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A couple days ago I mentioned how Parker’s Heritage Collection was was only rivaled in longevity and number of experimental releases by the Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection and Woodford Reserve’s Master’s Collection. Apparently Woodford had so many experiments that they needed a second line to put them all in. This necessitated Chris Morris and his team to release “Woodford Reserve Distillery Series” in 2015. The concept was for a much smaller release that would be put into smaller, 375ml bottles and sold only at the distillery in Versailles. Nowadays, this collection can be found at select retailers around the state of Kentucky. As a side note, the success of Woodford’s Distillery Series led to Brown-Forman ordering Jack Daniel’s and Old Forester to release similar 375ml bottlings; which they later did in 2018 and 2021, respectively.
2025 Woodford Reserve Distillery Series: Chocolate Whisper Redux
I mention both the Master’s Collection and Distillery Series because the bottle I’m reviewing today has lineage amongst both labels. The story starts back around 2013 when Chris Morris and his team finished distilling an experimental bourbon mash bill using 70% corn, 15% chocolate malted rye and 15% distillers malted barley.
For those of you who weren’t already tracking, there are various levels a malted grain can be toasted during the kilning process. Rather than using a numerical system or color system, they use a flavor identifier to signal how much it’s been toasted. “Honey malt” is a very light kilning and results in honey sweetness. “Caramel malt” is a moderate amount of kilning and results in the sugars tasting like they’ve been caramelized. And finally, “Chocolate malt” is an extreme amount of kilning that results in the grain becoming roasted almost to the point of being burned. This will create the deepest, most concentrated chocolate-like flavors without much sweetness.
Getting back to the topic at hand – After Woodford completed the distillation of what would eventually become the 2019 Master’s Collection Chocolate Malted Rye, they apparently forgot to do a complete draining/cleaning of the distillate collection tank. It wasn’t until they completed the next run of bourbon (their standard 72/18/10) that the taster noticed they could still taste residual chocolate flavors in the new distillate. Rather than dispose of it, an idea to barrel it up and see how it would age was hatched.
Cool story so far, but the one hole that other reviewers have pointed out is how (or why) a large, competent distillery like Woodford would even allow something like that to happen in the first place. What happened to their quality control? That has led some to suggest maybe it was just a planned experiment that was spun into a tall tale – kind of like the story behind Wild Turkey’s Unforgiven whiskey.
Anyway, the first time enthusiasts got a chance to taste this experiment was in 2021 with the release of Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Chocolate Malt Whisper. Well, maybe you had a chance to taste it. I didn’t because I knew it was related to Chocolate Malted Rye and didn’t want anything to do with it. But in 2025, I heard about another continuation to this experiment and happened to be in the right place at the right time to try it for myself. I couldn’t say no because curiosity got the best of me. After all, this would be one of the oldest and highest-proofed bourbons ever to come out of Woodford Reserve.
Twelve years old and 139.4 proof have has me wondering if it will fry fry my tastebuds or will all the time spent in a barrel mellow it out? Let’s find out. I sampled this neat in a glencairn.
Tasting Notes
Nose: This smells like a piece of Portillo’s famous chocolate cake. The sweet scents don’t end there as I can still find plenty of toffee notes and cinnamon bread. For maturing so long in a barrel in a heat-cycled warehouse (more on that in a minute), I was a little surprised that oak wasn’t totally dominating every sniff. That’s not to say there wasn’t a good amount of oak, just that I was expecting it to be way overdone. I do find a bit of tobacco and leather scents within which also speak to its age. As for fruit notes, I’m not detecting too terribly much outside of some cherries. I honestly think the chocolate does a good job of holding your attention over everything else.
Palate: Bracing for impact with this proof, but upon first sip I realize I’m wincing for no reason. This is actually fairly smooth and pleasant to sip. One thing I must point out is that the bottle had been opened days prior and had 2 ounces missing (for those of you who believe in neck pours being a thing). The two main flavors I find are chocolate and coffee grounds. I also find the flavor of a Tootsie Roll which is always a treat in a bourbon. These are normal flavors for whiskies with malted rye in the mash bill which I know this doesn’t have, but the influence still seems quite strong. Thankfully, there isn’t mint in here which kind of kills the mood for me and any whiskey with malted rye. Now I can focus on all the things that make Woodford a well-crafted bourbon in the first place. Oak, caramel, vanilla and baking spices. Just like the nose, I’m not picking up on much fruit, but cherries do seem to be the one I zero in on when my tastebuds eventually come around.
Finish: Strong to the finish – the chocolate in this bourbon has certainly covered the beginning, middle and end of this dram. Still, it’s not annoying and it’s not overdone. It’s honestly the perfect note each time I take a sniff or a sip. Every other flavor is just playing second fiddle it feels like. I can still find the Tootsie Roll note I found on the palate and it still is coupled with oak, (dark) caramel, vanilla and baking spices. The best part about this high proof is how long the finish lasts.
Score: 8.1/10
I was worried coming into this session that the chocolate malted rye influence would dominate and make everything taste like Andes After-Dinner mints. I don’t know why, but much like Amburana-finished whiskies, I have also started to develop an aversion to malted rye and chocolate malted rye. They’re no longer fun to me. But Chocolate Whisper Redux was different enough that I found myself enjoying it and not worrying about experiencing the flavors I was trying to avoid.
I’m also here to say that I felt like the proof was much more manageable than I would have originally believed. Now if Woodford would have bottled a 139+ proof bourbon at only 6 years old, I’d have reason to fear that I wouldn’t be able to taste food for a week. With that being said, would it have been better if Elizabeth McCall left it alone at whatever higher proof it was originally? Maybe not! As I become more experienced in whiskey, I’m preferring balance over high proofs for the sake of being high proofs. Don’t get me wrong, I still think there’s a bit of showboating here on Woodford’s part for what they bottle this at, but it works and almost seems a bit restrained.
Final Thoughts
At $100 a bottle (and I think they’re all gone now, anyway), this bottle may seem like a terrible value. But when taken into context that every Master’s Collection they puts out these days wears a $200 pricetag – from the 700ml Woodford Double Double Oaked to their newest Sweet Oak Bourbon, this half bottle suddenly makes sense. Woodford has never been one to give us both age and proof in the same product, so I feel like this should be celebrated a little bit more.
Should you buy one if you find it? I would say yes. Out of everything Woodford does, it seems to come back around again. Just look at their Double Double Oaked, wine finished whiskies and malted everything releases. These have all been done for years. But Chocolate Whisper Redux is a product that’s never been so bold and it deserves to be experienced by as many people as possible. Maybe, just maybe, Woodford is finally listening to enthusiasts (like me) who have complained for years that they never give us what we want. And if all they needed to push them over the edge was for Elizabeth McCall to come in and start calling the shots, then consider me her biggest fan.
This is weird, but I wanted to add a section to cover a couple more things that I couldn’t find a way to fit in my intro section for this bourbon. I feel like they should be pondered by anyone who is curious about this bottle or Woodford’s style of distilling and maturing.
- Is it weird to hear that the batch proof of this bourbon was higher than 139.4? I actually have a theory for this. It has to do with Woodford’s high still proof (the proof the distillate comes off the still). I’ve read that it is somewhere between 156 and 158 which is right at the maximum a distiller is allowed to use for bourbon. Almost nobody else in this industry goes above 140 proof for their still proof. They also put it into the barrel quite low – 110 proof to be exact. So my theory revolves around the higher a whiskey is distilled to – regardless of what the eventual barrel entry proof is – the more apt it is to gain all that proof back during the aging process. I guess if I were to explain it like you’re 5, I’d say that whatever the whiskey came off the still at, it’s almost like the whiskey wants to return to that same proof as it matures. This is why we see so many Four Roses/MGP bourbons hovering around 120 proof and why Heaven Hill products have a propensity to get into the high 130’s after a dozen years in the barrel. Granted, warehouse and barrel location matter a lot, but if everything was equal I think we’d see whiskey trying to shed all of the water that was added after the distillation process to regain the proof it once had.
- I used to doubt that Woodford’s products were older than 4 or 5 years old strictly based on the knowledge that Old Forester’s Single Barrels are almost exclusively between that age range. This is due to heat-cycled maturation which I have no beef with. But various interviews over the years with Woodford people have sometimes had comments about how their bourbon is between 7 and 8 years old. I thought that was a lie, but if we do the math on a release like this and the two bottles in its lineage, then we really do find out that the original Chocolate Malted Rye was between 6 and 6.5 years-old and the Chocolate Malt Whisper release was between 8 and 8.5 years-old. Count me impressed that the age range they’ve given us in the past is fairly accurate.