Every year, right after Thanksgiving, a quiet line starts forming outside a little distillery tasting room in Bend, Oregon. Guys in Carhartt jackets, a few with gray beards and ball caps pulled low, stand around sipping coffee from thermoses, talking about hunting season and how the snow level looks up on the Cascades. They’re not here for a new beer or some fancy gin. They’re waiting for Black Butte Friday – the one day Crater Lake Spirits drops the newest bottles in what has become the most talked-about whiskey series in the Pacific Northwest.
This year, on November 28th, two new bottles hit the shelves at the same time: Black Butte Whiskey Release No. 11 and the monster everyone has been whispering about, Black Butte Whiskey Cask Strength Barrel No. 2.
Image credit: Crater Lake Spirits
The regular release – No. 11 – is the latest chapter in a story that started over a decade ago when Crater Lake Spirits and Deschutes Brewery decided to do something nobody else was doing. They take the actual wash from Deschutes’ legendary Black Butte Porter – that dark, roasty, chocolate-tinged beer that put Bend on the map – and run it through the still. What comes out gets poured into brand-new American oak barrels and left alone until it’s ready.
Every single release tastes a little different. Same recipe, same brewery, same distillery, but the barrels breathe in the dry Central Oregon air a little differently each year. Some years you pick up more coffee and dark chocolate, other years it leans into molasses and toasted marshmallow. Release No. 11 keeps that signature roasted malt backbone fans expect, but the distillery says this one has a touch more sweetness on the finish than the last couple of batches. If you’re the kind of guy who already has Releases 1 through 10 lined up on a shelf in the den, you already know you need this bottle. Look on the back label for “Release No. 11” when it shows up in the state liquor stores – that’s how you make sure you’re grabbing the new one and not last year’s leftover.
Image credit: Crater Lake Spirits
Then there’s the one that makes grown men act like kids on Christmas morning: Black Butte Cask Strength Barrel No. 2.
This is a single barrel that spent a full ten years in new oak. No blending, no chill-filtering, no adding water – just straight from the barrel at 125.8 proof. Every cask strength release is its own animal. The rickhouse up there sits at 3,600 feet, hot summers, cold winters, low humidity. Ten years of that does things to whiskey you just can’t fake. Barrel No. 2 is only the second cask strength Black Butte they’ve ever bottled, and the first one disappeared so fast most people never even saw it in person.
At that proof, it hits the tongue like a freight train – in the best way. Expect huge waves of dark roast coffee, baker’s chocolate, black cherry, and a little leather and pipe tobacco on the back end. Let it sit in the glass for ten minutes and it opens up like crazy. Add a couple drops of water if you want, but a lot of guys just sip it neat and grin.
If you want either of these bottles – especially the cask strength – your best bet is getting to the Crater Lake Spirits Tasting Room in Bend on November 28th. That’s when they go on sale first, and that’s when the serious collectors show up early. Once they’re gone at the distillery, the rest get trucked out to Oregon liquor stores over the following weeks. Good luck finding the cask strength bottle after that; most of them walk out the distillery door the same day.
For the guys who have been chasing these releases since the beginning, Black Butte Friday has turned into a tradition right up there with opening day of fishing season or the first big snowstorm that shuts the passes. It’s not just about grabbing a bottle. It’s about standing around the parking lot afterward, cracking one open with the people who made it, and arguing over whether this year’s batch tops the one from 2019.
Oregon keeps proving it can hang with Kentucky when the conversation turns to great American whiskey. And right now, a lot of people who know their stuff will tell you the best whiskey coming out of the state has a black label with a snow-capped butte on it.
If you’re anywhere near Bend the day after Thanksgiving, set the alarm a little earlier. Bring a chair, a thermos, and some patience. Because when those doors open and the next chapter of Black Butte Whiskey starts pouring, you’ll want to be there to taste it first.
