Glyph Lab Made Whiskey Review
This is probably the weirdest/hardest review I have had to write because I don't even know where to begin. What we have here is a lab made whiskey from Endless West out of San Francisco so we know 900% of their costs go to taxes that give Segways to seagulls - this leaves about $78 for materials to make whiskey.
I love the idea of what these folks are trying to do. They're trying to reduce the amount of time required to put out whiskey using the power of molecules, evil scientist laughter and good ol' American ingenuity. It appears they have analyzed older whiskeys to determine the molecular makeup and use FLAVORS from plants, fruits, wood and corn. I appreciate they are tackling whiskey from a different viewpoint because although we can due remote surgery with a robot or fly to Mars it is still taboo to do something different like this in the alcohol world. Purist pompousness.
So let's talk nose stuff. It smells incredibly sweet but artificially sweet - a ton of honey and candy. There's a tad bit of oak scent but is definitely overpowered. I think that is going to turn even the most adventurous folks off because if you're going to produce something like this then it needs to have as few tells as possible. On the palate it's what we call in the professional review business, Calista Flockhart-esque, or thin. The flavor is better than the aroma in terms of "natural" but the smoke seems a bit Neil Degrasse Tyson'd / Bill Cosby'd, or forced. On the finish there is a nice vanilla that lingers.
So we come to the pinnacle of this review where you're waiting on baited breath for me to tell you to buy or not buy. The answer is - I don't know. With this type of new, experimental thing there's no description out there that's going to send you one way or the other. You're either going to support an idea like this or not, you're a traditionalist or you're not and you're going to look down your nose or not at this whole thing.
If you decide to pull the trigger on this I think it would go really great with a whiskey / gin cocktail. It has some of those refreshing notes that would definitely kick any drink up a notch, BAM, etc. Use my classic roofie recommendation - don't sip it, mix it!