‘A Truly Multidimensional Whiskey Experience’: Puncher’s Chance Drops Unconventional Blend of Bourbon and Irish Whiskey
Puncher’s Chance unveiled The Unified Belt Bourbon/Irish Blend (Photo: Puncher’s Chance)
On Tuesday, Wolf Spirit and MMA Announcer Bruce Buffer’s bourbon brand, Puncher’s Chance Bourbon, unveiled its fifth release, The Unified Belt. The limited-release expression is a three-cask blend of bourbon and Irish whiskey, with some 14-year-old bourbon added to the blend for extra depth.
Puncher’s Chance is no stranger to playing with different blends and finishes. Last year, the brand released The Left Cross, a 14-year-old bourbon that was finished in Jamaican dark rum barrels, which received a favorable review at Whiskey Raiders.
“Like we did with Puncher’s Chance The Left Cross, which was finished in Jamaican rum casks, we wanted to push our creativity to create a truly multidimensional whiskey experience,” Wolf Spirit founder Umberto Luchini said in a news release from the brand. “The bourbon and Irish whiskey created an intriguing blend, but I think it was the addition of the 14-year-old bourbon finished in sherry casks that really created something unexpected and special in The Unified Belt, which is the hallmark of the Puncher’s Chance brand.”
The bourbon for The Unified Belt was sourced from Kentucky distillery IJW.
For The Unified Belt, IJW Master Blender Steven Hughes chose a 4-year-old, high-rye Kentucky Straight Bourbon that was aged for four years in the blend. The bourbon was distilled from a mashbill of 70% corn, 20% rye and 10% malt with the brand’s yeast strain and then spent four years aging in #4 alligator char barrels in Danville, Kentucky.
The bourbon then journeyed across the sea to Ireland, where it was blended with a 4-year-old Irish whiskey made exclusively with malted barley and proprietary yeast. The two whiskeys spent time aging in ex-bourbon barrels at a “palletized warehouse in Ireland,” according to Puncher’s Chance.
For a bit of depth, Hughes chose to add a 14-year-old bourbon finished in first-fill Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso Sherry Casks for approximately one year and three months. The 14-year-old bourbon’s mashbill was composed of 84% corn, 8% rye and 8% malt.
Clocking in at 96 proof, the blended whiskey hosts a suggested retail price of $149.99 for a 750-milliliter bottle.
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