Angel’s Envy Madeira finish: Fewer than 4,000 bottles made — here’s how to get one.
Fans of Angel’s Envy, the popular bourbon finished in selected casks, know how hard it can be to find special releases, which sell for hundreds of dollars if you can find them.
Now the craft distiller is launching another bottle worth the hunt. Angel’s Envy Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Madeira Casks will be available beginning June 6 at the distillery in Louisville and for sale at select stores in Kentucky, New York, California, Florida, Tennessee, Illinois and Texas.
This version is limited 3,360 bottles as part of the Cellar Collection, according to a news release. It’s 100 proof and is the third release in the collection, the special release program led by Wes Henderson and his sons, honoring the late master distiller Lincoln Henderson.
And if you are a member of the Angel’s Envy 500 Main club, a special consumer engagement platform for members, you can enter a lottery for a chance to buy a bottle early. Enter between May 21 and May 25 and you might win a chance to buy one of 600 bottles reserved for the 500 Main lottery.
Public sale, limit one per customer, begins 1 p.m. June 6, with about 400 bottles available the Louisville distillery for a suggested retail price of $229.99, according to the news release.
“There’s deep history and craftsmanship involved in the production of Madeira wine, so my sons and I knew we wanted to tap into that to create something special for our Cellar Collection. We took a trip to the island in 2015 and tried more than 30 varieties until we found the perfect casks that would lend both the dryness of a good sherry and the richness of tawny port to our bourbon,” said Wes Henderson, co-founder and chief innovation officer of Angel’s Envy.
“This release, like all of Angel’s Envy’s whiskeys, was a family effort, so it feels only right to share this bourbon with our fans in celebration of Father’s Day.”
The release is a blend of whiskeys that were finished for a year in Madeira casks, giving it extra complexity.
The result, according to the tasting notes, has a nose of “caramelized banana, brown sugar, raisins, almonds and faint cherry ... as well as notes of oak, grass, smoke, leather, chocolate and dried cherries on the palate.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
