Ragged Branch Distillery, a farm-to-glass whiskey distillery in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, announces its Straight Bourbon – Honey Barrel Finished took one of the top awards at the Virginia Bourbon Invitational this year.
The Invitational, hosted by Tarnished Truth Distilling of Virginia Beach, is an annual celebration of Virginia bourbons (and other spirits) made in the Old Dominion. Among the top awards every year is the Judge’s Blind Tasting and Ragged Branch took the top spot this year.
Aged for greater than five years, finished in a barrel used to store honey, and bottled at a robust barrel proof, Ragged Branch Straight Bourbon – Honey Barrel Finished is a popular and highly coveted limited release available exclusively at the Charlottesville distillery’s gift shop.
“Our program always includes having something special in the Tasting Room and the honey is one of the most popular things we’ve done,” says Ragged Branch co-founder and bourbon maker Alex Toomy. “The honey bourbon is extremely unique, especially since we bottle it at barrel proof, but it’s very labor-intensive, making it hard for our guys to scale. There’s nothing like it, though, and the hard work we put into it shows up in how it drinks.”
About Ragged Branch Distillery:
Ragged Branch is a farm-to-bottle distillery making authentic straight bourbon and straight rye whiskey the old-fashioned way, using hard work and uncompromising attention to detail. We are farmers who feel responsible for caring for our land and allowing people to connect with it so they can taste it. As a working farm, our goal is to make the best whiskey we can in the most sustainable way possible while offering a flavor profile that is completely unique to us. We grow the grain to use in our recipes and have produced, aged, and bottled every drop of our whiskey on-site since the beginning.
