Seven Stills Fluxuate Review

Distiller: Seven Stills. ABV: 47%. No age statement. Mash bill: two row, crystal, chocolate and black patent malt. $40 (375ml).

Seven Stills Fluxuate may be the ultimate hiking whiskey. 1) 357ml bottle for ease of carry, 2) distilled from coffee porter and brought to bottle strength in part with Flux Coffee to put a spring in your step, and 3) it’s very tasty.

Seven Stills founders Tim Obert and Clint Potter are craft beer geeks turned craft-whiskey-from-craft-beer geeks. Their insight seems obvious once you hear it. Since whiskey distillation starts with “distiller’s beer,” a  fermented mash of cooked grains, water, and yeast, why not distill whiskey from bottle-ready craft beer?

They’ve made whiskey from a Double IPA (Whipnose), from a chocolate stout (Chocasmoke), from a sour beer (Dogpatch), and this, the Fluxuate, from a coffee porter.

The Fluxuate starts with aromas of cocoa bean, vanilla, a pleasant yeasty/beery note that many Seven Stills whiskies share, and sure, coffee–but subdued and well-integrated. This is nowhere near flavored whiskey territory. The palate brightens these flavors, adding a little coffee acidity, then transitions to dry chocolate, cedar-y wood spice, and some orange rind on the finish.

Tim and Clint are talented distillers and great guys–and they’re just getting started. I’m not the only one predicting great things to come from them.

Keep ’em coming, gents! – BO

Seven Stills kindly provided a sample for review. As always, our opinions are 100% our own.