3 minute read
I went into this one ready to be unimpressed. Finished bourbon is a crowded category right now, and most tequila-cask experiments I’ve tried either taste like a bourbon wearing a costume or lean so hard on the agave you forget what you poured. After a few pours of Widow Jane’s 10 Year Tequila Ocho Cask Finish, neat, at the end of the day, I keep going back to it. The agave is there. It just isn’t trying to take over.
This is Widow Jane’s flagship 10-year bourbon, blended five barrels at a time in Red Hook, Brooklyn, then finished for eight months in casks that previously held Tequila Ocho’s aged expressions. According to the distillery, it’s the first time Tequila Ocho has released its barrels for whiskey production, which is more interesting than most cross-category cask swaps. Ocho doesn’t sell off its wood, so the fact that any of it ended up in Brooklyn is the part of the story I actually care about.
What It Tastes Like
Pour it neat and let it sit a minute or two. The first sip is classic Widow Jane: oak, caramel, a little dark fruit, that soft Rosendale Mines water rounding off the edges. Then the finish shows up on the back end. There’s a brightness that wasn’t in the standard 10, somewhere between citrus peel and dried stone fruit, with a roasted agave note that lingers without announcing itself. The mouthfeel is silkier than I expect at 91 proof, and that’s the part keeping the bottle at the front of my bar cart.
What I like is that you can taste the cask influence without losing the bourbon. A lot of finished whiskeys read like a trick where the base spirit gets buried. Here the agave behaves more like a seasoning. If you spent any time with the inverse Tequila Ocho Widow Jane Barrel Select that ran in 2022, where Ocho aged in Widow Jane bourbon barrels, you can hear these two distilleries having the same conversation from opposite sides of the table.
Who It’s For
This isn’t a bottle for someone who wants their bourbon to punch them in the face. It’s a sipper. If you already drink Widow Jane and want a slightly more aromatic version of what you know, or you drink Tequila Ocho and are curious how those barrels behave on the other side, this lands in an interesting place. It’s also worked on a couple of friends who claim they don’t like bourbon, which is usually a sign the finish is doing its job.
I wouldn’t waste it in a cocktail. At $74.99 and 91 proof, it’s built for a Glencairn with maybe a few drops of water to open up the citrus and herbal side. Anything heavier and you lose the part you paid for.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
It’s non-chill filtered, proofed with limestone-rich water from the Rosendale Mines in upstate New York, and released in small batches. Limited run, so if it shows up at a shop near you and you’ve been on the fence about finished bourbons, this is the one I’d actually tell you to try.
I’ve had a lot of bourbons this year that promised something different and delivered the same thing in different packaging. This is not that. It’s become the pour I reach for when I want something familiar with just enough of a turn to keep me interested, and that’s a harder thing to pull off than the spec sheet makes it sound.
