Dovetail’s pot still is constructed of stainless steel with a copper head. The distillate is entered into 15 gallons barrels at 122 proof. Cataldo opted for small barrels with a #3 char from Barrel Mill in Avon, Minnesota. After at least 2 years of aging, Cut Throat Oat Whiskey is bottled at 95 proof without chill-filtration.
Dovetail Distillery has packed a lot to process into a 750ml bottle of Cut Throat Oat Whiskey. The whiskey features a highly unique mashbill, but adds to potential skepticism by aging in small barrels. Quality whiskey can absolutely result from the use of small barrels, but the typical result is a craft distillery releasing a whiskey with entirely too much oak character. Putting his nearly two decades of culinary expertise to work, did Nicholas Cataldo craft another culinary delight or yet another unpleasant oak bomb? Let’s cautiously find out!
Cut Throat opens with an extremely pleasing nose that is completely void of being over-oaked. The aroma of a Three Musketeers candy bar emanates from the glass to mingle with toasted brown sugar and nutmeg. The nose begs to be savored before sipping. Upon first sip, the small barrel influence is suddenly present, but far from problematic. Rum-soaked raisins isolated from rum raisin ice cream burst upon the palate. The small barrel influence adds notes of Mexican chocolate, cloves, and black pepper. Mouth-drying tannins are present, but far from excessive. As Cut Throat starts to conclude, more black pepper meets burnt brown sugar. The small barrel impacts the finish by way of coffee grounds that linger.
Cut Throat Oat Whiskey surpassed my expectations. Tannins imparted by the 15 gallon barrels mesh beautifully with the character from the grains. It’s easy to judge small barrel whiskey against other small barrel whiskey. Rather than looking at Cut Throat as “good for whiskey from small barrels,” it’s just good whiskey without qualifiers. Cut Throat’s profile isn’t that of a whiskey aged 5 years in a 53 gallon barrel, but it’s far from inferior. When sitting on my shelf, I won’t be offering Cut Throat to friends as a novelty whiskey, but simply as a very good one. Despite the mess that numerous distilleries have made of small barrel whiskey, Dovetail Distillery got this one right.
95 proof.
A- / $65 / dovetaildistillery.com
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