Blackened Whiskey tells BourbonBlog.com they have collaborated with Kaveh Zamanian, founder of Rabbit Hole, for the 2023 release of its “Masters of Whiskey Series.”
For this release, esteemed whiskey visionaries, Dietrich and Zamanian, crafted the expression from a base of 13-year-old straight Tennessee bourbon whiskey featuring a mash bill of 64 percent corn, 36 percent rye, and Rabbit Hole Heigold High Rye Double Malt Kentucky straight bourbon, made from a mash bill of 70 percent corn, 25 percent malted rye, and 5 percent malted barley. The whiskey is then finished in Calvados Casks, imparting sweeter notes as Calvados is an apple brandy.
The blend is bottled at cask strength at a proof of 106.59, non-chill filtered. It is available in-store and online for limited quantities for a suggested retail price of $149.
The Process and Innovation
The partnership stems from both brands’ passion, reputation, and innovative ability. Beyond traditional methods, Zamanian creates unique mash bills using malt sourced from Europe, while Blackened Whiskey pushea the envelope with its “Black Noise” sonic-enhancement process.
During finishing, the whiskey is sonically-enhanced to extract more flavor from the finishing casks, using a process co-developed by Meyer Sound engineers. The process produces low hertz sound waves causing the whiskey to interact with the oak staves of the finishing barrel, measurably releasing wood compounds and flavors. This innovative approach led them to the flavorful blend, expressing their ardor for constantly challenging traditional whiskey-making processes and treating the craft as an art form.
A word from the Whiskey Makers…
“It was so exciting to be able to work with BLACKENED Whiskey and Rob Dietrich,” Zamanian tells BourbonBlog.com. “It seems like it was just an organic process, more art than science when we came together. It’s always great to be able to work with whiskey makers who are doing new things, such as BLACKENED, as it helps us learn more and improve our game. And ultimately the consumers benefit from it too, because you get new expressions – something that’s genuinely different and a blend of our different approaches and voices.”
“The ‘Masters of Whiskey Series’ represents our dedication to innovation and speaks to our core principle of collaboration,” Robert Trujillo tells us. “Just as Metallica always tries to blaze new trails with our music and artistic style, we love that we are able to do the same with our approach to crafting exceptional whiskey.”
“It was great working with Kaveh, as we came in with different backgrounds and similar mindsets, with a passion to create something unusual and unique to see where we could take it,” explained Rob fDietrich. “We were both interested in starting with the 13-year-old Tennessee bourbon whiskey, and then worked back to see what was going to pair well with that as far as mash bill and blending different whiskeys from their distillery. We were really looking for something that balanced and layered the flavor profiles together, then adding a dash of flavor through the Calvados cask finishing. I’m ecstatic at what we came up with!”
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