La Pulga Still Austin Double Barrel Reposado Review | Worth the Hype?

[00:00:00] What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Tasting Tequila with Brad. You guys know I'm always looking for something that's different, but different for the right reasons. And today we're going to check out this brand new La Pulga Still Austin double barreled reposado. And when I first heard about this collaboration, I was really excited because I love La Puga and I think Still Austin is a fantastic brand. What I was worried about first is did this barrel cover up the taste of agave? Now we're going to find out. I did open this and let it rest for a little while. I put it in the glass so it could breathe for about 15, 20 minutes. This is distilled at 45% ABV and this brand normally distills to proof, so that means no added water. Now this is also 100 blue Weber Agave grown in the highlands of jalisco, produced at NOM 1068, all traditional methods. So what makes this one different than their normal reposado? It's aged in normal barrels for seven months like you would their normal reposado, but then it's transferred into freshly emptied Still Austin red corn bourbon barrels for another four months. That's a total of 11 months in oak. They could have waited one more and called this thing Anejo, but instead they're bringing us a pretty special reposado. This was a very limited production and I have bottle 1068. I was lucky enough to be in Denver, Colorado at a really cool liquor store on University, and there it was sitting on the shelf. There were four left, so I grabbed one with some other bottles, was really excited to be able to bring it home and do this review. Now this is a pretty unique aging process because they're not just used bourbon barrels that have been sitting around for years. They came directly from Still Austin after aging that red corn bourbon so they were still loaded with Bour character. The bourbon is primarily made from Texas grown red corn along with rye and malted barley. And those flavors left behind in that charred oak barrel are exactly what this tequila is pulling during those final four months. I really like collaborations like this because they're not trying to make tequila taste like whiskey. They're seeing what happens when two great spirits meet in the barrel while respecting each other's identity. Even the packaging of this one tells a story. The label features the serpent Abrehi. Hope I said that right. Which represents transformation and renewal in Mexican folklore. And for the first time, La Puga has added a bright red keepsake medallion around the neck of the bottle as a tribute to still Austin's signature red corn bourbon. This is a small detail, but I appreciate it when they really do cool things like this. This release was limited to 6,000 bottles, and I think I picked it up about a 70 price point. Okay, let's get on the nose of this one. Yeah, I do get cooked agave. I do pick up like a whiskey barrel note that's really cool. I get some honey, some vanilla, maybe a little bit of nutmeg, anything. It's a lot of, like, different barrel spices. There's a little bit of orange peel hanging out in there too. Okay, let's take a sip of this one. First thing, I notice the sweetness of the cooked agave with this really nice layer of honey and vanilla and that orange peels there. There's a nice piece of caramel is building in there. It's really balanced. There's some cinnamon, a little black pepper and some toasted, like some kind of toasted nuts that's there. I was expecting more whiskey. The whiskey bourbon type feeling really comes into the finish. Like in the back of my breath, I almost can taste like a little bit of whiskey. I want to say that whiskey, from that second taste, it's almost like a sweet corn and whiskey and butterscotch all lined in there together. It has a great mouth feel. And it's pretty, pretty easy to forget that you're drinking something that's 90 proof. The agave shines through. But all these other flavors are pretty amazing. This, this is pretty amazing. This has a lot of really cool flavors that I don't normally pick up in a reposado, but you still can tell you're drinking tequila. This is one. If you can find one of these, if they're still out there, search it out. This one is definitely worth having. The more I drink it, the more I taste it, the more I get different buttery flavors, cooked agave flavors, and that bourbon whiskey type flavors there too. This is really fantastic. I could give this to any of my whiske bros, any of my. My weeded bourbon guys, and I think they would really like this one. And now I think I'm going to get some still Austin and taste this back to back, maybe do a quick sip like the guys on whiskey Tequila Fridays do and see how the two line up together. If you like learning about brands like Lapulga, there was a story in the tequila port not too long ago. You should check it out. 63,000 people get it in their email. You should too. And best of all, it's free. Go to the Tequila Report to sign up as soon as you can. Tequila Report.com subscribe I want to hear from you. If you've had this limited still Austin Lauga reposado. I want to hear it in the comments. Let me know what your thoughts are about this tequila. Let me know what your thoughts are about special releases like this. And if you haven't already hit that like subscribe. Share this with your friends and as always, drink better tequila. See you in the next review, guys. Have a good one. Cheers.