FEW distillery Bourbon – Review

FEW-Spirits-Logoyes, another whiskey review. I know some die hard single malt (and scotch) lovers do not approve of these (yes, Stuart) but I do enjoy a dram of Bourbon from time to time, and this one is worth reviewing for sure.

FEW Spirits is an American craft distillery based in Evanston, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. They pride themselves on producing everything from grain to glass; every aspect of the production of their spirits is done by them. They currently produce a range ofgins and whiskies, all using ingredients sourced as local to the distillery as possible.
Paul Hletko (founder)  named his distillery FEW Spirits when it became the first distillery in Evanston since prohibition. Every FEW Spirits label carries with it some local heritage by depicting a different scene from the Chicago World’s Fair of 1892 – very nice labels!
The distillery has two copper pot stills. Their first still is a custom built German hybrid still and is used to produce the whiskey, as well as to strip low wines for gin production. The second still is also custom built, but is optimized for gin production. Few Spirits has won some

I’ve tried the Few Cask strength bottling quite a while back (as a part of Sjoerd’s American whiskey bottle share, which was kinda epic), and liked it very much (89/100). I wanted to try more and gladly got a very generous sample from FEW spirits (thank you guys, you rock!) to try. I shared some with friends, and have some left I tried recently.

FEW Bourbon, 46.5%,£42few2

Nose: Sweet and spicy. Some chilly and acetone in addition to some wood varnish and a lot of oak. There’s also a certain herbal note to it too: celery and parsley and even dill. Weird or cool. You be the judge. I kinda like it. Some burnt sugar as well. And sweet syrup.

Palate: quite dry and spicy on entry. Earth, pepper, oak and cinnamon bark. Then it gets sweeter when the sugars are released. Corn bread , wood varnish and Cherries in liquor.

Finish: earth. New wood. Pepper and coffee and cherry liquor.

This version is not as beastly as the Cask strength version but in a good way, it’s easier to drink, and is very nice even without water. I think it’s a bit sweeter, and I got more cherries here. If you ask me at 42 quid this is not a cheap bourbon (none are really if you do not live in the USA), but it offers a better price point than the CS version, and at almost 47% it’s strong enough, and full of flavors. Solid stuff.

Score: 86/100

Many thanks to Few distilling for the generous sample

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