What started seven years ago as a vision inspired by a love for art has come to fruition with the inaugural edition of Black Unicorn whiskey ($500 a 750-ml.). “This is not me launching a brand per se rather than me changing how I engage with the idea of barrel picks,” says LeNell Camacho Santa Ana, owner of LeNell’s Beverage Boutique in Birmingham, Alabama. “The typical barrel pick program is very limited in choice. I want to feel a distiller’s heartbeat. I want to see a twinkle in their eyes. This is about heart connection and conversation with makers that just naturally flows into an idea for a Black Unicorn without trying to force anything.”
The first Black Unicorn expression is a 74.7% abv whiskey from Charbay Distillery in Ukiah, California. Master distiller Marko Karakasevic used a mash bill of 52% corn and 48% two-row barley distilled using an alembic pot still custom-made by Cognac designer Prulho. Camacho Santa Ana notes that “the mash bill slowly and painstakingly distilled in a copper pot still accented all that malty goodness.” The whiskey was aged five years in a 225-liter Missouri oak barrel with a No. 3 char for the belly and Hungarian toasted oak heads. “Folks are curious and excited,” Camacho Santa Ana says. “I have had people reach out from all over the world.”
Black Unicorn’s journey began when Camacho Santa Ana attended the Birmingham art festival Artwalk and saw John Lytle Wilson’s painting, “Enter the Unicorn.” The experience gave her the feeling of butterflies in her belly and “unleashed a swell of creative energy.” Camacho Santa Ana asked Wilson if he was willing to have the image on a whiskey bottle. There was an original friendly verbal agreement, but since the painting was already sold, a complicated legal and logistical process had to be navigated to protect long-term business interests and make it happen. “Once John finally agreed, local photographer Liesa Cole and I chased the owner of the painting for months attempting to get the image photographed so she could turn it into a high-resolution digital image because John did not have one,” Camacho Santa Ana explains.
The digital image was sent to Powell Burns, the graphic artist who designed the label for Camacho Santa Ana’s legendary Red Hook Rye whiskey sourced from Kentucky’s Willett Distillery, when she owned the liquor store LeNells Ltd. in Brooklyn, New York. “Once we had all that in place, we spent tons of time trying to get the lettering of ‘Black Unicorn’ just right and played with various label ideas,” Camacho Santa Ana says.
Other significant challenges included securing finances to get through all the layers of fees, licenses, legalities, and the COVID pandemic. “We began this conversation long before COVID so patience during the pandemic was just one of many hurdles of time and money,” she says. Now her patience is paying off as Camacho Santa Ana is showcasing a beloved Alabama artist and working with “distillers who want to create art instead of just doing another barrel pick.”
In all, 248 bottles of Black Unicorn were hand-filled, hand-labeled, waxed with glittering hearts and stars, and signed by Camacho Santa Ana and Wilson. Karakasevic’s signature dons the paper whiskey notes attached to each bottle. Camacho Santa Ana notes each bottle looks different as the bottle’s taper proved challenging to apply the labels. Consumers will need a knife to cut through the wax seal to open the bottle.
Black Unicorn is also a way to further support her corporate charity, TAKE Birmingham, which serves the needs of the local black transgender community. “Unicorns and rainbows are symbols used in pride imagery,” she notes.
For future releases, Camacho Santa Ana says she is looking to “work with distillers to create magic.” The next Black Unicorn will be in a different bottle shape from another distiller with Wilson’s art on the front of the bottle. While the original Black Unicorn could become a collector’s item, Camacho Santa Ana’s goal is to source future Black Unicorn expressions retailing at less than $100 a bottle. A corn whiskey is coming, a Bourbon barrel mead is in the works, and possibly a barrel-aged gin is on the horizon. “They will come as the creativity connects me with makers,” she says. “I will never pick a Black Unicorn from some stash of barrels set aside for barrel picks or accept whiskey in plastic sample bottles.”