Evaluating a celebrity owned whiskey is an especially disorienting experience in those rare instances when you don’t even know who the celebrity is before you come across the bottle. So it was for me when I began reading about Bluestone Manor Bourbon, only to find that almost all the commentary about the brand was coming not from whiskey-minded types, but from Real Housewives of New York City fans. It didn’t take long to figure out why: Bluestone Manor Bourbon is a new, sourced bourbon brand marketed and sold by one Dorinda Medley, an American entrepreneur who was a featured cast member on that series. The brand is named for Medley’s “iconic Massachusetts home,” with which she is apparently quite enamored with, to the point of it being a running gag on the series that she won’t stand for any disrespect toward her house. The whiskey is marketed with fanciful text claiming that the manor was a 1920s speakeasy, a place that “acted as a safe haven for self-expression and freedom,” but I have no idea if any of that is even slightly true. What I can tell you is that Medley has sourced some decent bourbon, and that’s the important thing.
This whiskey, which is currently available for order in 32 states, and will be rolling out nationwide this month, is sourced from the Hudson Valley’s Spirits Lab Distillery, a small operation that focuses primarily on distilling from New York-grown grains. The company has been in operation long enough to be able to offer a decent age statement for a craft distillery: This is 5-year-old straight bourbon whiskey, from a wheated bourbon mashbill of 70% corn, 25% wheat and 5% malted barley. It’s bottled at an approachable 45% ABV (90 proof), at a pretty reasonable $45 MSRP. The attractive, decanter-style bottle looks quite similar to Buffalo Trace’s Rock Hill Farms brand in particular, to the point that one wonders if they were trying to evoke comparison to the prestige of another sought-after brand.
Regardless, it’s safe to say that my personal interest in Medley, and her home by extension, are more or less nonexistent. I’ve never tasted whiskey from Spirits Lab before, though, so let’s explore what made the Real Housewife choose to source from such a small company rather than one of the Kentucky giants.