Bourbon & Banter — Lost Lantern American Vatted Malt Edition No. 1 Review

Read full review here

DISTILLER: Blended and bottled by Lost Lantern Whiskey, from a 12-barrel blend from six distilleries across the U.S.:

  • Balcones in Waco, TX
  • Copperworks in Seattle, WA
  • Santa Fe Spirits in Santa Fe, NM
  • Triple Eight on Nantucket, MA
  • Westward in Portland, OR
  • Virginia Distillery Co. in Lovingston, VA

MASH BILL: 100% malted barely from various sources

AGE: 2 Years

YEAR: 2020

PROOF: 105 Proof (52.5% ABV)

MSRP: $120

PAUL’S NOTES

NOSE: Salted Caramel | Malt | Vanilla| Pencil lead | Green oak | A bit of acetone

TASTE:Baking spices | Molasses Cookies

FINISH: Long, pleasant, almost numbing burn | Milk chocolate | Ginger | Barley

SHARE WITH:Fans of America’s small distillery movement.

WORTH THE PRICE: If you’re a true American whiskey-nerd, yes. Otherwise, not quite yet.

BOTTLE, BAR OR BUST: If you can find it in a bar, it’s super interesting and probably worth the price of a dram.

OVERALL: I have made no secret of my love for independent bottlers and recently wrote an article for Bourbon & Banter where I lamented the fact that no one is doing with American whiskies what independent bottlers are able to do with Scotches. Just a few months later, a sample of Lost Lantern, Edition 1 appeared on my doorstep.  I want to open this review with an admission:  I really wanted to like this.

And I did. The nose on this was very interesting in a good way and the palate and the finish are even better. The representatives from the various component distilleries along with Nora and Adam from Lost Lantern did a wonderful job in what must have been a whirlwind of a blending day. The sum of the parts of that day created one of the best American malted whiskies I’d ever tasted. With that being said, I don’t think I can rationalize the price on quality alone. You can get an equally good Scotch for 70-80 dollars and there are quite a few better options for the price point. If you have the money to spare and are interested in standing on the front line of the American Independent Bottlers movement, though, you literally can’t do better.

To be perfectly honest, American single malts just aren’t as good as Scottish ones, so the raw materials that Nora and Adam had to work with are not as strong as an Independent Bottler across the pond. I would highly recommend keeping your eye on what’s coming out of Lost Lantern. As American distilleries develop more expertise and the component distillates become stronger in-and-of themselves, future editions of this are going to be well worth the money – go ahead and #drinkcurious when you have the opportunity!