Notes: Last Shot Distillery is one of the newest distilleries in New York State ( producing, selling, and aging products not just setting up as many are). Run by Chris Uyehara and a very small team, Chris is a master chef and pastry chef and brings his art and attention to detail to all his products. Last Shot uses water from the local Finger Lake Skaneateles Lake, with minimal filtering ( just to remove any chlorine) to maintain a local character to the water and spirit, rather than use RO water which to me is completely boring and neutral filler for a spirit. While the distillery itself is barely three years old at present, they still have a very ambitious whiskey program with stocks of Rye, Bourbon, and his specialty whiskey Skaneateles Whiskey made from triticale.

This Ready to Drink cocktail is part of an ongoing series that he recently launched for his customers at his tasting bar. So far he has created a Last Shot Distillery Boozy’s Cocktails To Go Apple Pie Moonshine Cocktail and this the Last Shot Distillery Boozy’s Cocktails To Go Phunkin’ Pumpkin Moonshine Cocktail. Both use his Lightning Whiskey as a base and call upon his skills as both a distiller and pastry chef to pull together an excellent distillate and spices ( and in this case also a cream) to fashion a ready to drink cocktail in a handy screw top pouch.

This started as a  white whiskey like his bourbons, but in this case, he did not put in his  American oak barrels to age and mellow. He mixes the whiskey with a shelf-stable cream ( whose shelf life is measured in years not days or weeks), and a few carefully chosen natural flavors to make it an Orange creme liqueur. As a pastry chef, Chris is very critical and careful about getting the flavor right and not just grabbing a tin of chemicals to make some candy equivalent flavor.

Appearance: A kind of light egg yolk whipped in cream color. On swirling everything stays in suspension – no small fear – with no separation of any of the components’

First Impression: Subtle but pervasive smell of orange and cream, reminds me of peeling the top off an orange pop up. Creamy orange with delicate scents and cream.

Taste: Creamy, tongue coating entry with cream, orange, and vanilla farming a very balanced base which then becomes slightly and pleasantly aromatic with the vanilla, corn, and whiskey forming a high note followed on by the orange and the vanilla and cream forming the tail finish. Extremely smooth and seductive.

Drinks: Of course you can drink it cold, on the rocks, or make a fizz with seltzer in a tall glass. You can also use it as a cream variant of curacao. Another idea is to use it as a mixing ingredient for your own custom cocktail too !

Bottle: In this case, it is actually an 8-ounce pouch with a screw cap closure
Overall a nicely done package.  Easy to drink, won’t leak like a straw and pouch system, resealable, and quickly chilled. Another plus is no glass so you could take it poolside or carry a lot of them without the weight and hazard of glass.

Other: The other Last Shot Distillery products that we have reviewed previously are;

The Last Shot Bourbon  is reviewed in the following links: the first release from  5 gallons at about 3 months, then three times as big at 15 gallons and aged for three as long at 12 months,  Last Shot Bourbon Batch 14 –  a 2 Year -old bourbon whiskey aged in a new charred oak 30-gallon barrels, and  the newest version ( so far)  is the 3-Year-Old 30-gallon barrel bourbon

Chris is very careful to bottle a spirit when it is at its peak and not sticking to a particular age just for bragging rights or public perception. Made in small –  about 100 gallon stills, they concentrate on small batch and quality.

Their current line up of white spirits includes a nicely flavorful vodka, a 100% corn unaged white whiskey, a dry white maple distillate, a sweet maple distillate, and an unaged white whiskey called Lightning Whiskey using a bourbon mash bill and named after a famous class/type sailboat that was made on the property,  a gin, and a couple of excellent cream liqueurs called Chocolate Creme Brulee, and Orange Cream Lightning Liqueur respectively.

For a list of Last Shot Distilleries Medals and Accolades Click Here.

Final Thoughts: An extremely easy to drink and well-balanced Ready to Drink cocktail that is not overly sweet.  cream and pumpkin spice with a kick that is somehow subtle yet substantial at the same time. Quite an achievement in vision and blending!

Website: www.lastshotdistilling.com