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The bottle
The Deerslayer Venison Flavored Whiskey, $65 (200 ml bottle)
The back story
Why eat your Christmas dinner when you can drink it?
At least that was our immediate thought when we learned about Deerslayer, a one-of-a-kind spirit from Tamworth Distilling, a New Hampshire-based craft producer that specializes in all things wild and whacky when it comes to booze. And you can’t get much wilder or whackier than this.
As its name implies, this is indeed booze — in this case, Tamworth’s own aged wheat whiskey — flavored with venison, the very same game meat that’s sometimes served for a holiday feast. Matt Power, a distiller with Tamworth, explains the process for making Deerslayer as follows: First, the deer meat (sourced locally) is ground and mixed with spices and flavorings (salt, green peppercorns, cranberries and juniper), then it’s fermented and smoked, added to the whiskey and distilled yet again. Finally, the resulting liquid is mixed with more whiskey. Power assures us that you won’t see bits of meat floating in the end product — the distillation process takes care of that.
But why make a venison-flavored whiskey? In short, because you can. “Our current joke is Scotch is a peated whiskey, but this is a New England meated whiskey,” says Power.
And it does fit with the Tamworth ethos. The distillery, which has been in business for about seven years, has tried everything from seasonal-inspired gins to other meat-flavored offerings (there’s Eau de Musc, a whiskey made with oil extracted from, um, a beaver).
Not that Tamworth is a big-volume distiller. Power says they produce less than 50,000 bottles yearly — and just a few hundred bottles of Deerslayer. Still, the venison whiskey has proved a hit — in fact, at one point Tamworth sold out of it after launching it last year. “We had to make another batch,” says Power.
What we think about it
As whiskeys go, this is a tasty one somewhat akin to a single-malt Scotch. But our main complaint: WHERE’S THE BEEF? (Er, venison.) You don’t get much gamey flavor, which may come as a relief to some, but isn’t that the whole point of the bottle? Instead, we get smoke and wood notes and maybe a hint of pepper. Power says it’s all by design — the venison is intended to be a subtle component and the smoke more pronounced. Fair enough, but we’re still a little disappointed. In the end, Deerslayer is more a novelty than a must-have sip (and as novelties go, it’s a bit pricey). But it certainly will spark some conversation around the holiday table.
How to enjoy it
Power suggests avoiding pairing the whiskey with venison — or most any food, for that matter. His point: You want to experience this on its own, served neat, to get the full experience. So, have your Christmas dinner and then sip away.
