Barrell Batch 016 Cask Strength 9 Years 9 Months Old Bourbon Whiskey, Tennessee, USA

Another winning Bourbon Salvation from the good folks at Barrell Spirits.

Why is the extra letter “L" in Barrell Craft Spirits? Company founder — Joe Beatrice — just ain’t saying. But he will tell you all day long about his passion for the work that they do to preserve unique orphan casks of American Whiskey.

Founded in 2014, Barrell Craft Spirits scoops up extra casks of premium Bourbon and Rye and bottles ‘em up at full strength. Each batch is completely different. Sometimes the coolest casks on the market are Tennessee-style Whiskeys, sometimes they’re Kentucky Bourbon. The good stuff could be straight, or it could be a finished wood. The point is that they find the best odd lots and “left-overs” that would more likely be tossed into a generic blend and sell it to us in all of their glory.

Barrell Bourbon Batch 016 is the latest example of their craft. True to form, they keep the provenance of these limited releases a top secret. But they let us know that it is a combination of Whiskeys “distilled and aged in Tennessee, Indiana, and Kentucky.” The “Indiana” source is easy to guess — likely the Rye component from MGP. We also know that some of the spirit has been aged for nine years and nine months, some aged eleven years, and the last bits aged fifteen years — all of them in new American white oak and then bottled at a perfectly lovely 52.9% ABV.