Journeyman Popcorn Bourbon Whiskey Review

Don't like ads?

No ads

I’ve touched on the Journeyman story in a couple of previous reviews I did for their Farm Rye. The story centered around how founder Bill Welter developed a passion for whiskeymaking in the early 2000’s. He made the decision to open a distillery and a tasting room in his home state of Indiana only to find that outdated laws prohibited him from operating both at the same time. Rather than choose one or the other, he decided to pursue his dream across the state line in Three Oaks, Michigan.

Years later, after Indiana realized the error of its way and changed the law, Bill plotted a return to his home city of Valparaiso in the Hoosier State. The Three Oaks facility would remain open, but a second campus would be built inside an old factory named, errr, “The American Factory Building.”

Generic building names aside, Bill wanted to embrace the roots of his hometown. What better way to do it than to create a whiskey honoring Valparaiso’s biggest celebrity Orville Redenbacher.

Orville Redenbacher Popcorn: From crunchy snack to liquid delight

Distillers have been experimenting with various grains ever since the invention of the still. But modern commercial distilleries have more-or-less settled on specific grains to produce their whiskey recipes. The corn is almost always field corn (also called dent corn) which has been bred and modified for a high starch content and maximum ethanol conversion efficiency. But craft distilleries are different. Many have begun to embrace heirloom varieties of grain to separate themselves from the big guys.

Frankly, I’ve been very lukewarm to any whiskey that uses heirloom corn. Maybe it’s the fact my palate is tuned towards whiskey made with dent corn or maybe it’s because the heirloom varietals have something internally that doesn’t make it taste as sweet as the big guys’ distillate. Regardless, Journeyman had an idea for a corn type that hadn’t been widely experimented with before: popcorn. Could this be the grain that transcends the whole corn debate?

When I became aware of bourbon made from popcorn, my first thought was that the distillery literally popped corn into the fluffy snack form and then milled it down to a flour before adding it to the fermentation tank. It turns out that’s not what happened. The popcorn – “Zea mays everta” (the specific variety of corn that is suitable for popcorn) was milled from whole kernels.

Just to nerd out for a minute (I was born and raised in the corn belt, after all), I’m going to break down how popcorn is different from other corn varieties. The main differences are:

Having a shell that’s four times harder than other types of corn (ideal for holding the steam pressure inside)

Having a “puffier” starch than regular corn

Having a kernel shape that’s smaller than traditional dent corn

Being able to maintain a specific amount of moisture – enabling enough steam to eventually expand and “pop”

All of these characteristics contribute to it being the only type of corn that can actually “pop” when heated.

Journeyman Popcorn Bourbon Whiskey

Journeyman is not the first distillery to produce a popcorn bourbon. From what I can tell, that crown belongs to MGP. My research shows me they started making it back in 2013 or 2014. I have found three different producers who have bottled the bourbon made from MGP’s initial run: King’s Family Distillery, Chimney Hill and Red Cedar Spirits. Two other producers have also experimented with distilling popcorn – Whiskey Acres laid down their first barrels of Blue Popcorn Bourbon in 2018 and 15 Stars (which is having Bardstown Bourbon Company make it for them) laid down their first barrels made with their own Black Jewel popcorn in 2019.

That makes Journeyman’s release somewhat late to the party. But it’s okay – it wears the most iconic face in all of popcorn on its front label: Orville Redenbacher. I imagine there was a bit of haggling with Conagra (owners of the Orville Redenbacher name) as to how to integrate a family brand onto a bottle of whiskey. I think the end result was tastefully done.

Looking past the label, Journeyman crafted this bourbon from a mash bill of 52% popcorn, 15% rye and 33% malted barley. I’m assuming the decision to use 52% corn (close to the legal minimum to be called a bourbon) was made as to keep costs low. In fact, I looked up the price differences between popcorn and dent corn and popcorn can run close to $25 for a 50lb bag whereas dent corn is around $4 for the same amount.

The next part is speculation, but I’m guessing that Journeyman’s decision to increase the amount of malted barley in the mash bill instead of the rye was to allow the popcorn flavor to shine through rather than the bourbon to be overpowered by rye spice. This is why Journeyman chose to use such a large amount of malted barley – 33%! Most producers use somewhere between 4% and 14%.

Other details are a little more shaky, but I’m assuming that this bourbon was distilled at the Three Oaks distillery on their hybrid column/pot still. Journeyman likes to distill their spirits at the higher end of what’s legal – close to 160 proof they say. They also barrel most of their spirits around 120 proof. Since this bottle of popcorn whiskey ended up with a batch proof of 113 proof, it’s safe to say it lost a little bit during the course of its aging.

Only 3000 bottles were produced from this first run and they went up for sale in March, 2024. I’ve inquired on if it will be an annual release and will update this section if I find out more. I’ll also put in a bit of a personal anecdote that I don’t think this bottle sold particularly well. Its suggested retail price was north of $160 and it sat on many stores shelves. The only reason I have this bottle today was because of my good friend Dan who bought it for me. A store he frequents slashed the price from $160 all the way down to $80. The manager told him that he couldn’t sell it at the original price. How could I say no to a half-price bourbon?!

So thank you, Dan, for your help in getting me this bottle. Now let’s see what it tastes like. I sampled it neat in a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Oddly, the nose doesn’t come off very grainy at all. I was kind of expecting the opposite to be true. Instead, salted butter, cornbread and vanilla buttercream frosting lead the way. I know a lot of you are wondering “does it smell like popcorn?” I wish it did, but it doesn’t. There is a lightness to the nose that makes you think of the light, puffy bowl of popcorn but otherwise it’s not that close. The oak is overall very mild (the color looks lighter, too) but it’s this weird scent of Brasso (brass cleaner) that occasionally pops up that I’m not the biggest fan of. The nose will open up the longer you set with it which allows the sweetness to amp up with notes of molasses and Grade B maple syrup. So if at first you’re offended by it, just let it rest about 10 minutes and come back to it. 

Palate: There are undertones of a young bourbon while sipping this. But the lightness of the liquid (even though it’s barrel proof!) doesn’t make that youthfulness as impactful as you’d think. The popcorn flavor is definitely hiding within, almost like someone made a smoothie with popcorn (?!). It’s hard to explain. Instead, The spices that were so well-mannered on the nose really come alive with notes of cinnamon, ground pepper and clove. This kicks up the heat a bit. Texturally, each sip seems silky smooth which is at odds with the spices. What I taste isn’t harsh or grainy like youthful bourbons can be. But the sweetness is somewhat lacking. If anything, there’s a bit of brown sugar and a strange medicinal cherry note in each sip. What I find is interesting, but it definitely doesn’t have nearly as many layers as I thought it would. 

Finish: The finish is moderate in length and contains a fair amount of cooked corn notes and tannins (not bitter ones though!). The sweetness drops off somewhat and there’s not much fruit left behind either. The finish is a little bit on the simple side, but it’s about what I expected. 

Score: 6/10

There were two thoughts I had while drinking this and also when I shared it with friends. The first part was, there is definitely something about this bourbon that makes it different from other bourbon, but it’s hard to put into words. Nobody has had it blind, but everyone remarks about how unique it is. Almost none of my friends have said they disliked it. There’s something captivating about it that makes you inherently not dislike it, but it’s also hard to truly love.

I like the light body it has and the fact it doesn’t come off as under-matured. Don’t get me wrong, I think a couple more years in the barrel might do it good, but I also would respect Journeyman’s decision to bottle this when they did if they thought that the underlying popcorn notes would get covered up with too much barrel influence.

Final Thoughts

$160 is a ton of money to spend on a non-age stated bottle like this. Plus, with so many gimmicks on the market right now, I can see consumers grouping this release together with all the other celebrity whiskies out there as a bottle to avoid. But with the price lowered, I can’t help but feel like this was an okay splurge for my whiskey budget. It’s something so unique, yet fits into the concept of bourbon so well (it’s corn, after all) that it deserves to be opened, shared and explored. There are bottles that are meant to be explored because they’re just so atypical, and this is one of those instances.

So while I’ll always caution you to make your bottle choices wisely and not fall for unproven gimmicks, there are certain instances where it’s okay to do so. You’ll feel the difference when you see it. And for a bottle of popcorn bourbon like this, I’m glad that I made the decision to buy it after all.