Woods High Mountain Distillery Tenderfoot Whiskey 750ml Bottle

My virtual tour of single-malt-producing American distilleries continues at the Wood's High Mountain distillery in Salida, Colorado. The Tenderfoot is not my typical single malt, but is primarily a barley malt (77%), with a touch of malted rye (13%) and malted wheat (10%). It opens with toffee, dark chocolate, peanuts, malt, and soft cherrywood smoke, followed by orange peel, vanilla, and freshly-cracked black pepper. The cherrywood-smoked malted barley adds a unique smoke flavor – very different than peat – much more to my liking. The malted rye adds the typical spiciness of rye, but without overwhelming the other flavors, as rye tends to do. The dark-chocolate barley malt really delivers the choc-o-late. The creamy mouthfeel and thick legs delivery a long spicy, smoky finish – I keep wanting to get up and stoke the fire… even though it is >90F outside. This is another unique American malt – take note Scotland! The packaging is as unique as the dram. This is the first dram I’ve seen that is packaged in a dual-wall aluminum bottle. It is amazing how little the typical 750ml dram weighs without the heavy glass bottle. Drink slow, drink long, drink a variety, drink often.