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We’ve seen a fair amount of bourbon and rye blends over the years from distilleries and brands like Knob Creek, High West, and Bardstown Bourbon Company. But this new release from the Bay Area’s Redwood Empire distillery brings together bourbon, rye, single malt, and wheat whiskey made from a blend of 10 different mashbills, something that is truly unique in the whiskey world.
Redwood Empire is located on Mare Island, a peninsula in the city of Vallejo which lies between San Francisco and Napa. The first Redwood Empire distillery was built in 2015 in the town of Graton in the Russian River Valley, but operations moved to Mare Island a decade later to increase capacity (which is still quite small compared to the big distilleries at just 14 barrels produced per day). Over the years, the distillery has both sourced whiskey from various distilleries that it blends into different expressions as well as distilling its own whiskey on-site. We’ve written favorably about some of those releases, like the introduction of its bottled-in-bond expressions that were made completely in-house in 2022, as well as the Small Lot series that launched in 2024 as a trio of different whiskeys.
The new Hyperion Batch 001 is named after the world’s tallest living tree, which is located in California’s Redwood National Park. As mentioned before, this is a blend of four different whiskeys—bourbon, rye, American single malt, and wheat whiskey—aged between seven and 14 years and bottled at 110 proof. While the components were produced from a total of 10 mashbills, the brand lists what it calls a “blend bill,” or a breakdown of the percentages: 32 percent bourbon, 30 percent rye, 25 percent wheat whiskey, and 13 percent single malt. Each came from a batch of 50 to 100 barrels, and the single malt was entirely distilled at Redwood Empire while the other components came from undisclosed distilleries in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee (a portion of these whiskeys was also distilled in-house).
“Exploration has always been central to Redwood Empire, from making whiskey in Northern California to blending across regions, ages, and styles,” said master distiller Jeff Duckhorn in a statement. “The Hyperion asks whiskey drinkers to look beyond the familiar. This first batch celebrates where we began, revealing what has been quietly maturing within our inventory. With each annual release, we invite people to experience whiskey from a different perspective.” Presumably that means that each batch will differ in terms of makeup. While we didn’t get a sample of the inaugural whiskey to try yet, official tasting notes describe aromas of walnut and roasted apricots on the nose, followed by pomegranate molasses, stone fruit, cream, and warm baking spice on the palate, culminating in a long finish of toffee and toasted malt.
Redwood Empire the Hyperion Blend of Straight Whiskeys Batch 001 is available now (SRP $99) directly from the distillery and in retail stores and at websites like Total Wine throughout the fall.