Beyoncé Is Releasing a New Rye Whiskey, and We Got a First Taste
The term “celebrity spirit” gets tossed around a lot these days, but let’s be honest—there are varying degrees of star power behind these brands. In other words, on the one hand you got your Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder-backed Brother’s Bond Bourbon, and then there’s The Rock’s Teremana Tequila. Today, in a move that likely will overshadow all other celeb-backed spirits, the Queen B herself, Beyoncé, has announced that she is launching SirDavis Whisky, and we have the details.
SirDavis is named after Beyoncé’s great-grandfather, Davis Hogue, who according to the brand was a farmer and moonshiner in the South during Prohibition. Sadly, I did not get to talk to Mrs. Knowles-Carter herself, but I did chat with two people who were instrumental in the creation of SirDavis: Glenmorangie and Ardbeg master distiller Dr. Bill Lumsden, and global head of advocacy and blender Cameron George. Glenmorangie and Ardbeg are both owned by Mo?t Hennessy, the LVMH subsidiary that partnered with Beyoncé on this new whiskey, which explains Lumsden’s involvement.
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Here are the basics: SirDavis is a rye whiskey made from a mashbill of 51 percent rye and 49 percent malted barley at MGP in Indiana. This is notable for a few reasons. The typical rye whiskey mashbill made at MGP, which produces whiskey for many other brands, is a 95/5 recipe that you’ll find in bottles of Dickel or Redemption. And other rye whiskeys on the market from Kentucky hover somewhere just over the legally required 51 percent rye grain, the rest being mostly corn with just a small amount of malted barley. Also, while Mo?t Hennessy doesn’t have a large American whiskey presence, it does own Woodinville Whiskey in Washington and has a minority stake in WhistlePig. Still, Beyoncé and her team decided to go with MGP, and took the extra step of finishing the whiskey in Pedro Ximenez sherry casks after initial maturation in new charred oak barrels (there is no age statement). The whiskey is bottled at 88 proof and is non-chill filtered.
According to Lumsden, the inspiration for SirDavis came first and foremost from Beyoncé’s love of whiskey, and the goal was to create an American whiskey inspired by Japanese whisky. That throughline seems a bit tenuous, but this is indeed a unique liquid that doesn’t really taste like anything else on the market. I got to try an early sample, and there are balanced notes of fruit and spice on the palate. It’s definitely very rye-forward, even with so much malted barley in the mashbill, and there are notes of dried fruit, fresh cherry, vanilla, licorice, and a hint of menthol in every sip. “We [wanted] to create something that was going to be appealing to new drinkers, but that was also going to excite connoisseur drinkers,” said Lumsden. And according to George, the mashbill is a reference to pre-Prohibition Monongahela rye, a style of whiskey made in Pennsylvania that usually had no corn in the mashbill. “This is kind of a throwback to an old-world style of rye, but through a contemporary lens,” he said.
It’s often unclear how involved a celebrity backer actually is with a spirits brand, but Lumsden and George assert that Beyoncé was tuned in every step of the way. “Cameron and I spent hours with her tasting all sorts of different whiskeys, including Japanese, American, Scotch, and even some Irish, just to get a feel for what she was looking for in her own whiskey,” said Lumsden. He then went to different distillery partners to source mature whiskeys for her to taste, and she ultimately settled upon this rye finished in sherry casks as her favorite. “If you listen to some of her lyrics, like “the grandbaby of a moonshine man,” whiskey is quite literally in her genealogy and her family,” said George. “For a long time, whiskey has been a little bit exclusive. But I think that the world we’re creating under Mrs. Knowles-Carter’s direction with SirDavis is a much more democratic space for people who maybe have not been incorporated into whiskey the way that we hope that they will in the future.”
Don’t expect Beyoncé to show up at your local Costco or Total Wine to pass out samples like Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul do with Dos Hombres Mezcal, however. Instead, George says that this rollout will be more of an organic brand world association. The whiskey has already started making waves, winning some key awards at spirits competitions over the past year including a gold medal at the 2023 New York International Spirits Competition. SirDavis is available now (SRP $89) at the brand’s website, and will be available at retail locations around the country as well as London, Paris, and Tokyo starting next month.
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