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 whiskies, the Skaneateles Whiskey made from triticale and his newest, His All Malt 4 Grain Whiskey – the winner of the Master Distiller award on the Master Distiller show.

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, Last Shot Distillery Boozy’s Cocktails To Go Phunkin’ Pumpkin Moonshine Cocktail, and this, his Chocolate Espresso Creme Brulee Bourbon Martini. All use his  Whiskeies 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 with his bourbons, the others use his white whiskey. 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 a Chocolate Espresso with a Creme Brulee bourbon cocktail. 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 chocolate milk/ 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 espresso, chocolate, cream, and creme brulee. Creamy entry with espresso, chocolate, and creme with delicate scents and creamy mouthfeel.

Taste: Creamy, tongue coating entry with cream, espresso, and chocolate followed closely with the creme brulee cream and sugar. A bit of vanilla forming an interesting after 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, and of course in a milkshake! 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: OK, I have to say it somewhere here….. A Martini is made with gin, vermouth, and bitters! Anything else is a cocktail!

That out of the way …

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