Castle & Cairn

An officially licensed product in partnership with America250, the non-partisan commission established by Congress to plan the nation's 250th anniversary, this commemorative bottling from Heaven Hill showcases the strengths of their huge production capacity and excellent unit economics. Only a fitting 250 barrels were selected which puts my estimate for total yield around 40-45K bottles. All barrels were personally selected by Master Distiller Conor O'Driscoll. As part of the promotion of this offering, Heaven Hill donated $75K to Folds of Honor which provides educational scholarships to the family of fallen or disabled US Service members and first responders.  🛒 Sourced: $39.99 for 750ml from Smyrna World of Beverage, April 2026. This is my first time seeing it on the shelf in market, though Georgia tends to be a bit late to new releases. With the lower proof Vintage appearing in the $30-$32 range, this bottle is also likely one of the stronger values on the market. Pricing...

Hand selected by legendary father-son master distillers Jimmy and Eddie Russell, Russell's Reserve Single Barrel Bourbon is renowned for its quality and can still be found more widely than some of the high age stated special releases. Russell's Reserve barrels are pulled from the center cut, the middle 3-5 floors of Wild Turkey's 7-story rickhouses, which get a good balance of fluctuations in temperature and humidity. They don't give much more info beyond that, but if you're interested in Wild Turkey's laser codes you can sus out a few more details. These codes etched into the back of the bottle just a smidge above the base.  LA NA20E1339 - LA codes started in 2024, A20 is January 20th bottling, N is 2025 (M was 2024 - sequential alphabetical), E bottling machine and time of day 1:39PM. This shelf destined bottle doesn't note the location or barrel number, but we know they were pulling from Tyrone F&G (high spice and leather) and Camp Nelson B (sweet w...

Four Roses has long been praised for the quality and consistency of its single barrel editions. They currently release a number of their ten recipes as single barrels, but this is from the original OBSV recipe "standard" bottling that is most prevalent. If you're not familiar with Four Roses recipe codes they follow a structured format: Distillery - "O" for all recipes, meaning distilled at Four Roses Distillery Mash Bill - either "B" (60% Corn, 35% Rye, 5% Barley) or "E"(75% Corn, 20% Rye, 5% Barley) Straight Whiskey - "S" for all editions Yeast Strain - V(Delicate Fruit), K(Spice), O (Rich Fruit, Q(Floral),or F(Herbal). The combination of the two mashes and five yeasts yields 10 possible variations. If your head isn't already spinning, Four Roses also includes the exact warehouse aging location for each single barrel. This one is from Rickhouse TS and has the code 49-3C which means rick/row number 39, tier 3 (height), and pos...

Barton 1792 out of Bardstown, KY is part of the Sazerac family of businesses which also includes Buffalo Trace. 1792 is their current flagship brand which also comes in Full Proof, Cask Finish, and Sweet wheat iterations. Full Proof has been almost impossible to find since Jim Murray named it his 2020 World Whiskey of the year, but I have started to see it somewhat regularly and demand seems to have fallen enough that big players like Costco are able to get in on the action, moving some single barrels at lower than SRP. Costco has a very strong relationship with Barton as the latter bottles the white label Kirkland Small Batch , Bottled-in-Bond , and very elusive Single Barrel. As opposed to store picks, a single barrel program of this magnitude likely required Costco to rely on the distiller to pick the barrels against a target profile, potentially sending a tasting team to workshop that target and then letting Barton replicate to similar casks in their barrel management system. ...

Named for Colonel Albert Bacon Blanton who worked his way up from office boy at age 16 to distillery president, this bottle was introduced in 1984 by Master Distiller Elmer T. Lee as the first commercially marketed single barrel bourbon. Blanton was known for searching the rickhouses for particular "honey barrels" of outstanding quality from the center cut of warehouse H . Unlike most of the other Buffalo Trace warehouses, H is metal sided instead of brick and will therefore change temperature more, potentially accelerating the aging process. Warehouse H has four floors of ricks, each with about 60 ricks each. Rick numbers repeat on each floor. In 1999, Buffalo Trace changed the bottle design to include the eight iconic horse and jockey stoppers which spell out B-L-A-N-T-O-N-S and depict the various stages of a horse race. Notably the two different N's are slightly different, the latter being followed by a subtle colon. Blanton's is bottled by hand so the topper lette...

If you aren't already a big fan of Heaven Hill, the Evan Williams Vintage series might be just the thing to turn you onto them. Formerly a Kentucky exclusive, the Vintage series are all single barrels with the novelty that each iteration gets a "vintage" much like wine, noting the year in which the whiskey was barreled. They're usually pretty close to eight years of age, though it does vary +/- six months in my experience. The U.S. doesn't have access to a recurring high aged bottling under the Evan Williams Brand (the 12-year occasionally pops up at the distillery or Evan Williams Experience - but I've never seen one), so this is as close as many will get to that experience. These barrels are pulled based on being true to the Evan Williams profile and are remarkably consistent for single barrels, though you will find some fun nuance in the mix. I was a pretty big fan of the 2015 Vintage, having worked my way though a handful of them, and was excited to pick ...

While Jack Daniel's is a household name with its flagship jousting with with Jim Beam for the top spot in global sales, there are many who have never heard of their other releases. Jack Daniel's Single barrel lineup consists of a Tennessee Whiskey (bourbon) at barrel and 90 proof, a Rye also at Barrel proof, and Heritage and Single Barrel 100 at 50% ABV. Single Barrel Barrel Proof  was the first of the lineup, released in 2015, and aims to deliver a traditional Jack Daniel's flavor profile. While single barrels are often both praised and criticized for their variability, the Jack team seems to be able to keep selected barrels remarkably consistent through methodical tasting-based selection. 🛒 Sourced:  $68.99 - Total Wine, GA 750ml - normally closer to $60, a gift from my Mother-in-Law. Price-wise they sit between Jack Daniel's bonded lineup and their age stated premium series releases. I'm seeing some store picks around $65.  🧪 Proof:  127.7 proof, 63.85% ABV - S...

Prior to the opening of Lux Row 's Kentucky distillery in 2018, Rebel was produced under contract by Heaven Hill. Lux Row is now owned by Midwest Grain Products as of 2021, but this barrel was filled on 3/23/2017, before they began production operations of their own in Bardstown. Rebel Yell (now shortened to "Rebel" after political pressures in 2020) was historically produced by Stitzel-Weller for distribution in the Southern United States and bears a signature wheat mash bill like many of the now scarce Weller products. Like Lux Row's Ezra Brooks brand, Rebel has a burgeoning barrel prick program  which got a lot of attention from stores looking to up their store portfolios during the bourbon boom, and they have also started to put out distiller selections at cask strength as well.  🛒 Sourced:  $41.99 - 750ml - World of Beverage Smyrna, GA - Discounted as the last few bottles of a store pick, normally $55. I see distiller's selects of this around $55. 🧪 Proof: ...

Joining a packed lineup of flavored, finished, and extra aged expressions, Jim Beam Single Barrel  packs some extra proof and is had selected by the Beam team from stocks of the namesake spirit. Jim Beam brings its different brands off the still at different proofs, so there is no chance of this being a rejected Knob, Bakers, or Booker's Barrel; it'll be the crème de la crème of Beam itself. This is the most premium Jim Beam offering in the regular lineup and has been in production since 2013. Weak consumer sentiment resulted in them revamping the offering in 2019, upping the proof from 95 to the current 108 and changing the bottle design (cork was switched to twist top for cost reasons, a trade I'm perfectly willing to make).  🛒 Sourced:  $39.99 - Total Wine, GA 750ml - Priced to compete with Evan Williams Single Barrel , though that bottle is at a lower proof. In my experience, not a whole lot of retailers stock this bottle, so your best bet is likely one of the big ch...

Produced by Suntory's Jim Beam distillery, the Knob Creek brand was created in 1993 by Master Distiller Booker Noe as the organization's first small batch offering (today joined by Booker's, Baker's, and Basil Hayden's). Noe's design was to meet or exceed the quality standards defined by the Bottled-in-Bond act and create a fully flavored, pre-prohibition-style whiskey. The flagship Knob Creek 9 is bottled at 100 proof and barreled a minimum of nine years excepting a brief stint from 2016 to 2020 when Beam had to drop the age statement. The flagship is joined by a series of rye whiskies at various age statements, Single Barrel Select/Reserve, 12 and 18 year bourbon, and a flavored maple whiskey. Our bottle today, Knob Creek Single Barrel Select  is a distiller pick selected for Costco. The Single Barrel series bourbons get a bump up to 120 proof and have extended barrel information mentioned on the bottle. The Knob Creek Single Barrel Program gets wide particip...

📚 Background: Hailing from Hye, Texas, Garrison Brothers has held a distiller's permit since 2006, the first issued for Bourbon outside the state of Kentucky. They are considered a "Craft" whiskey producer and are known for their experimental or limited releases. Texas gets HOT, as the graph below shows, and Garrison Bros are constantly battling an increased rate of evaporation, swagged as being as much as two or three times that of Kentucky. The angels are straight-up Bourbon robbing these guys.  Average Temp - Austin, TX vs. Bardstown, KY - weatherspark.com/ The upside of the increased swings in temperature is that the extraction of flavoring chemicals from the barrel occurs more rapidly We see this commonly in Indian Whisky where a similarly hot climate produces similar flavor impacts as twice the time in Scotland (would imagine Texas is likely somewhere in-between). 🛒 Sourced:  A buddy purchased for $79.99 at the distillery. The combination of premium ingredients a...

  📚 Background:   Crafted by Heaven Hill from a pervasive mash bill, this 10-year old bonded bourbon is distinguished by being one of the few bonded single barrels in circulation. In 2019, it won "Best in Show Whiskey" at the San Francisco World spirits competition, catapulting a $30ish dollar bottle into the stratosphere. Double H had this to say in response: “Quality and consistency are two values that have persisted across Heaven Hill since our company began distilling American Whiskey in 1935,” said Heaven Hill's President Max L. Shapira. “Henry McKenna, and our entire American Whiskey portfolio, is a shining example of the tradition instilled by our late Master Distiller Parker Beam and carried forth by our unrivaled team at Heaven Hill Distillery. While we certainly enjoy the recognition of our passion, it is the commitment of our people who bring these products to life that gives us the most satisfaction.” As with all single barrel bourbons, there will likely be ...

  📚 Background:   The same mash bill as Evan Williams, bottles of this series are dumped from hand selected barrels of whiskey by Evan's master distiller each year since 1986. One of the cheapest and most tenured single barrel editions on the market (Benchmark Single Barrel at $25 is the other that comes to mind), Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage has fantastic labeling for a budget bottle, including both the barreled and bottled dates. Like wine, it prominently features the barreling year on the label. I love the lore even if it's not likely to mean much (single barrels do tend to vary quite a bit even in famed and expensive editions). Each barrel likely produces 250-300 bottles depending on the amount absorbed by the wood and evaporation. To further the crafted aesthetic, each bottle is topped with black wax and has a little booklet necklace with further marketing material around the neck. It has been awarded "Whiskey of the Year" by the Spirit Journal , "...

Note: This was one of my first reviews and we have learned a good deal since then! - Check out the more recent look at the Barrel Proof Bourbon  from Jack Daniel's.  🛒 Sourced:   Local Vine store pick, think I paid about 48.99.  🧪 Proof: People rave about the barrel proof version, so I was interested to see how this one holds up at an easy drinking 47% abv. 🥔 Mash Bill: 70% Rye, 18% Corn 12% Barley  👃 Nose: hints of the peppery rye goodness we all love, clean & non-astringent 😜 Palate: Very smooth, almost eerily so. Slight notes of rye at the beginning and end with more of the typical oak flavors. Maybe a bit of plantain but the flavors are very slight. Light to thin mouthfeel. 🏆 Overall:   4 /10 (Many things I'd rather have) It took me around 6 months to polish off this bottle and in that time I never found myself looking forward to it.  There's nothing "wrong" with this whiskey, but I feel that it's just too mild and there are far better...