Bob Dylan Just Dropped a Bold New 18-Year-Old Bourbon Finished in Vermouth Barrels
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We’ve been covering recent news from Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door whiskey brand recently, and there’s been a lot of it, some of it stemming Heaven’s Door opening its own distillery in Kentucky. Now there’s a new edition of the Bootleg Series, an expensive 18-year-old bourbon given an unusual secondary maturation in Spanish red vermouth casks, and the resulting whiskey is bold and assertive.
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The Bootleg Series was first released in 2019 making this is the fifth installment. This whiskey series was named as a tribute to the rare and unreleased recordings that make up a portion of Dylan’s catalogue, and according to the brand the specific whiskeys, blends, and cask finishes in this series are meant to evoke that concept. Bootleg Series V was overseen by Heaven’s Door master distiller Ken Pierce and master blender Alex Moore. They selected an 18-year-old bourbon distilled in Tennessee, which is pretty old for a bourbon, and then finished it in vermouth rouge barrels. “Vermouth has long been a part of whiskey cocktail culture, and we wanted to capture that essence in this mature Bootleg Series expression,” said Moore in a statement. “We chose Spanish vermouth casks to finish the 18-year-old bourbon to provide depth of flavor and complexity that perfectly complements the whiskey’s character.”
The whiskey, which is bottled at 114 proof, is a deep ruddy brown color. On the nose it reads like an older Dickel whiskey, full of grain, fruit, and nutty notes. The palate is immediately drying and tannic, but not in an unpleasant way. There are dollops of oak along with dried fruit, candied orange, spiced nuts, rum raisins, vanilla, and kettle corn. This is a bold and pointed bourbon that might prove to be divisive, but its unique flavor and spiciness will please whiskey fans who prefer older age statements and secondary maturations that are not subtle. And it kind of grows on you the more you sip it.
Heaven’s Door Bootleg Series V (SRP $600) comes in a ceramic bottle with Dylan’s 2019 painting “No Vacancies” on the front. The bottle, in turn, is found inside a carrying case that opens like a book to display the whiskey. Bootleg Series V is available to preorder now from the brand’s website, and you can find past releases as well as the core lineup available from websites like ReserveBar now.
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