The Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Sonoma-Cutrer Finish is an… unique whiskey. It’s a wine finished whiskey, specifically Sonoma-Cutrer Chardonnay, which I’ve never had. The wine or the whiskey – till now. Either way, this is a whole new taste adventure.

Finished bourbon isn’t rare or unique these days — heck we did a PX finished bourbon from Rabbit Hole earlier — but it is still interesting. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, most of the time it’s meh. The bourbon review below will tell us which category this one belongs in.

Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Sonoma-Cutrer Finish Review: Details and Tasting Notes

In Woodford Reserve’s Words:

NA – no descriptions listed on their site

Details (price, mash bill, cask type, ABV, etc.)

Region: Kentucky, USA

Distiller: Woodford Reserve
Mash Bill: 72% Corn, 18% Rye, 10% Malted Barley
Cask: New Charred Oak, ex-Chardonnay
Age: NAS
ABV: 43.2%

Price: $150

Tasting Notes

EYE
Cloudy orange

NOSE
Fresh cut pumpkin DOMINATES. Some lighter notes of overripe fruit, chalk, raw wood, cocoa powder, stale apricots and powdered sugar.

PALATE
PUMPKIN, like carving a fresh one for Halloween… WTF. Like the aroma there are some light notes of “other stuff” floating around, but damn… pumpkin. Young oak, overripe fruit, strawberry candy, copper and sweat (yes the stuff from your pores), raw grain and stale spice. Wrap all of that up and give it a sugar glaze…

FINISH
Medium (thankfully) -> Pumpkin, sweat, copper, raw grain, overripe fruit and more pumpkin

BALANCE, BODY & FEEL
Not balanced, medium body, soft chalky feel.

Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Sonoma-Cutrer Finish Review: Overall and Score

Raw pumpkin rolled in terrible flavors and dipped in sugar… that’s the short edition. Longer, the Aroma is just plain unpleasant and comes through young, dry and like the whiskey somehow spoiled and was dumped into a pumpkin to finish; Palate is even less pleasant if you can imagine that, it’s just a whole glass of NO; Finish is the least horrible part, but I wish it was shorter, like John E. Fitzgerald Very Special Reserve short.

In short, I don’t like it. The Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Sonoma-Cutrer Finish is just not pleasant at all and if you think I’m being harsh let me put it this way. A little while ago we put on a Southern California Whiskey Club blind tasting of 8 different spirits. In that tasting this was almost unanimously the worst of the night — that’s rarely the case.

The other spirit that picked up some votes for worst of the night was a soapy Armagnac so some people like soap more than raw pumpkin. Side note, the soapy Armagnac was someone’s favorite of the night (I gave them the bottle to take home). That night was an elegant display of the diversity of palates and how a bad whiskey can unite them.

SCORE: 45/100 (F)

*Thanks to Sku for making this Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Sonoma-Cutrer Finish review possible

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