Belle Meade Cask Finish Bourbon Finished in Calvados Casks Review

Don't like ads?

No ads

Like many new producers, Nelson’s Greenbrier started by sourcing bourbon to sell immediately while they built their own distillery. It’s no secret that the barrels they sourced came from MGP in Indiana. This was around the time where anyone could buy a giant lot of highly aged barrels for relatively cheap. The MGP barrels would go into their Belle Meade brand while the Nelson’s Greenbrier brand would be for their own bourbon.

Belle Meade became a cult favorite among enthusiasts. Their single barrel program was a hit and their Craftsman Cask program was known far and wide thanks to their annual Honey Cask release. And just when it seemed like Belle Meade was at the very top of their game, everything started to fall apart.

Starting around 2018, MGP told their customers that the aged barrels they had sourced for years had pretty much run out. For the next 3 years, the Belle Meade brand slowly withered away until there was basically nothing left. Quality began to drop and so did age statements. During the final year of Belle Meade’s relevancy (2021), it seemed like the Craftsman Cask program was hit especially hard. No longer were they blending exclusively 10- to 12-year-old barrels. The program saw barrels as young as 4- to 9-years-old being blended into some of the releases.

Craftsman Cask comes to an end with a rash of releases

Early 2021 saw the first of five “unique” cask-finished releases came out. They were Vanilla, Peach, Cherry Brandy, Tequila and Calvados cask finishes. These had never been used before and represented a slew of experimental casks that Belle Meade had been reluctant to complete. But now that the brand was sunsetting, the decision to bottle them up was given the green light.

Today we’re looking at the very last of these releases; Belle Meade Calvados Cask Finished Bourbon. This release was comprised of 8-11 year old “high-rye” barrels that were blended together and put into a La Ribaude Calvados Cask sourced directly from Normandy, France. The bourbon rested for 36 months in that cask – an incredible length of time by any metric. It was finally bottled up for sale in November, 2021.

Thanks to my new friend, Grant, I had the unexpected pleasure of trying this bottle. It just so happens that I had brought a Bardstown Bourbon Company Collaborative Series Copper and Kings Apple Brandy Finished Bourbon along with me, so we tasted both side-by-side. I’m not going to give the tasting notes for that one (you can click on the link to see what I thought), but I will give a couple brief notes at the end of this review that talks about what we thought about both. I sampled this neat in a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: This doesn’t smell like your typical Belle Meade bourbon because of the Calvados Cask, but I was expecting it to be a bit more… bright? The scents are very mellow with baked apple pie being the standout along with a nice sampling of brown baking spices – cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg. For some reason, this has a tiny sensation of wildflower honey that I’m picking up on. Sweetness is already abundant, but there is a bit of caramel drizzle that stands out as well.

Palate: The first sip shows a nice balance of woody MGP bourbon and baked apple turnovers – like the kind with raisins in the mix if you know what I’m talking about. The tannins are never drying because of all the sweetness going on, but I wouldn’t call this cloyingly sweet. Really there’s just enough caramel and rum raisin sauce to satisfy any whiskey drinker. Vanilla is faint, but present. The baking spices are also nicely blended in with each sip.

Finish: A very balanced finish with just the right amount of sweet flavors, apples and oak. The baking spices never try to overpower the lingering sweetness. It’s just an overall pleasant dram with the perfect amount of heat.

Score: 8.2/10

This was a very good bourbon with a balanced and impactful Calvados twang that followed throughout. It isn’t the best Belle Meade Craftsman Cask I’ve had (Those would be Honey and Tanat), but it is heads and shoulders above Mouvedre, Black Belle and Spanish Brandy.

Now the question that many of you are probably waiting for: Is Belle Meade Calvados better than Bardstown Bourbon Company Collaboration Series: C&K Apple Brandy? Sadly, no. Grant even agreed. For me, it seemed as if the finish in the BBCo release was more vibrant and powerful. The flavors in the Belle Meade tasted slightly subdued when the two were drank side-by-side. That’s not saying that one was clearly superior to the other; it was more of a graceful defeat for the Belle Meade. But your chances of even seeing either of these bottles on the secondary today is almost nil.

Final Thoughts

The Craftsman Cask came to a conclusion with 5 unique cask finishes that reached varying levels of fandom. But the fact remains that there are no more being made which makes their secondary value quite high. Nelson’s Greenbrier surprisingly brought back the concept of the Craftsman Cask Collection (and the Craftsman Cask Club) shortly after the final Belle Meade version came out. These have been rebranded into “Nelson Bros” labels and use a lot of the same finishing barrels (including another Calvados Cask finish). But the magic seems to be missing from the old Belle Meade brand.

Are these worth their secondary price? I’d say no unless you are a completionist and absolutely must have all of the releases from a brand. And while Calvados may be a rare cask to find whiskey finished in, I think it’s something we’ll see more of as time goes on. But if you ever get a chance to taste one of these, never turn it down.