Category - Bourbon
I Tried Steph Curry's New Whiskey. Here's My Honest Review
On its fourth attempt, Steph Curry’s Gentlman’s Cut whiskey brand is finally starting to lock in. Player Exclusive: IV Edition is a 10-year-old straight rye whiskey with better stats than its predecessors in the categories of flavor, availability, and even price. And against other celebrity whiskeys, well, Steph Curry is starting to show all-star potential.
While it’s a contentious idea, I don’t believe that celebrity whiskeys should be held to the same standards as typical bourbons, ryes, Irish whiskey, or Scotch. Celebrity whiskeys have a different purpose.
Lesser celebrity whiskeys—Proper No. 12 and Longbranch, for instance—are celeb-backed challengers for a particular price point. McGregor took on Jameson, while Matthew McConaughey took on Basil Hayden. Among the greater celebrity bottles are the likes of Peyton Manning’s Sweetens Cove and Metallica’s Blackened. For both lines, the talent got serious about whiskey and hired big-name master distillers to run their programs.
Meanwhile, for Steph Curry's Gentleman’s Cut, there's been more of a process to make something good.
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I'm not a basketball guy, but I know some things about Curry. He grew up in my hometown. He won four championships, two MVPs, and an Olympic Gold. Curry was also the first player to reach 4,000 career three-pointers and became the all-time leader when he overtook Ray Allen’s career 2,973 3-pointers back in December 2021.
Likewise, Curry’s illustrious whiskey career is best described as a series of milestones, starting with the debut of the $70 Gentleman’s Cut Bourbon distilled by Boone County Distilling Co. That bottle is a five- to seven-year-old bourbon that's slightly grain forward, though not unpleasantly so.
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Player Exclusive followed. The 15-year-old straight bourbon, of which only 230 bottles were created, was most likely sourced from MGP Ingredients in Indiana.
Then came Player Exclusive: Father and Son to commemorate the 16-season milestone that Curry and his father shared with 1,000 bottles and an $850 price tag. This one likely came from Wild Turkey or Jim Beam due to its mash bill: 75 percent corn, 13 percent rye, and 12 percent malted barley
Player Exclusive: IV Edition found a more reasonable spot with a 4,000 day aging period—just short of 11 years—and a price tag of $333. It's a classic MGP rye recipe, though it may have been distilled elsewhere, so it’s not as if Curry’s team has reinvested the wheel in terms of the whiskey-making process.
Player Exclusive: IV Edition is big on two flavors from the start: sweet corn and peppermint candy. They’re sharp flavors, rounded and softened by freshly cut orange peels and mild baking spices. Everything comes together with its syrupy, rich toffee-churro ice cream flavors.
If you don't consider the price point, it’s a perfect whiskey and an excellent example of a rye of its age. But once it crosses the $300 mark, it’s not hard for your eyes to wander to comparable bottles—unless of course, you’re a Steph Curry fan. That's the problem with celebrity whiskeys: the celeb surcharge.
Celebrity booze inevitably costs more because of the influx of non-drinkers trying to snatch up memorabilia. While there are plenty of condemnable whiskey hoarders these days, you’ve got to make something really exceptional to motivate bourbon nerds and your own fans alike.
Has Curry hit that milestone yet? Maybe. Player Exclusive: IV Edition is perfectly proofed, which shows that just enough heat and spice gives it a little shock of intensity and structure. I can’t fathom making cocktails with a whiskey this pricy, but if I was served a classic Manhattan or old fashioned, I wouldn’t say no.
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At the same time, the Gentleman’s Cut collection seems to have lacked direction, which would be a problem if it were a typical whiskey brand. If you had become accustomed to the soft wheat character of Maker’s Mark only to suddenly crack the red wax and taste something like Wild Turkey, you’d probably be upset.
When Gentleman’s Cut debuted, a statement from Curry claimed he was proud of Gentleman’s Cut. He said that it “will be part of a raised-glass toasting moment in the lives of my fans, friends, and family.”
That press release assured consumers that Curry “was intimately involved in every step of the process, from the manufacturing, blending, and aging to the packing and marketing efforts.” But at least some of those decisions were filtered through his partners, including Boone County Distilling Co. distillery.
Curry has created a personality brand. It's not coded to whiskey drinkers generally, so much as it’s a curated-by-Steph drinking experience. For that reason, Curry’s team seems focused on keeping these releases small. Only 1,000 bottles of IV Edition were filled.
If whiskey bottles are the modern trading cards, I’m firmly against trading this one away just yet. Pair it side by side with the original Gentleman’s Cut, which I’ve referred to as the rookie card bottle more than once since tasting the fourth release.
Sometimes, great whiskey is about finding a bottle that you love dearly. Sometimes, great whiskey is about grabbing a bottle of something that you just know someone else will feel that way about.
Competition for the 1,000 bottles of Player Exclusive: IV Edition will be mainly among Curry fans more than whiskey fans, so I doubt I’ll see or taste it again after my sample’s gone. And the limited supply of bottles makes it unlikely that I’m going to see a second one in the wild. But I’ve already got a fan or two in mind to share this whiskey with, so I’ll be benching it until they stop by.
Related: Don't Listen to Whiskey Snobs. Here Are the Best Ways to Enjoy Bourbon
