Home Base Bourbon – Batch 27

HOME BASE BOURBON
Batch 27 (July 2022)

MASH BILL – 60% organic corn grown in Sacramento, CA at Adams Grains; 30% malted barley grown in California, malted at Admiral Maltings in Alameda, CA; 10% organic rye grown in Sacramento, CA at Adams Grains

PROOF – 92.8

AGE – 4 years

DISTILLERY – Home Base Spirits

PRICE – $65

WORTH BUYING? – Yes

Uncorked and tasted in The Year of No Buying (The what? 🔗 here.)

Any regular reader of this blog likely needs no introduction to Home Base Spirits at this point. I’ve written about them many times. For their full backstory, check out my interview with founders Ali and Sam Blatteis. And for notes on the many other of their whiskeys I’ve written about, just give this site a search.

The only common threads I’ll reiterate from my past writings here are (1) that in my experience Home Base Bourbons begin to hit their stride at 3 years, and (2) once uncorked, they air out in the bottle exceptionally well, often tasting fine at uncorking but then developing in wonderful directions from there. These two trends have been consistent for me thus far. Always, they are rustic bourbons that taste decidedly handmade, fresh from the farm, not rushed through a maze of computer-operated pipes and conveyor belts.

With Batch 27, I’m actually now a few batches behind. As I write this they’re on Batch 32. Technically, Batch 27 remains their oldest bourbon release to date at 4 years in the barrel. Batch 30 did blend some 6-year and 3.5-year bourbons in a 10%/90% ratio, making it ultimately a 3.5-year whiskey. In any case, if at 3 years Home Base Bourbons hit their stride, I’m excited to see what another full year in the barrel brings.

So let’s get into a glass. Here we are, six weeks after uncorking and four pours into the bottle. These brief notes were taken using a traditional Glencairn.

COLOR – smoky russet oranges

NOSE – cinnamon, honey, fresh butter slathered on rye bread, bundled hay, redwood bark, dried apricot, nutty barley

TASTE – very like the nose, with a syrupy caramel lacing through the various herbal notes, also toffee, coffee, stewed apricot, and marmalade

FINISH – that syrupy quality coats the mouth and lingers, with dark stewed apricot still prominent, a whiff of dry hay, and oak

OVERALL – an orchard harvest in autumn

I love this. Easily the most mature Home Base Bourbon I’ve had to date—not just in age, but in complexity and balance. The drier herbal notes work like a strong etching, outlining the central sweet fruit and candy notes. And the texture is so very syrupy, leaving a thick coating of flavors in its wake.

When I uncorked this bottle, it drove me straight outside into my garden. The weathered wood of our old fence. The wildflowers and random northern California grasses. It all matched the bourbon’s own color pallet, and the label art as well. I enjoy it at my kitchen table, of course. But the aromas and flavors of this bourbon seem most at home outside.

Ali and Sam Blatteis blend and bottle their flagship bourbon one batch at a time. Consistency comes from their ingredients and whatever’s happening in that tiny Berkeley warehouse. What I’ve noticed most over the past handful of years is how their whiskeys keep getting better and better. Even at such a young age as 4 years in the present example, they are aging very well.

And the intention to establish a distinct Northern California flavor profile is fulfilled beautifully here. The rest of the country and world might think of Los Angeles beaches or trollies on rolling San Francisco hills when they imagine California. But most of the state’s landscape is agricultural.

Home Base Bourbon leans in to that fact. With Batch 27, the whiskey has sloshed toward its sweet and syrupy notes, shifting its trademark dry herbaceous notes toward the margins, where they offer the gooier apricot and caramel a crisp definition. Sip this with fruit pies. At picnics. After a long day gardening. At the peak of a mountain hike.

Kentucky does what it does better than anyone. Why compete with it? Home Base Spirits understands that. Home Base Bourbon Batch 27 is craft bourbon doing what it does best—striking out on its own distinct path.

Cheers!