Widow Jane Decadence (2024) Review

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Widow Jane’s Decadence is an annual release that leans hard into sweet dessert (or is it breakfast?) notes. If you hadn’t already looked at the label, then you’ll already know that this is bourbon sourced from Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee and finished in maple syrup casks. Those casks are sourced from Crown Maple – a producer of maple syrup located in the Hudson Valley of New York. The relationship is symbiotic in that Widow Jane supplies the barrels to Crown who then age their maple syrup in them before returning them back to Widow Jane once they’ve been dumped.

It’s been a while since I have thought about Widow Jane, much less had a pour of one of their products. I was still under the assumption that all of their bourbon was sourced from MGP. I was wrong. It’s obvious that the source of their Indiana whiskey is MGP and their Tennessee component likely comes from Dickel. But what about their Kentucky component? They were purchased by Heaven Hill in 2022 after all and that was the year that the first batch of Decadence came out. Could there be Heaven Hill bourbon in the blend these days? Sadly, I don’t think so. There has been very little chatter or speculation that Widow Jane has received any support from their new owners.

What is the makeup of the 2024 Widow Jane Decadence?

What we know so far about Decadence is that all components of the bourbon (undoubtedly a blend of various distillates) were at least 10-years-old at the time they were dumped. The blend was mingled for a bit before being used to refill the used maple syrup casks. Some sources claim that the blend was only finished in these casks for 3 months – which seems like a pretty fair amount of time. It shouldn’t be overly mapley if I had to take a guess.

Once the barrels were done finishing, they were dumped into the vat where they’d be bottled from. This process is overseen by Sienna Jevremov who stepped in to be Widow Jane’s Head Distiller and Blender in 2022. Each batch (there are roughly 1-2 released per year) now consists of over 12,000 bottles released per year. This is up significantly from its inaugural release in 2020 where only ~3,000 bottles were produced.

Don’t forget the most important (and most ridiculed) step for any Widow Jane product – that it’s proofed down with water from the Rosendale Mines. This is why you can’t ever find one of their products at barrel proof. It’s also supposed to also impart a minerality that is kind of a signature Widow Jane profile note – or maybe it’s just the Dickel talking. Regardless, I’m going to find out what kind of flavors the maple cask and the water from those abandoned mines imparted. To do this, I sampled it neat in a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Sweet scents of praline’d pecans, angel food cake and maple syrup are the strongest. Frankly, I’m really digging the profile of the nose and could smell it for days. There are complimentary scents like cacao nibs and lemon meringue pie that also play into the nose in a good way. It all feels very composed.

Palate: Oh, I thought the Maple Syrup casks would be less subtle than this, but I’m wrong. I can taste it at almost every turn – there’s simply no way to get around it. Thankfully, I don’t find it ruining every sip. It begins to accentuate every taste, not overwhelm it.

But I’ll be dammed, there is that trademark minerality that pops up throughout giving each sip an almost effervescent character like a root beer or cola. Huh. The rye content (at least, that’s what it’s coming off as) imparts cinnamon spices, oak spice and some orange extract. Interesting! The maple and orange notes are two that I definitely would not have imagined could pair well together, but I think they kind of do here and I like it a lot. There’s also a nuttiness throughout like pecans that mixes so well with the excess vanilla flavors I’m picking up. They’re both enveloped in chocolate – so like a Turtle sundae? This is pretty good and is surpassing my expectations with every sip.

Finish: Sweetness from the maple cask remains for a moderate amount of time. But the finish isn’t nearly as long as I thought it would be. This is not a new phenomenon with me and finished whiskies. Sometimes the ones that are sticky sweet can last the shortest amount of time. I think that’s because the sweet traits bond to every other flavor and carry them away. Nothing sticks around in your mouth. Odd. Other than that gripe, I find light cinnamon, caramel, sugared nuts and some birch beer lingering for all the more time they can, then they simply vanish. Even tannic notes like tobacco leaf and a little bit of oak don’t put up much of a fight.

Score: 7.9/10

Dangerously close to receiving a rating of 8/10, this Widow Jane release nevertheless exceeded all of my expectations. The sweetness from the maple casks wasn’t overbearing. It was present all the time, but I felt like it gave the other ingredients enough room to move around in the kitchen so they could cook. I also enjoyed the minerality notes giving the overly sticky sweet flavors more of a balance. My mouth felt like I just left the county fair after a night of indulging in sweets, but the cola effect, etc that came from that minerality somehow felt like it kept it all in check.

Final Thoughts

Widow Jane delivered a bourbon that achieves something that many other producers have struggled with: creating a whiskey that has just enough maple influence without collapsing into a sugar bomb. I think they nailed the finishing timeframe and the thickness that the maple syrup provides means that its (relatively) low proof doesn’t feel like a compromise.

Decadence’s price increase over the last few years can’t be ignored, but it’s also not the worst value in finished bourbon when considering its age statement (10-years-old) compared to its price ($125). I could think of worse. So go ahead and splurge if you’re a fan of honey cask finishes or other maple syrup cask finishes, this is one of the better ones out there.