Review #9: St. George Baller

The Butte wildfire has been ongoing north of San Francisco (our sky looked like Armageddon the day after, with a eerie red sun and fog directly in SF city – and up north in Concord – which is still very far from ground Zero – you could clearly see particles of ash floating around like snow). It’s a major piece of news, and around 10-20% of the pedestrians in the city have been wearing flu masks in attempts to not inhale the air.

This may have biased our review toward tasting ash and campfire, but the whiskey itself is just not subtle. Rather, it’s more a coincidence that we happen to have selected to review this whiskey at the same time as the Butte County fires.

Quick overview of our scoring system

Additional Information

• 100% American barley (mostly two-row pale malted barley, rest lightly roasted)
• Aged 3-4 years in used bourbon casks and French oak wine casks before finished in casks that held umeshu (Japanese style of plum liqueur) that is also made by St. George
• Filtered through maple charcoal
• ABV 47%

More about St. George and Baller:

• Our review of the St. George distillery tour: a Willy Wonka factory for alcohol enthusiasts
• Baller was developed with the goal of creating “the perfect base for a Japanese highball” (hence its name) and was originally created in collaboration with the Ramen Shop in Oakland
• Also dubbed “a California take on the Japanese spin on Scotch whisky” by head distiller Lance Winters