Russell's Reserve, Small Batch Single Barrel, Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 55% abv.

This is WT juice with a mashbill of 75% corn, 13% rye, and 12% malted barley, aged in a char #4 American white oak barrel. An interesting thing is that this line enters the barrel at 110 proof instead of the traditional WT 125 proof, ages about 8 to 9 years and then gets bottled at... 110 proof! Supposedly Master Distillers Jimmy and Eddie Russell select the barrels from the center of the rickhouses themselves... seriously who has all that time?!?! The best part is the label though. Rumor has it, the "small batch single barrel" was redundant and confusing, so they redesigned the label to the current large labeled "single barrel" in bold. Sometimes integrating marketing and operations is synergistic, and sometimes it's .... like a Dragonball team.

Nose: peanut husks, light wood, salted vanilla, after some time it becomes strong boiled peanuts, nectar from "strong" flowers basically the kind with thicker petals, better texture, not thin. Overall a bourbon type of nose.

Palate: medium body, quite potent, generally unsalted boiled peanut shells, initial palate has a chemical flavor, sour grape juice, old sourdough bread, leads to a mid palate of more chemical flavors and sour grape juice as well, gets a little bitter, back palate has bitter-sour oak, earthy, bitter coffee without the sourness

Finish: spicey but I can't tell if it's abv burn, wood syrup, earthy, interior of oyster shells.

The bitter-sour oak flavors are quite dominant in this one. The nose was quite nice in the beginning, but it became too much after a few sips. Like most bourbons, it focuses on one flavor and goes all the way with it, but this flavor wasn't my type, i.e. overoak.

Grade: C-

Whiskyanalysis.com, 8.57 ± 0.34 on 15 reviews
Whisky advocate, John Hansell, 89 points
Thewhiskeyjug, Josh Peters, 92/100 for KL Wines selected barrel

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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