Tucked away in a brick building in the bustling city of Huntsville, Alabama is a small craft distillery that is doing things the old-fashioned way and creating a product that may just blow your mind. Owner and distiller Jeff Irons is nearly a one-man show, using only the help of his CTO (Chief Tasting Officer) and wife, Vicki Irons. Irons One Distillery produces about 30 gallons of bourbon per week, give or take. In fact, when he sent us a bottle for review, he was temporarily out of stock because he just can't keep it on the shelf. Now we understand why!
The philosophy that Jeff Irons uses is to oversee literally every aspect of every batch of bourbon personally, from start to finish, ensuring only the highest quality product. His "from my hands to yours" business model and the fact that every bottle has his name on it resonates with everyone who has ever tasted his incredible craft. You won't find a team of seasonal workers or any cut corners here. What you will find is incredible detail and care that is put into every step of the distilling process.
We tasted this small batch bourbon neat in a Glencairn initially. We then re-visited it with a single cube in a rocks glass but determined that the neat pour was best fitting in our opinion. We also re-tasted this five days later and, as predicted, were equally and pleasantly surprised as the initial tasting. This bourbon provided a myriad of aromas and flavors: Nutmeg, vanilla, oak, spice, dry earth, cake on the nose and some time in the glass kept throwing in more.
Folks often talk about the "Kentucky hug" that you get with a whiskey or bourbon. Well, we would suggest that this bottle gives you an Alabama backrub instead. The pecan pie, vanilla cream, caramel corn and spice cabinet flavors blend beautifully and you can taste some floral and hard candy elements on the back end. To say that this bourbon is smooth would be an unfortunate discredit to what Mr. Irons has done here. We can only compare the smoothness of this whiskey to a professional paint job on a full restored 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS.
Sometimes when we taste a new (to us) bourbon we start laughing after the initial taste. And that's exactly what we did here. We knew instantly that this was a superior product and a real treasure. It's understandable why Irons Distillery wants to keep every step of the process under their thumb. The quality, flavors, smoothness and drinkability of this product needs to be protected at all costs.
So, how did we arrive at our score? We compare this bottle to others in the 90 proof range. This could very easily be our favorite 90 proof bourbon of 2024 and it is as good as any that we have tasted in the last 6 months. The only drawback is the availability and distribution. If this was more readily available it may have reached our first-ever perfect spirits score! But if you are in the Huntsville, Alabama area, you absolutely, without a doubt, need to check out Irons One. They might just have some bourbon waiting for you!
