*Limit Two Per Customer Per Week
For most of the private barrel selections we do, we aren't able to go to the distillery to make the selection. We get a selection of samples sent to us, and we take time both at the shop and at home to try them and arrive at a consensus as to what we all are excited by and what we think our most passionate customers would love. While it may not be as romantic as selecting barrels in a musty old rickhouse, it is generally a great process as we get to spend lots of time with the barrel samples on offer, in our own time.
For most of the private barrel selections we do, we aren't able to go to the distillery to make the selection. We get a selection of samples sent to us, and we take time both at the shop and at home to try them and arrive at a consensus as to what we all are excited by and what we think our most passionate customers would love. While it may not be as romantic as selecting barrels in a musty old rickhouse, it is generally a great process as we get to spend lots of time with the barrel samples on offer, in our own time.
Sometimes though we do get the chance to trek out to a distillery to make the selections onsite. With small producers it can be a great way to spend time with the distillers themselves, shooting the shit and often trying an irresponsible amount of very high proof spirits right from the barrel. It is great fun and wonderfully casual. We recently had the chance for the first time to finally visit some of the big Kentucky distilleries in person to do some barrel selecting. Though we knew we'd find some great whiskey waiting for us, there was some trepidation about not living up to the romantic ideal that doing barrel picks with small craft producers represents for us. It's always impressive to see how a big massive distillery runs though, and no matter what we were looking forward to seeing in person how the old guard does it day after day, churning out seemingly incalculable amounts of whiskey.
When you roll up to any of the big name Kentucky distilleries, you are met by a kind of post-apocalyptic vision of huge faceless buildings - massive rickhouses aging that endless supply of bourbon. There are after all more than two barrels of bourbon aging for every person residing in the state of Kentucky, a stunning figure. The effect of seeing these buildings for the first time isn't unlike the imposing feeling of 20th century fascist architecture that you can still find peppered throughout Europe, which was designed to make you feel small - at once in awe and frightened to the core. If you're lucky you'll get to see the production facilities as well, where the towering column stills and titanic fermentation vats have much the same effect. These are huge operations, and at first it seems so far from that romantic ideal of a small producer.
This was essentially our experience in visiting Heaven Hill Distillery last May. It was massive and hard to wrap one's mind around in the moment. But then you go into the rickhouses themselves, and you see another side to it. Old school whiskeymakers often like to say that while there are a lot of steps to making the stuff, whiskey is truly made in the barrel. That ethos is very much reflected inside these buildings, where the scale is still as unwieldy as everything else, but it feels like you have been transported to another time, and the silence overtakes you. These are temples of bourbon, wooden cathedrals where these barrels will slumber, surrounded by up to 60,000 of their brothers and sisters. And there are 55 of these at Heaven Hill alone, spread out endlessly across the Kentucky hills. It ends up feeling very romantic in its own strange way. The outside world is gone - there is only bourbon.
It was in one of these landlocked Noah's arks that we made the barrel selection itself, using a traditional copper "whiskey thief" to grab samples from a handful of barrels that had been selected for us to choose from. While they all had their distinct charms, in the end there was one that stood out as exemplifying what the best of Heaven Hill is to us. Aged 8 years and coming in at 63.9% abv, it's sugar and spice and everything nice. At such a hefty proof, it is certainly a good idea to let it sit for a good few minutes before diving into nosing it. Once it has settled and the big ethanol aromas have wafted away, there is a charming buttercream frosting note that greets you, leading to carrot cake, mint chip ice cream, and a hint of cedar. A very desserty welcome. Taking a sip, it reveals itself as a real spice bomb, with spicy cassia bark Cinnamon, allspice, sarsaparilla, rich vanilla, and a drying bite of oak that serves to balance out the intense richness. The finish begins with cinnamon and clove warmth before mellowing out to cornbread, vanilla, and cigar box notes that slowly fade, with just enough grippy wood tannin to invite you back for another round. This is big, classic Kentucky bourbon, and we hope sipping it transports you as it does us, to the strange and distinct romance that is a Kentucky rickhouse.
