Taste Test: The Dark, Brooding and Delightful Cataleja Texas Single Malt Is an Ode to Balcones’ Past and Window to Its Future
Balcones Cataleja Texas Single Malt is the latest whiskey from Balcones Distilling Co.
In honor of Balcones Distilling’s 15th anniversary, which it celebrated in October, the Waco, Texas-based distillery released a special whiskey: Cataleja Texas Single Malt.
The whiskey takes its name from the Spanish word for “spyglass,” catalejo. As the company turns 15 years old, the Balcones team has discussed at length the position it finds itself in: a sort of in-between state. It’s one of the oldest distilleries in Texas, yet Texas is one of the youngest states when it comes to whiskey tradition. Balcones understands to an extent the house profile of “Balcones whiskey,” but it’s still experimenting and trying new things. It’s become more established over the years but is still far from set in its ways.
That’s the reason for the name Cataleja. Balcones’ head distiller, Jared Himstedt, describes it as “this idea of a tool that you use to locate yourself, and you can look both forward and backward from wherever it is you are and kind of have some sense of: On this path, where are you at this given moment?”
Read More: ‘It Was Always the Goal’: Balcones Ditches Bourbon, Dedicates Future to American Single Malt Whiskey
Cataleja’s Origins: Balcones’ Quest for Larger Casks
The story behind Cataleja Texas Single Malt begins in Spain. Balcones Spirits Manager Gabe RiCharde was in the country for personal reasons, and Himstedt asked him if he’d be interested in visiting some Spanish wine bodegas to help Balcones forge relationships through which to source puncheons.
Balcones was interested in acquiring Spanish puncheons because of their size. Texas’ harsh climate can make it difficult to age whiskey for elongated periods of time, especially due to the amount of whiskey that evaporates inside the barrels as they age in the state’s dry heat. For this reason, Balcones and most other Texas distilleries haven’t been able to produce whiskeys with age statements beyond five or six years.
“We’ve been on this path to try to figure out how we dance with the Texas climate for a long time,” Himstedt said, and explained that through experimentation, the distillers discovered that using larger casks seemed to be a big help.
Therein lies the reason for RiCharde’s mission in Spain. The most common barrels used to age American whiskey are 200 liters, and Balcones was in search of much larger vessels. Spanish sherry puncheons were the perfect option, and RiCharde returned from Spain triumphant, having selected 600- and 700-liter behemoths.
The decommissioned solera sherry puncheons range from 60 years of age to over 100, and they came packing flavor. Balcones had been after the puncheons for their size, not their sherry character, so the plan was to age a few batches of whiskey in these barrels in order to make them neutral — in other words, essentially use whiskey to suck the sherry flavor out of the casks and into the whiskey — but this didn’t go as planned.
“The goal was just: I’ll get them rinsed a few times with some whiskey, and it’ll be neutral,” Himstedt said. “And then we can embark on this 8- to 10- to 12-year single malt project.”
After the first round of finishing, the whiskey was super sweet and grape-forward — not a huge surprise, and Balcones expected the following batches to be similar in profile but toned down. Instead?
“It actually just kind of kept changing,” Himstedt said. “So, there was less color, less sugar, less density, but like some of the earthier, fruitier, even like some funky cheesy kind of notes — that stuff kept increasing, and we were like, ‘Man, this is so weird.”
So, Balcones figured they might as well do something cool with this sherry-finished whiskey they had as a result of their efforts to neutralize the puncheons.
That is Cataleja, an American single malt whiskey aged for three years in ex-Kentucky bourbon barrels before being the third batch of whiskey to be finished in the puncheons RiCharde selected from Moscatel, Amontillado Dulce, Oloroso and Palo Cortado Spanish wine cellars.
Selecting the Blend
With four intriguing styles of Spanish sherry finishes to select from, determining the final blend of Cataleja was challenging but exciting work for Balcones.
The Moscatel-finished whiskey delivered fruity and citrusy notes of peach, orange and apricot, while Balcones says the Amontillado Dulce puncheon contributed an umami profile with notes of sulfur and mushroom to the final blend.
Balcones’ task was to balance those components with the more traditional sherry profiles of the Palo Cortado and Oloroso puncheons, and Himstedt says he had “kind of an existential crisis” while trying to make final blending decisions.
“As a blender, I was like, man, this should be done all the time,” Himstedt said. “But then you can also [feel] like there’s too many options.”
Cataleja bears no age statement, but Balcones tells us the components of the blend are between 4 and 6 years old.
Tasting Balcones Cataleja Texas Single Malt Whiskey
Cataleja is dark, deep and brooding on the nose. It emits scents of coffee beans, leather, dark chocolate and some definite sweet sherry influence. This is a complex nose, and the tasting notes go on and on as you absorb the aromas: maple, honey, char, cherries, blackberries and blueberry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Crème brûlée. Orange blossom. The nose is incredibly rich with some lovely spice: cinnamon and paprika.
As you sip Cataleja, it envelopes your tongue with an oily mouthfeel. The palate presents plenty of coffee and char up front and masterfully intertwines sweet with savory. There’s brown sugar and rich vanilla custard, but also a big hit of sulfur and a meaty note, like a pork loin on a smoker. There’s spice here, too, with some pepper and cinnamon sugar. A nice dose of oak hits midway through the pour and is followed by fruity undercurrents, with seared mango, orange, pineapple and cherries.
The finish is long, oaky and savory. There’s loads of smoke, joined by sulfur, charcoal, tobacco and an earthy mushroom note.
For Balcones, this complex, fun sipping whiskey is an ode to the past as well as an indicator of the future.
“This release is very firmly planted in what inspired us and does inspire us,” Himstedt said. “We’re beginning to articulate those categories a little bit better when we make whiskey to tell that story better, of what’s referencing where we come from and what’s referencing this vague, unknown place that we’re headed to.”
The past is in the whiskey in the Golden Promise barley it’s distilled from — a heritage variant sourced from Scotland. And we see Balcones’ future here, as well, in the intricate blend of four sherry finishes. While Cataleja is, to a degree, a one-off (as Himstedt notes, it’s unlikely they “run into a bunch of 60- and 100-year-old sherry casks” again), Himstedt says the team is interested in exploring a variety of wine finishes on future whiskeys.
And then there’s the simple fact that the whiskey is a single malt — that’s both Balcones’ past and future. The brand started out making single malt but over the years ended up spending a great deal of time and energy on other projects. Now 15 years in, Balcones is committing its future focus to single malt.
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