Spirits of French Lick William Dalton Single Barrel & Lee W. Sinclair
Mike Rosen

Bourbon | Featured Craft Distilleries

August 27, 2022

Earlier this year I was watching a few distilleries online showing off their whiskey at the New Orleans Bourbon Festival, and one of them was Spirits of French Lick. A couple of months later I received an email from Seelbach’s featuring Spirits of French Lick and bought the William Dalton single barrel and the Lee W. Sinclair, Four Grain Bottled in Bond. I’m not usually in the habit of buying a bottle I know so little about, and on this occasion, I bought two. I had a feeling I might like them and that they would probably sell out quickly and they did. I also love trying new wheated bourbons so that may have had something to do with it.

Alan Bishop

Located in West Baden Springs Indiana, Spirits of French Lick opened in April of 2016 sporting the motto, “Respect The Grain”. The distillery is an extension of the French Lick Winery which has been privately owned by the Doty family since 1995. In November of 2015, Alan Bishop was recruited from Copper and Kings Distillery to be the master distiller of Spirits of French Lick. This offer came with creative control of the distillery including what equipment, methods, traditions, and techniques were going to be implemented to create a variety of spirits.

Long before distilling became his main gig, Bishop was maintaining his family farm where he learned the art of plant breeding. During this time he created and sold many types of seeds, plants and livestock. Unfortunately, this business didn’t make for a fiscally stable livelihood, but in turn led him to focus on another long held Bishop family tradition – distilling spirits.

Drawing from his past experience, Alan created his own line of corn that was ten years in the making, comprised of 150 parent varieties. In keeping with the tradition of naming seeds after songs, song writers or musicians who inspire him, Bishop named it “Amanda Palmer”. “Amanda Palmer” is now grown on an eighteen acre plot on the Spirits of French Lick farm, and is the basis of their bourbons. Yellow dent corn and other locally sourced grains such as oats, kasha and buckwheat are also used in the mash bills of some of their expressions.

Other distinctive practices include using a double pot still, a lower temperature four day fermentation time, lower barrel entry proofs and number 2 level charred barrels with toasted staves and heads. Bishop says this barrel choice is done for two reasons: By using pot stills he’s able to make more precise cuts on the heads and tails of the distillate so that impurities (such as acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate) are at a minimum going to the barrel. This makes needing a heavier char as a filtration device unnecessary. Secondly, using a lower char level, the distillate can more easily access the toasted layers underneath the char which contains the natural wood sugars and flavors (that get burnt away with heavier char levels) Bishop is after. SoFL has their own grain mill with a seed cleaner to help produce a cleaner spirit, free from flavors that aren’t wanted. Additionally, the grains (especially corn) are milled and used daily before it oxidizes to harness the most flavor. For their mainline products Alan uses two different yeast strains. One is a “house” strain captured from the distillery and the other is one of three brandy yeasts that pull out the fruity and herbal flavors from the grain. If after all this you assumed SoFL spirits are never chill filtered, you’d be correct.

SoFL utilizes a mixture of an indoor barrel Chai (pronounced “shay”) meaning an above ground storeroom usually associated with wine production, and Dunnage (a low ceiling storeroom traditionally used in Scotland) for the maturation process. Their Chai room is built into the distillery itself and doesn’t have any active heating or cooling. Because it works on passive temperatures coming from the distillery, there is only a 30 to 40 degree variance in the barrel Chai throughout the year. This allows the aging process to continue all year long because it never gets too cold to sustain the volatility of the base grains. I can go on and on, but you get the idea. This distillery uses a lot of pre-prohibition techniques that also incorporate modern methods and experimentation. It’s about time I got to this review. My notes were collected from the original posted r/bourbon review in August 2022 and in May 2023 for Mostly Bourbon.

Taken: Both taken neat in a Glencairn glass, rested about 15 minutes.

William Dalton Single Barrel Bourbon.

Named after the master distiller at the Daisy Spring Distillery who worked there during the span of over 40 years from the 1830’s.

Proof: 106.2.

Age: 4 years.

Barrel info: 53 gallon char #2 New American Oak, medium toast char on the heads.

Barrel Entry Proof: 105.

Barrel #: 769. Selected by Blake Riber for Seelbach’s.

Mash bill: 70% Corn, 20% Wheat, 10% 2 Row Caramel Malted Barley. (Inspired by the old Stitzel Weller wheated bourbon mash bill). Two different yeast strains are used. Brandy yeast and a “House” yeast strain.

Price: $59.00 .

Appearance: Golden copper.

Nose

Werther’s caramel, chocolate, apple, peaches, vanilla bean, orange peel, dill, slight smoked peat, wheat cereal and oak. With time becomes sweeter with more peach jam, chocolate, orange, and rich caramel coming forward with some smokiness still hanging underneath. There is an overall soft “breadiness” that reminds me that this is a wheated bourbon. This nose is uniquely amazing and complex.

Palate

The sip starts with chocolate, rich caramel and stone fruit upfront on the mid palate, joined by vanilla, dill, and orange citrus, wheat bread with some underlying wood smoke. Baking spice ramps up nicely, focusing on the cheeks, mid and back palate with a very good viscous mouthfeel. All these delicious notes are well balanced allowing all the other notes to shine through. I find myself focusing on different notes with almost every sip. Overall, this is an incredible pour that drinks below its proof.

Finish

Baking spice lingers for a long time in the cheeks and back palate. As the baking spices settle down, tannins of leather and tobacco become the focus with chocolate, peach, wheat bread and dill in the mix for the whole ride on a long and very impressive finish.

Conclusion

On my very first pour of this bottle there was a drastic change in the nose after letting it sit. I’ve noticed this with pot stilled whiskeys to various degrees. This bottle in particular, had a noticeable improvement with balance and more flavors shining through after a couple of weeks. I’ve been loving this complex and unique flavor profile more every time I come back to it. There is a lot going that checks a lot of boxes for me. SoFL is separating themselves from the pack by creating unique expressions and doing it their own way and knocking it out of the park. Not to mention accomplishing this with a four year bourbon, which is something that I keep forgetting. As SoFL releases older expressions every year and I’m looking forward to what they have in store down the road. If you’re looking for a very good bourbon that’s a bit off the beaten path, you might just love this bottle as much as I did. I hope that all the William Dalton single barrels are as good as this one.

Lee W. Sinclair Four Grain Bourbon Bottled in Bond.

Named after a prominent Hoosier businessman that built the Baden Springs Hotel in 1888, rebuilt in 1902 after it was destroyed by a fire. Sinclair built the new hotel to be fire proof including a dome over the atrium that (at that time) was the largest free-standing dome in the world until 1913, and the largest in the US until 1955. Once called the “Eighth Wonder of The World” it still stands today.

Proof: 100

Age: 4 years.

Barrel info: 53 gallon char #2 New American Oak, medium toast char on the heads.

Barrel Entry Proof: 105.

Mash bill: 60% Corn, 17% Wheat, 13% Oats, 10% Caramel Malted Barley. Two different yeast strains are used. Brandy yeast and a “House” yeast strain.

Price: $65.00.

Appearance: Golden copper.

Nose

Butterscotch, honey, peaches, banana, vanilla, dill, sage, orange citrus, almonds, sweet wheat bread, allspice and oak. This is an incredible fruit forward nose that reminds me of a Weller flavor profile. The balance is terrific with no ethanol in the way.

Palate

Good medium mouthfeel. The nose transfers accurately to the palate with sweet caramel, peach, banana, vanilla, orange citrus, dill, almonds and toasty oak that mainly focuses on the front and mid palate. Allspice gently comes into play covering the mid palate and cheeks, lingering through to the finish. This is a very delicious and easy sipper.

Finish

Continuing to the end with allspice is butterscotch, peach, vanilla, coming back around. As allspice fades, delicate notes of toasty oak linger for quite a while to create a very good finish.

Conclusion

This is a very delicious dessert-like pour with a flavor profile that reminds me of Weller Antique 107, but with more oak and complexity. This is the first bourbon I’ve had that uses oats in the mash bill. I’ve read that in pre-prohibition days oats were sometimes used to give bourbon a creamier mouthfeel. Anyone who grew up on Quaker Oats can relate to this. Oats were also a cheap and available grain since it was mainly used to feed horses. So, what happened to the use of oats in whiskey? The word is oats + column stills = a sticky mess to clean up. When column stills gained popularity in Kentucky and Tennessee, oats were nixed altogether. Though the mouthfeel was not thin, it wasn’t as viscous as I expected with oats in the mash bill. Obviously, oats are playing a part in this expression but in ways that are more subtle than I imagined. Oats and all, Lee Sinclair has a profile that I can see appealing to most bourbon drinkers. Especially for those who love a fruit forward wheated bourbon. This is another SoFL expression that is worth picking up if you can find it.

William Dalton Rating: 8/10.
Lee W. Sinclair Rating: 6.7/10.

Photography by Brooklyn Leary and Kevin Terrell.

1 | Disgusting | So bad I poured it out.
2 | Poor | I wouldn’t consume by choice.
3 | Bad | Multiple flaws.
4 | Sub-par | Not bad, but better exists.
5 | Good | Good, just fine.
6 | Very Good | A cut above.
7 | Great | Well above average.
8 | Excellent | Really quite exceptional.
9 | Incredible | An all time favorite.
10 | Perfect | Perfect.

You May Also Like…