Houston’s First Legal Whiskey Distillery, Yellow Rose launched into the Texas market in 2012. The city has been buzzing since it’s official open. During a private tasting and tour, guests enjoyed various samples of Yellow Rose Whiskey and learned a bit more about Houston’s First Legal Whiskey Distillery.
TOUR
Yellow Rose Distillery is super small. There is a bar and an open area for sales and events in the front. The back the warehouse is where the barrels reside and bottling occurs. During the tour we learned about the barreling and aging process of the whiskey — how it’s made. The process consists of mashing sweet corn with barley, and fermenting it for several days. This allows the sugar time to breakdown, converting to alcohol. The distilled whiskey is then barreled and aged using charred American oak barrels. This single step creates the unique flavor of Yellow Rose whiskey. Yellow Rose brands, labels and bottles their whiskey in house, sometimes by hand. The last step of the process is the bottling where the barrels are emptied and whiskey is proofed down and ready to be savored.
WHISKEY
Following the tour attendees tasted several varieties of whiskey, in addition to a few whiskey based mixed drinks. The Apple Smash, The Moscow Mule and The Whiskey Sour were all so amazingly smooth! The Mule was my favorite.
Yellow Rose currently has 4 Whiskey/Bourbon varieties: Blended Whiskey, Outlaw Bourbon Whiskey, Straight Rye Whiskey and Double Barrel Bourbon Whiskey. The all taste great. The blended whiskey happened to be my pick of the four. It was slightly sweet and went down easy! A close second was the Outlaw Bourbon Whiskey. Made of 100% corn, it had some sweetness to it as well but had more oak and caramel notes than the others. Still great though.
TOURS
Learn about Yellow Rose, Houston’s First Legal Whiskey Distillery tours here! They also have a private event space should you want to host your own private tasting. Yellow Rose is currently making its way all over the country with retailers in Texas, Michigan, Washington D.C., Wisconsin, Arkansas, Delaware, Minnesota, Illinois, Maryland and Tennessee. Keep an eye out for the yellow blossom!