Howler Head
“Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.”
Howler Head Monkey Spirit - Our first ever flavoured whiskey review. Now why on earth would we want to do that, you might ask? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Mav creating an absolutely awesome picture of a monkey could it? How shallow do you think we really are! According to their website the banana flavoured bourbon is made with Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, all natural flavouring and with no added colourings.
The first thing that strikes us is the bottle. Smart and neat packaging, with a bottle not too dissimilar to Boondocks. The UK bought version of Howler Head though doesn’t actually say bourbon whiskey on it. It’s labelled as ‘Aged Kentucky Spirit with Banana Flavouring Liqueur’. Perhaps emphasising the word bourbon in the UK is not as important as it is in the US. Bottles on the Howler Head website and as seen on other reviews by our friends across the pond clearly show the label as Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey with natural banana flavours. Anyhow, enough monkeying around, let’s find out if banana whiskey is going to become the king of our whiskey jungle.
A light golden colour but nowhere near as viscous as you might expect a liqueur to be. If nosed blind, we would swear it was a Muller Corner banana yoghurt, it is almost identical. Tastes thin and oily, sweet banana, caramel and toffee notes. Finish is surprisingly lengthy with sugared spices. Ok, so it’s obviously a banana bomb and not blended to be drunk neat, but you can see how it would be a versatile cocktail ingredient and a great choice for shots.
Now this type of drink is way out of our comfort zone and as an impulse buy has taken an age to open. It is though a market where there is huge interest and where many of the big players have a stake in. The 2 year old, 40% ABV bourbon used for this blend is from the Green River Distilling Company and Howler Head is also the official sponsor of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. We won’t be quite fighting ourselves on reaching for it very often but it probably sits pretty near the top of flavoured whiskeys we have sunk. Jack Daniel’s seem to have done pretty well out of having a banana tasting note, so Howler Head should be confident of finding their place on bar shelves throughout many drinking establishments.
