Black Butte Porter has the comforting, familiar flavors of dark malts. When pairing with the whiskey, the porter softened the heat from the spirit and emphasized a honey malt sweetness.

For the past number of years, Deschutes Brewery has partnered with Bendistillery’s Crater Lake Spirits to release Black Butte Whiskey, a spirited take on the brewery’s iconic Black Butte Porter. It’s not a collaboration in name only; the whiskey is essentially distilled from the beer itself.

The first stage in crafting whiskey is nearly identical to brewing beer, in which malted grain is mashed to extract the sugary wort, which is boiled and fermented. The result is called the “wash,” which for all intents and purposes is beer, albeit without the hops.

Deschutes produces the wash for the whiskey from the base Black Butte Porter recipe; Crater Lake then distills this to extract the clear spirit that gets aged in barrels — in this case, newly charred No. 4 American White Oak barrels.

For the recent release which came out in November, the standard Black Butte Whiskey was accompanied by a special single barrel cask strength edition. This limited release is 125.8 proof compared to the regular whiskey which is 94 proof (62.9% alcohol by volume versus 47%).

“Cask strength” refers to the undiluted, unblended strength of the whiskey straight from the barrel, which is why it’s stronger than the standard five-year version.

The distillery provided me with samples of each, and I picked up a six-pack of Black Butte Porter with the goal of a side-by-side pairing. There is of course a classic beer cocktail pairing the two beverages — the boilermaker. I opted to sip the whiskey for evaluation purposes rather than shoot it, but I believe we could call it the Black Butte Boilermaker.

I found the regular whiskey to have a warming nose of vanilla, honey and oak, with a bit of booziness but otherwise smooth. It’s a bit malty, with toasted grains, vanilla bean, a touch of cedar and a hint of smoke.

Black Butte Porter has the comforting, familiar flavors of dark malts with a touch of roast, and some caramelized sugar sweetness. When pairing with the whiskey, sipping the liquor and following with a sip of the beer, the porter softened the heat from the spirit and emphasized a honey malt sweetness.

The whiskey similarly tempered the roastiness of the porter with a bit of oaky vanilla and drew out flavors of coffee and dark chocolate. The chocolate lingered into the finish, and when sipping side by side there did seem to be a detectable core essence shared by the two beverages, with Black Butte Porter character identifiable in the Black Butte Whiskey.

For the single barrel whiskey, I selected a specialty beer to pair with it. In 2015 Deschutes first released Black Butte³ (also known as Black Butte Cubed), an imperial version of Black Butte Porter aged in the Black Butte Whiskey casks from Crater Lake. I kept a bottle of that first edition beer and decided to open it for a multi-layered tasting.

Starting with the whiskey again, it was brighter and more pungent in the aroma, with some ethanol heat, vanilla extract, lemon peel, lychee, cedar shavings and apple character. Sipping it straight, it would do well with a splash of water or ice to temper the alcohol; I detected sweet notes reminiscent of vanilla pudding with some light caramel, plum sauce and toasted spiced pecans.

The beer, at over seven years old, was lusciously dark with some berry fruitiness and a bit of oxidation. This extended into the flavor, with notes of chocolate bon-bons, birch sap, vanilla, and brown sugar; the oxidation contributed some floral honey notes, but nothing detracting.

Together, the beer cooled the whiskey burn and they both came together sweet and smooth, drawing out some leather, molasses, carob, and hot chocolate flavors. With the 12.6% alcohol of the Black Butte Cubed, there was a fair amount of sweetness between it and the whiskey, with date sugar, fudge, pomegranate and dark caramel flavors, and the whiskey dampened any oxidation notes from the aged beer.

Fans of whiskey will want to try Black Butte Whiskey, and may enjoy pairing it up with the Porter for the boilermaker experience. Bottles can be purchased from local liquor stores, and it’s available at the Deschutes pub and the Crater Lake Spirits taproom as well.

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