Barrel Picks

Rare Character Straight Bourbon 8BL

“the Chasing of Bourbon”

Details- Like all Rare Character, it’s super double secret but they will disclose the mash bill. Suspected to be sourced Beam and similar to the PLT just a younger age statement

Mashbill: 78 / 13 9
Age: 8yr 2mo
Proof: 127.06
Sourced: Not Disclosed
Price: $109.99 (before discount) + $30 shipping up to 6 bottles
Yield: 180 Bottles

Last year Jarrod at Barrel King approached me about doing another pick with them. My thought was that given what they do it’s gotta be a blend. Jarrod said I love it, and let’s just have to you do it all….pick the base barrel, pick the finish barrels, blend it yourself. This will be a 100% Chasing Bourbon thing

Sweet off I went to BK to sample a lot of Rye they had gotten in. My mind set was in reference to how I feel Midwinter Night’s Dram has really fallen off the past few years.

I wanted to make a MWND killer for $50+ less.

I picked 3 barrels I wanted finished, placed them in a white port barrel, a Sine Que Non Blend Barrel, and a Sine Que Non Grenach barrel….now we’re off to the races. Well actually we’re off to wait and see how they mature

Fast forward 6 months and the blending began. My palate is way different than Matt Bunch and our two approaches are way different in how to do the blend.

In the end I made this how I thought it should be, sent the ratios to Barrel King, they made a batch, and let it meld for a few weeks.

Jarrod’s reply when he tried it made me smile from ear to ear

This bottle was submitted to the ASCOT Awards (American Spirits Council of Tasters) and Won a Double Platinum as one of a few to make it to the Championship Round. Outstanding; earns top marks from all judges.

Winning a Double Platinum award from the ASCOT Awards is quite challenging, as it requires a score between 95 and 100 points alongside top marks from every single judge on the blind-tasting panel

 

Bottle details for the new and a refresher for the OG’s
💥 MGP Distillate
💥 95% Rye 🌾 – 5% Malted Barley
💥 9 yr+
🛢️ 47% SQN White Wine finished 9yr 95/5 Rye MGP
🛢️ 33% Grenache Finished 9yr 95/5 Rye MGP
🛢️ 20% Port Finished 9yr 95/5 Rye MGP
💥 117.8 Proof
💰$149

This blend is causing quite the stir! While none of the creators did any research to conclude how this blend came about it’s great to see Barrel King get the attention.

I completely recognize this would have NEVER happened without Jarrod giving me the latitude to do as I wanted and all the effort his team put into shipping samples back and forth and I’m incredibly grateful for that and appreciate the heck out of them

Bourbon Culture Review – click to be directed to the review

Bourbon Hunter’s Podcast – Listen while they compare 2 releases of Midwinter Night’s Dram and this blend of mine. FFWD ~38 minutes in to hear them talk about this pick
– click here to be taken to Apple Podcasts
– click here to be taken to Spotify

The completion of the set has landed.

I originally approached Subtle looking for some of these 125+ proof 12yr MGP Ryes that were out and about. I had tried a couple and they were just to….aggressive?  Over extracted maybe? I wouldn’t say too “punchy” as I heard them described….just too too much

Subtle had a lot of those same barrels and sent me a grip of samples and I went to evaluating. One was off the chart exception and I picked a #2 just in case. Well number one was open and MINE

This is a complete reminder of the Dark Arts Rye flavor profile and with the extra 20 Proof Points it’s like turning it up to 12

Sourced MGP 95/5 Rye at 128.4 Proof

So much mystery with some Rare Character releases and this is no exception. Distilled in KY, 78 / 13 / 9 Mystery mashbill and 130.88 Proof it’s a monster of a pour.

There is some/much speculation that this is sourced Beam. I’ll be the outlier and say this is the post fire Heaven Hill experimental mash bill that first started surfacing about 10 years ago.

Given the brands history with the Heaven Hill family members and some contractual access to sourced Heaven Hill; this seems more plausible to me that a beam

How’s it taste? oh, it’s 100% delicious. At just under 131 proof it’s not too hot and not too lacking in the proof punch. It’s really fruity and sweet. I immediately thought of older Stagg Jr like B14 & B18 when I was sipping this. Ending up comparing and it lack the savory note Stagg has while holing it’s own in the trio

I know everyone who does barrel picks says they are killer….well except me with the Blanton’s Gold reject 😂….so keep in mind this is the view of the person doing the picks. If you like what I chose you’ll love this. Promise

FIRST this is NOT an American Light Whiskey. Yes, Old Louisville has done tons of ALW, and this is not the case on this one.

Quick technical lesson; American Light Whiskey comes off the still 160-190 proof. This 18yr in question was 130 off the still and barreled at that proof in a used bourbon barrel. Significantly darker in color than the 16-18yr ALW’s Old Louisville has put out in the past.

Easy confusion and assumption that can be had though

Next – the real magic behind this isn’t that I found it our picked it….its the history. One of the last things Greg Metze did at Seagrams before the were bought out and he left. A serious piece of bourbon histoy.

Last, I can’t take credit for finding it. I was at Old Louisville with a pick team to do two things….select a 10yr barrel of bourbon and then pick 2 more barrels for a blend. After selecting the 10yr the team was bored and wandering around trying stuff and found this. Mind you I’m 10+ 10yr barrels sampled, plus 20+ 8yr for the blend and my friend Aaron shoves this in my face and says “try this, we have to have this”

I was in no point to shift from what I was doing and agreed it was great. We tagged the barrel and I came back 2 months later to work on the blend and check out these 18yr.

Can concur it was the best. We tried every 18yr American Whiskey in the house and this was spectacular. Done, it’s mine and now can be your special bottle

We experienced a WAY higher yield that expected and at the time of this post there are still some for sale at Bourbon Outfitter (click to be directed to Bourbon Outfitter). That link will get you a 5% discount on your cart from Bourbon Outfitter. If you leave the cart you may need to go back and re-enter the code “chasingbourbon”

Bottle details for the new and a refresher for the OG’s
💥 Seagram’s Distillate
💥 99% 🌽 – 1% Malted Barley
💥 18yr+
💥 137.6 Proof
💥 Distilled in IN & Partially aged in KY
🛢️ Yield – 108
💰$399 before Discount with code “chasingbourbon”