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Yellowstone Family Recipe Bourbon Review - Cloned Yeast from 150 Years Ago
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May 28, 2025
Yellowstone Family Recipe is a craft-distilled bourbon honoring 150 years of Beam and Dant family distilling traditions. The new bourbon, created by Limestone Branch Distillery Master Distiller Stephen Beam, is inspired by a recipe found in notes from Beam’s grandfather, Guy Beam, and containing cloned yeast using DNA from a yeast jug belonging to Beam’s great-grandfather, Minor Case Beam. Yellowstone Family Recipe reflects the original Yellowstone Bourbon mash bill and carries its original namesake’s six-year age statement. It is this recipe that Stephen Beam has been distilling at Limestone Branch Distillery since 2015 and is now ready to share with the world. New episodes of the Bourbon Bytes Podcast every Friday: https://bourbonbytes.podbean.com/ Watch us play Dungeons and Drams every Tuesday: https://www.youtube.com/DungeonsandDrams Follow and Subscribe on Twitch for Gaming Streams: https://www.twitch.tv/bourbonbytes Support the Channel on Patreon for Exclusive Hangouts and Early Video Access: http://www.Patreon.com/BourbonBytes Join the Whiskey & Gaming Lounge Discord Server: http://BourbonBytes.com #WhiskeyTube #Bourbon
View Video Transcript
0:00
Have you ever wondered what bourbon would have tasted like 150 years ago
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Well, you might just find out with this one. Hey everyone, welcome to Bourbon Bites
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My name is Clifton and today I'm reviewing the brand new Yellowstone Family Recipe
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So this is a brand new release from the Limestone Branch Distillery honoring 150 years of distilling
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This of course is from master distiller Stephen Beam whose family has been distilling for generations
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So this is a tribute to that history and a very cool one in that. Because this whiskey was actually created using a cloned yeast strain from the actual original yeast strain that Minor Case Beam, his great-grandfather, used when he was distilling back all those years ago
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I know a lot of times in the bourbon world we hear, oh, my great-grandfather's secret recipe
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But in this case, it's actually true. This whiskey also carries the same six-year age statement that the original whiskey that they had put out did
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So that's always good to hear. Now, we don't actually know the mash bill for this, but we do know that it's the same one that they used all those years ago
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So let's go ahead and grab a glass and try this new family recipe bourbon
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By the way, this comes in at $69.99 retail. It also is limited allocation
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They're doing a first batch in April of this year, as well as August and fourth quarter
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So if you don't see it this time around, there's a good chance that you'll see it in the near future
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This whiskey also comes in at 100 proof, which is a good thing to see. If you are curious about my thoughts on Yellowstone in general
1:24
They actually had a recent release of their Yellowstone Select that honored the national parks
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I did a whole review over on my podcast which if you are not yet listening to you can check out the Bourbon Bites podcast wherever you get your podcasts New episodes every Friday That was a few weeks ago so make sure to listen to that to hear my thoughts on yellowstone but i really excited to try a new release from them this is the first as
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far as i'm aware the first release of their actual distillate that they've been producing in-house
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i'm really excited to try something that they've actually you know created and set on for six years
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which is honorable in itself because a lot of craft distilleries you know as soon as their thing
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hits the two-year mark or the four-year mark they're gonna put it out but this one no they
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waited the full six years before they put it out. So I'm really excited to see what they've done with this whiskey. Let's go and give it a nose. Oh, wow. That's so different than I expected. Not
2:10
sure exactly what I expected, but the first instinct is it's very, I guess, grain forward
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You know, honestly, it could even be yeast forward. I think maybe I'm just thinking about the whole idea that it's, you know, that cloned yeast strain. It's like sweet and a little bit
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tangy, a little bit, you know, I would guess that rye is the secondary grain in here. It does have
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a little bit of that rye spice just on the nose. There's also a bit of like a marshmallow, like kind
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of toasted note there as well. It makes me really excited to drink this. So cheers and let's try
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Yellowstone family recipe. Again, very different from most other things I've ever tried. There's
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still a bit of that like tankiness there. It's almost like it's a very fruity kind of like sour
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fruit kind of note. I mean, it is citrus for sure, but there's also something else there
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It's almost like a, almost kind of like a plum, like some sort of like earthy kind of
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like plum skin kind of note The only other whiskey I given that note on was St George single malt which was actually finished in fermented plum casks So definitely not that extreme but it has a little bit of that like umami kind of flavor to it that again I never gotten on a bourbon Honestly it still
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grain forward. It almost reminds me of kind of like a barnyard kind of note to it. I'm talking
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about like the grains, the hay, you know, like the feed for the animals. I'm getting a little bit of
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that like dry grain note on this, which is definitely interesting in itself. And it's not
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a note that I consider, you know, a bad note. It's just very, very different than what I was expecting
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And you know, they are using that cologne yeast strain. So you know what? Maybe this is how bourbon
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was meant to taste back in the day. I'm not really getting too much oak on this, which is odd because
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you would expect that with a six-year-old. The only thing that I'm getting is a little bit of that
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kind of toasty element to it. I got a little bit on the nose, but it still shows up on the palate
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It kind of is a different way that the oak is expressing itself. It's not necessarily like a
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12, 14-year-old bourbon. The way that oak impacts that is a lot more like rich and like full-bodied
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This is kind of like an extra little charred layer, almost like some whiskeys that have been like double oaked or even like toasted barrels. They don't say anything about that. They just say
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it's a bourbon whiskey, but it does have some of those characteristics of those toasted bourbons
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but not nearly as sweet. It's also a little bit nutty. I'm getting like some kind of like a
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it's a little bit different than a nut, like a beam nuttiness or even like a George Diggle
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nuttiness, but there's, there's definitely some sort of nuttiness there. I just can't quite place it like a hazelnut or something that's like
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not the traditional nuttiness you would get on a bourbon. But again, it goes along with that kind of like plum kind of interesting
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like tart note on the back end. But it actually, it works really well
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And I got to say you know being Yellowstone first as far as I aware their first product they put out using their own distillate I will credit them that this is a very unique flavor profile And I think that kind of what you want to search for right
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You don't want to put out a bourbon that tastes like every other bourbon. You don't want to be confused with, you know, the grapes
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You want your own unique product. And I think Stephen Beam has really created that with this product here at Limestone Branch
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At six years old and about $70 retail, I gotta say, you know what
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For a first release, I think that's fair. And honestly, I'm glad that they waited to make it a six-year release
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So this is a winner in my book. It's definitely not for everybody. If you can't get beyond that kind of like interesting, like tart, tangy note, I know
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that's, it's a note that I don't normally get in bourbon. So it's really hard to express how, what I think of it
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It is a Kentucky bourbon, of course, and it follows all the rules of bourbon. So it's definitely not different in the way that it's made
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It's just something about that yeast strain or just something about the mash bill. I would, I'm really, really curious to know what their mash bill is because it's so different
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from what I'm used to. But to be a bourbon, it has to be, you know, in new charred oak barrels
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And if they are doing toasted oak, you would think that would be on the label or at least in the press release
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So I'm not sure what they're doing to establish that kind of like toasted kind of like umami flavor, like I said earlier, but I dig it
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So if you guys do happen to come across this bottle at a bar or something, definitely give it a try
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I'm really curious to hear what other people think of this one. And if you have a bottle of it, please leave a comment down below with your thoughts
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And while you're down there, make sure to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe if you want to come back for more whiskey reviews
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But until next time, this has been Bourbon Bites Whiskey Reviews with a gaming twist
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Cheers, and I'll see you next video
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