Review: Flash Point Cinnamon

If there’s one thing that really disagrees with my taste buds, it’s cinnamon flavored whiskey. But what about when that whiskey isn’t even whiskey, but instead a “fortified wine” with some cinnamon added, and which is commonly sold at convenience stores? Well… that sounds like a recipe for disaster.


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History

In most states, it takes a special license to be able to sell and distribute distilled spirits — a license that isn’t typically granted to gas stations and convenience stores. But what is available for these types of shops are beer and wine licenses, allowing these stores to sell non-distilled alcohol products such as (you guessed it) beer and wine.

This is where our hero (or villain, depending on your attachment to your taste buds) comes into the story. A company named Brookstone Distilling Co, reportedly a subsidiary of the gigantic Sazerac distilling company that also owns Buffalo Trace, saw an untapped market to provide a product that looked and smelled like a whiskey (or vodka, or Fireball) but wasn’t actually a whiskey… and would therefore would be legal to sell in a convenience store.

Thus was born the line of pseudo-spirits that currently graces convenience store shelves.

There’s no website for these spirits, and barely a mention of the distillery from whence they came, making providing any further detail on the history of this stuff difficult to find.

Product

Technically, none of these products from Brookstone Distillery Company are distilled. They are, as they are labeled, “grape wine with natural flavor and caramel color” — or basically a fortified wine disguised as the spirit it’s trying to be for Halloween. What that means is they make a wine, then proof it to the maximum alcohol content allowed by each state in a wine, add a bunch of flavors and coloring, and slap a label on it before shipping it out the door.

We’ve looked at the pseudo-whiskey “Traditional Herd Creek Blended Special Select” before and this seems to be along the same vein, but with a significant helping of cinnamon added to the mixture.

Packaging

This fortified wine is packaged in a bottle that looks, for all intents and purposes, like a common “cheap” hip flask bottle of liquor. It’s an all plastic bottle with a squared body and a plastic cap.

There are exactly two labels on this bottle.

The first and largest is the Flash Point branding, which does a careful job of evoking a Fireball whiskey label without ever actually calling itself a whiskey. It even uses the same color scheme as Fireball but the logo is a… wine bottle with a slide? I think? Even if they’re going for some kind of firefighter theme, an inflatable slide is an odd choice compared to a ladder. Or a fire engine. Or really, almost anything else.

The rear label is the least interesting of the two, containing only the legally required disclosures and a bar code.

While everything about this branding might scream “cinnamon whiskey”, they do a very careful job to avoid calling it that, hence why this is just a “review” and not the usual “whiskey review”.


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Neat

I can smell it from halfway across the room: that sickeningly sweet, yet cinnamon spiced aroma of terror. And that’s not terror as in the fun kind, that’s terror as in “why am I subjecting my taste buds to this train wreck of a product?”

It smells exactly like a Red Hot candy, and for the most part it tastes that way too. There’s an absurdly large quantity of cinnamon in here and some seriously overpowering sugar, but there’s also a problem: it’s watery and tastes diluted even from the start. Fireball, flawed as it may be, at least provides a significant alcohol kick to complete the experience, which is something that this Flash Point can’t deliver with its paltry 16% alcohol content.

On Ice

With the added ice at least the aroma is now tolerable, but it actually makes the taste worse.

The problem with this liquid (note the avoidance of the word “spirit” here) is that it doesn’t have the weight and the body of a properly alcoholic concoction. That alcohol content is important to the experience. Diluting the liquid even further removes even more of that punch and basically makes this a slightly alcoholic cup of cinnamon flavored sugar.

Cocktail (Old Fashioned)

Just like with Fireball whiskey, the added bitters and orange flavors are completely lost. The cinnamon and the sugar are so overpowering that there isn’t even a hint of any impact they may have had.

It’s like putting a single drop of Cholula in a 55 gallon vat of blue cheese sauce. There’s no way you’re going to detect that.

Fizz (Mule)

I don’t even know why I wasted the ginger beer on this. I knew what the result was going to be, and yet I still made myself a “mule” and gave it a whirl. And what I got was a fizzy glass of disgusting.

There might be some redeeming qualities — the watered down nature of the product does give a glimmer of hope that the cinnamon and the ginger beer can play nice — but that sickeningly sweet sugar content just makes me reflexively pour the drink down the drain and want to grab something else.


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Overall Rating

I thought Fireball was a pretty awful experience but it turns out that it can, in fact, get worse. At least Fireball is a competent version of that “singe your taste buds and nose hairs” concept, this is just a cheap knock-off that can’t even pull off being terrible correctly.

Brookstone Distilling Company Flash Point Cinnamon
Production Location: Unknown
Classification: Other
Aging: No Age Statement (NAS)
Proof: 16% ABV
Price: $8 / 750 ml
Overall Rating:
All reviews are evaluated within the context of their specific spirit classification as specified above. Click here to check out similar spirits we have reviewed.

Overall Rating: 0/5
I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I actually found something so bad that Fireball is a preferable option.


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20 comments

  1. United In Lubbock, Texas carried it til is sold out, but not can it! we as many like the wine where can we buy in lubbock?

  2. I love the product I put in a little over ice all I need when I want to have a small drink, The alcohol content is perfect relaxes you don’t need a lot in the cinnamon is refreshing

    1. Thank you Tammy. After that horrible review, I was beginning to think I just bought the worst drink in Texas. I kinda like it myself. Thanks again. 😊

  3. i had not even thought about it being something other than a whiskey, figured it was just a cheap nock-off of fireball, and yes was bought from a gas station, didn’t think about that part. Been a few years since I had cinnamon whiskey when i saw the bottle i thought… that just sounds right for tonight and had the clerk grab one for me. Really should have looked it over more, this stuff is a huge disappointment when you are looking for a cinnamon whiskey kick. It has the smell, has a cinnamon taste, but there is just no … great ball of fire traversing your neck and setting your stomach on fire.

  4. I used to drink fireball, I now work at a beer and wine bar, so I tried the Flash Point, I really like it. So much that I have made my own drink out of it, it’s called The Kelly Bomb ! Flash Point mixed with sprite, I have people in Florida and Indiana going into bars asking for Kelly Bomb 😎

  5. It suffices for my schedule (getting off at 7am liquor not being available until 9-10) it does the job.

  6. I just found this review randomly and it made me laugh so hard I almost cried. So, thanks. And cheers, with real booze tho.

  7. I kike it! However I find it way too sweet, can y’all cut back on the sugar, it would be much better and I’ll be an avid customer for life.

  8. We found this stuff at a small country store in Freeport Fl., I mix it with coconut/pineapple flavored water from Walmart. Ha! We like it. Now they sold out and I can’t find it anywhere. I’ll keep searching!

    1. Right?! Whoever wrote this review probably thinks he’s too good to drink bottom shelf liquor OR wine. Not me though. Lol cheers!

  9. I love it! For an avid wine drinker it’s a wonderful alternative… A hint of fireball without the hangover!

  10. I just bought this tonight mistaking it for whisky, and I actually like it. Yeah, it’s sweet, but it’s probably gonna be easier on my body than my usual Four Lokos. It does remind me of whisky. Here in Washington state, it’s 21% instead of 16, and I’ve gotten buzzed off just a few sips so far, so that’s promising. Overall I’d rate this a 4/5 myself!

  11. I order it by the case. I love ❤️ it. Half the price of fireball and because the alcohol content is half, I remember what I did the next day and no hangover. I do wish it had less sugar, but can’t have everything!

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