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Stranahan's Sherry Cask Single Malt Whiskey

Founded in 2004, Stranahan's was an early comer to the craft distilling scene, and the first microdistillery to open in Colorado. Stranahan's is named for co-founder George Stranahan, notably also a co-founder of Flying Dog Brewery, which went so far as to provide all the wash for the distillery until adequate brewing equipment could be procured. The distillery was acquired, in 2010, by Proximo Spirits, notable for their distribution of Jose Cuervo in the United States along with ownership of several other "premium" alcohol brands.

Stranahan's produce a range of Single Malts, each with different finishing characteristics, including the annual, unique "Snowflake" release available for only one day each year. Today I'm trying the Sherry Cask Finish; this is batch 2 (out of 3, so far), it is non chill-filtered, given an age statement of 4 years, finished in Oloroso Sherry casks, and finally bottled at 94 proof.

The malt pours a muted yellow-gold with emerald highlights. Big, playful fruit snack cup nose; cherries, mandarin orange slices, even some granny smith appleright down to that satisfying acidic snapand all this fringed with a deeper, duskier oxidative character from the sherry. Nose closes out with oak tannin, cinnamon bark, and marzipan candies. Palate is supple and generous, herbal and medicinal in the sense of Cherry Heering and throat lozenges, but also sweet and rich with notes of dried apricot and strawberries splashed with vanilla and cooking sherry, finally falling off into mulled wines with a drying, wood dominated finish. The result is total transportation to the family kitchen: desert is being prepared after the holiday dinner, the good wine from earlier still coats your throat while you sneak samples of the homemade frosting and nibble on the leftover fruits. Maybe you're even thinking about a small slice of the brandied fruit cake that distant aunt insists on sending every year, served with a slip of desert wine from that dusty bottle in the back of the cupboard. You've got a case of the winter sniffles though, so your parents fish a bag of those pricey, all-natural cough drops out of the medicine cabinet and you take one now and two for laterthe fruit cake will have to wait for tomorrow morning.

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