Whiskey Review: Republic Restoratives Madam Whiskey

If you’ve heard about Republic Restoratives, then it’s likely due to this bottle of whiskey. During the recent 2024 presidential campaign, ads for this bottle were thick and heavy splashed across Instagram (even making it to the news across the pond). For the sake of science and my own knowledge, I had to find out: is it any good? Or is it just a gimmick with a famous person’s face across the front?

History

As you might expect for a distillery located in Washington, D.C., the history of Republic Restoratives starts with politicians.

Pia Carusone had built a successful career in politics, serving as Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and in 2011 was appointed as the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. But by 2013, after experiencing the horror of watching her boss Gabby Giffords nearly be assassinated on stage and enduring the grueling world of federal politics, Carusone was burnt out and wanted to make a change.

In her own words, at that point, “[y]ou can’t help but ask yourself, ‘what has my life amounted to, what would I regret’ following an experience like that”. And like so many other burnt-out, high performing people before her, she decided to quit the rat race and open a distillery.

Carusone teamed up with lifelong friend Rachel Cole Gardner to realize this dream. Gardner had found her love for fermented drinks in college, starting with making her own beer and eventually moving into the world of distilling in Seattle, Washington. There she worked with Berle “Rusty” Figgins Jr., a consultant distiller and assisted him in building and opening a number of craft distilleries in the area, and also worked on immersing herself in the technical details of distilled spirits by earning a Craft Distilling Certificate from the Spirits Institute of Puget Sound and attending courses at Moonshine University.

Together, Carusone and Gardner had the expertise and the gumption to open a distillery, and a fortuitous change in the laws in the District of Columbia had encouraged new businesses to open there — but they lacked the funding to make that dream a reality. They turned to crowdfunding to get their distillery off the ground, appealing to the fact that this would be the first woman-owned distillery in the District with both founders being members of the LGBTQ+ community to drive excitement and interest in the project, and appealing to their audience with provocative titles for their proposed spirits.

The result was a huge success — the distillery would become the largest crowd funded craft distillery in the world with over $119,500 in funding, opening its doors for the first time on Mother’s Day in 2016.

Product

• Learn More: What's the Difference Between Whiskey, Bourbon, Scotch, and Rye?

This whiskey was first introduced in 2020 to commemorate the election of the first female Vice President, Kamala Harris. But most people might know it best for the prominence it gained during the 2024 election, in which Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate and unsuccessfully ran to be the first female President against Donald Trump.

As for the contents, let me start with the mystery: I don’t know where this is made.

Sure, the bottle says “Produced and Bottled By” Republic Restoratives in DC, but that’s the exact same thing that they say on their Rodham Rye Whiskey — which is actually sourced from a Tennessee distillery and not produced in-house. According to the label, this is a blend of straight whiskeys, which I’m guessing are sourced from the same location as their Rodham Rye (which is also a blend of whiskies) that they import and blend together in DC, allowing them to claim that this was produced by them in DC.

I’m a big fan of transparency and honesty, and this isn’t giving me a whole lot of either at the moment.

While the label says that this is a blend of whiskeys, in reality this is a combination of two specific spirits: a 7 year old bourbon and a 5 year old rye whiskey. Both of those start out as a mixture of grains — 51% corn for the bourbon and 51% rye for the rye, with the remainder being undisclosed. Those grains are milled, cooked, and fermented to create a mildly alcoholic mixture that is then distilled to produce the raw whiskey. From there, it is placed into new charred oak barrels to mature for the appropriate length of time.

Once properly matured, the spirits are shipped to D.C. where Republic Restoratives blends them together and bottles the resulting spirit for sale.

Packaging

Let’s be real — if you bought this whiskey, chances are you bought it for the label.

Starting with the glassware, the design of the bottle itself is very familiar for a modern distillery. The general shape is that of a cylindrical body with a sharply angled shoulder and short neck, capped off with a wood and synthetic stopper. It’s clean, modern, and consistent with other craft distilleries out there.

Pretty much the only element that matters on the bottle is the large portrait of Kamala Harris on the front of the bottle. Designed by local artist Lex Marie, it’s done in the style of a presidential portrait and includes a gold frame around the image. On the bottom is the barest of minimums of labels you can imagine describing the actual brand name and contents.

While the label looks good, it’s also my biggest complaint. The label claims that this is “Produced & Bottled By” Republic Restoratives… but that’s a lie of omission. The whiskey is actually sourced from an undisclosed location and the only thing that Republic Restoratives does is mature the spirit a bit longer and bottle it. Being more transparent about that distinction would have been a much better choice in my opinion.

Neat

This whiskey looks good in the glass — a little lighter and less rust colored than you might expect, more of a dark gold than typical for a straight whiskey. Coming off the glass are the usual aromas you’d expect, including brown sugar, vanilla, cedar chips, a touch of dark chocolate, and a touch of apple in the background.

At first, the flavors are good. There’s a good weight to the liquid and a saturation to the flavors as they develop, starting with some nice brown sugar and vanilla. Then some dark chocolate start to add to it, but blows straight past the tipping point of a well balanced flavor profile. The dark chocolate morphs into more of a burned brown sugar flavor, complete with the bitterness and a bit of a chalky aftertaste. On the finish, there’s much more rye grain and black pepper spice that feel tacked on rather than properly incorporated into the flavor profile.

It’s a bit of a mess, to be honest.

On Ice

At this point, my hope was that the ice would help mellow things out and turn this into an actually enjoyable whiskey. And, to my delight, that’s exactly what happens — I think this is actually pretty good on the rocks.

What’s happening under the hood is that the chill and the dilution is turning down the volume knobs on those louder and more obnoxious flavors (like the dark chocolate). As a result, the flavor profile is much more harmonious now. It’s still nicely sweet with brown sugar and vanilla notes up front, and there’s plenty of dark chocolate to provide some depth and balance, but instead of going off the rails this is a more balanced and composed flavor profile that actually is enjoyable to drink.

I appreciate that there’s some good character here. The dark chocolate, the black pepper spice, the vanilla, and even a bit of cedar all combine to make something interesting and flavorful.

Cocktail (Old Fashioned)

Normally, I’d expect a whiskey that has some depth to it to make a good old fashioned. The dark chocolate flavor typically balances nicely with the aromatics in the bitters, and leaves the interesting and nuanced flavors of the spirit to come through and make something special happen.

Unfortunately, in this case, it falls a bit flat.

The dark chocolate and aromatics from the bitters do mix well and balance properly, that’s an accurate point. But once that’s happened, there’s really nothing else going on in this glass. I’m not getting much of the black pepper from the rye, and I don’t see any other flavors really stepping up. Beyond the dark chocolate, it just tastes like a watered down Werther’s Original.

Fizz (Mule)

Of all the ways I’ve tried this whiskey, I think the mule is the best vehicle for it.

For a normal whiskey-based mule (aka a Kentucky Mule), I’m looking for the balance of the flavors up front and then some unique textures near the finish. Typically, that’s some sweetness balancing out the lime juice and ginger beer, and then black pepper spice from the rye content adding the texture.

In this case, what I’m seeing is some balance to the flavors thanks to the richer dark chocolate flavor, but not necessarily the accompanying sweetness from the brown sugar or vanilla flavors that I’d expect. That leads to a darker version of this cocktail — almost closer to a Dark & Stormy, like I’d expect with a dark rum. And that’s how it finishes as well, with a smooth tail instead of any real spice or complexity.

It’s probably the most sippable and drinkable I’ve seen this whiskey yet.

Overall Rating

Let’s start by talking about the performance of this whiskey investigated in a vacuum… and there, the news isn’t great.

It seems to have all of the expected components, but they never really gel together to make a coherent flavor profile. Taken neat, the dark chocolate overwhelms the flavor profile and makes this a bitter and unappealing spirit. On the rocks, it’s pretty good… but there’s not a whole lot of complexity or interesting flavors. In an old fashioned, it feels watered down and bland. And in a mule, it’s a tasty drink but still lacks any of those traditional whiskey flavors that I would expect.

That all sounds like a rather poor performance for a spirit in general — but if you put that in the context of the price tag, this really starts to get disappointing. It’s a near-as-makes-no-difference $90 bottle of booze. Looking through similar reviews we’ve done, I can taste the complex flavors and interesting character that each of those other examples in this exact same price range bring, and all of them are more appealing than the contents of this bottle here today.

There’s a lot of potential here, but ultimately I was left feeling a little disappointed.

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: 1/5
A disorganized mess of a flavor profile that is somehow both overpowering and underwhelming.