Batch 2 Valor Blanco + NEW High Proof! First Taste & Future Single Barrel Pick

[00:00:01] Today I get to taste the future. This is batch two of Velor. And this is the product that's sitting in the barrel that'll become my very first tasting tequila with Brad single barrel pick. And it will be Roniejo. And I also have the brand new high fruit. So let's go. You guys know how much I support Cristiano and the Velar team, not just for the tequila, but for what they do in their community with the Hinta Buena foundation. And today's special is I love the blanco that velour made the first time, and I can't wait to taste this second batch. So before anything becomes an anejo, it has to be a gray blanco. And that's why batch two blanco is so important. It is the foundation currently sitting in the barrel for the next 12 to 15 months. That will be that tasting tequila with Brad single barrel Anejo pick in 2026. So the story starts with agave terroir, fermentation, distillation, not to mention the cooking that they do there at Atanasio. So if the tequila isn't good in the beginning, it's not going to become great in the barrel. So let's dive into this one and check it out. Okay, this one I poured a little bit ago is batch two blanco. So let's give it a nose right off the bat. I get cooked agave, get a little bit of that funkiness that you pick up in velour tequila, which I love. I get some nice minerality. It also has a really clean smelling like mint, maybe even a little bit of pear. You get a little bit of sweet pepper as well. All right, let's dive into the taste. [00:01:32] Wow. Super clean cooked agave in the front, front and center. I mean, this, it's a mouthful of really good cooked agave. [00:01:39] I get some nice pepper, some, some kind of vegetable herb note, a touch of lime zest. [00:01:47] It has a nice sweetness to it. I get a little bit of creamy buttery note and an earthy note. It has a great thickness in the mouth, really nice mouth feel. [00:02:02] The finish is sweet. It's vegetal. There's a little bit of pepper comes in and I get a little bit of like a spearmint mintiness in that sweetness. [00:02:14] This blanco, it has a lot of structure. It's pretty complex. It's exactly what I want sitting in that barrel, aging to become that new first time single barrel release. All right, let's dive into this high proof. One thing I didn't mention the blanco this year, batch two is going to be a little bit higher proof at 43. I believe it was 42 the last time it came out. And the new High proof is 47 ABV. All right, so right off on the nose, it's way more intense, way more cooked agave. But I do pick up a little bit of a citrus and some floral notes that I didn't get in the regular blanco. And I picked up a little bit of a minerality, and it still has that nice funkiness, but milder than what it was in the blanco. And I will say it's. To me, it's a lot more mild. The funkiness is way less in batch two than what it was in batch one. All right, let's dive into the taste. [00:03:10] Wow. Okay. [00:03:12] Cooked agave just like the other one, maybe a little brighter. There's a little more pepper. I pick up a little more mint. I get a little bit more citrus than I got in the other one. And this one is a little less creamy in the high proof than what it was in the regular blanco. But I'm picking up this pepper heat in the finish finish that's lasting longer with a little bit more sweetness in that and the body of this one. The mouth feel was maybe a little bit more oily than the regular batch 2 blanco, but not a whole lot. The difference in the ABV is really kind of hard to pick up in the intensity of the alcohol, but the intensity of the agave in the nose of the high proof, and the intensity in the flavors, you'd definitely pick up. I'm going to say for all the real tequila nerds out there, batch two, you're going to love in this high proof. The high proof folks are going to go crazy over this one. This is really good. [00:04:08] So here's what's next. That Blanco Batch 2 was tossed in barrels back around August time frame. It's been sitting in those barrels a little bit. I will get to taste those in January to kind of let you know how they're coming along. And we're going to kind of sit and wait until we taste them. And it's just right to bring them out as an anejo. So I can't promise you it's in a year, it could be 15 months. It could be 18 months. I am really excited to be a part of this. The single barrel that I'm doing, 100% of the profits from the sale of the barrel will go to the hint of wina foundation, and I'm pretty excited to be able to help them out. With a single barrel. If you're excited for this release, drop a comment, let me know. Make sure you subscribe and don't miss any updates on the barrel, the aging and the release date and everything Volar has coming in 2026. Cheers and a shout out to Christiana and the whole Velour family for making this possible.