Balcones Unveils American Single Malt Whiskey Inspired By the 2024 Solar Eclipse

Balcones Distilling’s new whiskey — Balcones Mirador Eclipse American Single Malt — is an ode to April’s solar eclipse. (Photo: Balcones Distilling)

On Tuesday, the Waco, Texas-based whiskey producer, Balcones Distilling, announced the release of a whiskey inspired by the solar eclipse swept across the U.S. on Monday.

According to the brand, Balcones Mirador Eclipse American Single Malt is inspired by the “exquisite and uncontrollable nature of eclipses.”

Balcones says it wanted to capture the essence of the massive celestial event with the whiskey.

“Solar eclipses can be anticipated but not changed. They are beyond our attempts to control, calling us back to the specific time and place we are in, making us view ourselves and our place in a different light, with fresh hues and contrasts,” Balcones Distilling Head Distiller Jared Himstedt said in a news release. “This is exactly what it feels like to create whisky with the volatile and unexpected climate of Texas, and it is what we built into this release, playing with subtlety to give a new perspective and contrast to a whisky.”

To make this single malt, Balcones used two strains of yeast — a red wine and a rosé yeast — alongside its house malt whisky yeast. Balcones claims this combination of yeasts has “unlocked a symphony of soft, blush red berry, and fruits-of-the-forest notes rarely seen in single malts.”

Balcones Mirador Eclipse American Single Malt was aged between four and five years in a mix of first-, second- and third-fill ex-Kentucky bourbon casks before being bottled at 110 proof.

The single malt has a suggested retail price of $100 and will be made available beginning in May at select liquor retailers in Texas, California, Illinois, Colorado, New York, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Missouri, New Jersey, Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, Oregon, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“Mirador Eclipse is a tribute to the beauty and unpredictability of solar eclipses; an invitation to appreciate a moment of cosmic scale from our vantage point,” Himstedt said. “We sought to create a whisky that honors this celestial spectacle by pushing flavor exploration into a different light.”

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