Cleveland Whiskey

This is a mixed review — for the distillery & tour and the product they make.
Starting with the distillery and tour — they do a nice job. The tours are only on Friday every other week, so be careful if you are planning a trip there (check the schedules and book in advance). The tour is generally led by Tom, the founder, but I have a friend who said someone else gave his tour. Tom is proud of his unique way of faking the aging process, and there are a few tricks they employ which you can’t see (IP protection). I found the tour to be informative, though a little preachy and a bit arrogant about how «our process creates the equivalent of a 10 year aged bourbon in a much shorter time.».
Distillery & Tour — 3 stars — tone down on the attitude and it might be 4 stars.
Then you get to taste the product — sorry, I have a tough time calling it bourbon. It technically meets the requirement of being called bourbon because it is aged for 6 months in charred oak barrels. So basically meets the minimum. Then they employ their special techniques to supposedly speed the aging process.
As a consumer of Bourbon, I have tried maybe 70 or 80 different brands and variants and have 14 different bottles at home right now (as well as 2 different Tennessee whiskeys, 7 Scotchs, and a couple American Single Malts).
I found Cleveland Whiskey to be very harsh with a burn upon smelling and tasting. And to me it had a lingering taste of burnt wood and chemicals. I was willing to give this a try because I look for alternatives and options, but I could not justify spending $ 30+ for something I really didn’t like.
So my opinion is, as they state in the commercial from the ‘70s — «you can’t fool Mother Nature.» In this case it is my belief (though I don’t have the expertise to state this with certainty) that the aging process is much more than forcing the extraction of the elements of the oak into the bourbon. It is a much more complex process that in this case was not duplicated.
Product — 1 star

A friend and I went on a tour of Cleveland Whiskey and it was great! The founder Tom Lix educated us on his unique way of creating Bourbon, answered all of the questions we had, and let us sample some of the products. If you’re into whiskey or just love exploring local Cleveland businesses then I highly recommend checking this place out!