Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] What happens when you take some incredible Anejo tequilas and introduce them to barrels that once held French apple brandy? Well, today we're going to find out. I've got something pretty special sitting on this table here. We're going to do a three way blind of Calvados barrel aged tequila. And one of these hasn't even been released yet. Today we're going to go through these three interesting anejos. Three of these are coming from three different distilleries. Of course, you've got NOM 1123 Cascal Whean. You've got the amazing 1414. And you've got a new distillery, 1648. Now here's something that's kind of cool. Costcoine has been aging tequila in House of Rare barrels for quite some time. And this is their rare cask selection. This is 1648, the new house of Rare distillery. And of course we got Alma de Haguire or the jaguar coming from 1414. So you know how this works. I put these in the solo blind, we spin them around so we don't know which is which.
[00:00:54] And let's set these to the side here and set this up and get to tasting and nosing these three tequilas. All right, so we have amazing production methods of all three of these. One Cascoine, you know, they're awesome process, stone oven cooked. They're going to be roller mill crushed. In this case it's going to be stainless steel fermentation, twice distilled in their copper and then into the Calvados barrels. 1414, stone oven cook, Highland agave. They're going to go through the roller mill process, stainless steel fermentation with Mozart method. Classical music being played, open air fermentation wild and a cultivated yeast. Double distilled copper pots double and then deep well water. And then when you've got this wonderful House of Rare over here, let's give you a little idea of what the House of Rare bottles look like. This is House of Rare. This is their founder's cut bottle. So this is this brand, but in a plastic water bottle. I actually got the opportunity to dip it straight from the barrel and fill this up. We had several barrels that we tasted there. Absolutely amazing. So stone oven cooked, roller mill crush stainless steel fermentation, twice distilled there with stainless steel pots with copper coils. And then again in a House of rare Calvados barrels, three gray tequilas, two from the valley, one from the Highlands and then aged in Calvados. This one was aged for 18 months.
[00:02:10] This one is aged for 18 months, and this one was still aging, and it wasn't on yay hill at the time frame, so I don't know the actual aging timeframe of when we pulled this from the barrel. So now let's dive into the nose of all three of these. Duh. The. The cooked agave is there, but this smell of apple to me is just so good. I. I love a tequila with cinnamon, and a tequila with apple in the nose just is really awesome for me. It's got a great barrel note, a little bit of minerality as well. All right, let's dive into the middle one. This one's a little darker in the barrel flavor, a little more oak, a little less apple, a little less of the cooked agave, if you will. This one has a little bit more minerality to it too. The more I smell it, though, the more that apple kind of comes out. Okay, let's dive into this last one. This is the lightest nose oak wise, but a nice smell of agave and apple finish together. There's a little bit of a minerality note there too, and a lot of barrel spices in the nose of this one. Okay, so I'm going to say nose wise, the most apple, an apple with a minerality. But this one's fresh and cool. To Gobi with the apple, I'm going to say that that's hard to say which, which one I like the best. I. I mean, they're all so good. Like, it's. It's hard to taste one of or smell one of these and go, oh, that's my favorite because each one is unique and has a lot of flavor to it. So I'm going to hit this one first. A lot of barrel, a lot of apple, a lot of barrel spice. This one is warm. I'm going to say that it's probably a higher proof. We didn't talk about proof.
[00:03:43] The cascal ween is coming in at 45.
[00:03:46] The Alma. The Hagwire is coming in at 44. And this one, I have no idea because it was just in the barrel, has a nice sweetness, a nice apple note that I get in the nose, but a lot of barrel, less cooked agave. This one, a really nice sweetness, a nice cooked agave, a minerality to it.
[00:04:10] I'm going to say that this one actually is cascaline because I get the flavor profile of cascal ween. You get that minerality, that coke agave note it. It's really good. Let's dive this last one here.
[00:04:24] This one has A minerality note that reminds me of 1414. It's a guess. There's great coke agave. There's a nice apple note, but there's a little bit more citrus in this one and a little bit richer minerality. Not like the minerality of this one, which is like petrichor. This one is a minerality that's like the water, like a, like a. I don't know. I don't know the, the compound or note to say, but it's. It's kind of like what the well water would taste like, but in a good way. The apple and the cinnamon, there's more cinnamon in this one than what there is in the other two. And cinnamon to me sometimes comes out more in highland agave. So this is like I said, totally a guess, but.
[00:05:06] And taste. 1, 2, 3. This one is just a lot more barrel spice to me than what I was expecting. So let's see what number one is. Number one is 1414. So what I thought was Cascoine was 1414. So they're completely wrong. So let's see what this one is. This one is House of Rare.
[00:05:27] So totally off my game. And this one is 1123.
[00:05:32] So this one to me is just very much more barrel notes than what I was expecting. And this one had more of a citrusy note, lighter mouthfeel, a cinnamon note that's in there. And then this one just had this rich minerality that I thought was cascadine, but. Wow. Okay, Alma, the hagwire takes that one. That was really good. But I gotta say all three of these are fantastic. And when this actually comes out in a bottle, you're gonna have to pick it up because it is just so good. So let me know your thoughts. I know maybe you've got the opportunity to pick this one up. It is a distillery only bottle, so you can only get it when you're at the distillery. This is a selection that came out last year that I know they became very difficult to find, but it's one of my favorite barrels to age tequila in this. This apple brandy barrel or a Calvados barrels are so good.
[00:06:24] This one, I don't know when it's going to hit the market, but it's. It's stupid. Fantastic.
[00:06:28] So let me know in the comments what you thought this would turn out and if you've had Calvados aged tequilas and what your thoughts on those are. I'm going to hit the sack. Cheers. Have a great night.
