Barrell Bourbon Batch 031

Quite oak driven on the nose, with nutty and creamy notes. The flavor is fruit forward, with a mincemeat pie spicy-sweetness. Rich, elegant and very drinkable. At the finish line, there is a lasting impression of pepper, and some char; but all ends well on a sweet note similar to a house-made grenadine. As with each of the Barrell Bourbons we’ve reviewed, this is another lovely addition to their portfolio or numbered releases.

Pours a golden orange color, long legs, smells sweet, cornbread, rich caramel, nutty oak, lots of vanilla, marshmallow, a bit of the spice box, maybe even some pine. More spice in the taste than the nose, but that sweet cornbread and caramel hits too, with lots of oak, vanilla, hints of mint, nuts, molasses. Mouthfeel is full bodied and rich, definitely hot but not hazmat levels - pushing it, but it works neat. Overall, delicious stuff, reasonably well balanced, worth the stretch for sure… Beer Nerd Musings: Near as I can tell, there are no beers aged in barrels specifically attributed to Barrell (now, there are some beers in various databases that misspell “barrel” and include an extra “l”, but I don’t think that counts), but since they source all their barrels, I suppose they could make it to a brewery somewhere… Since Barrell seems to be good at picking barrels for their blends, I’m guessing they’d be good fodder for bba beer. Batch 31 is supposedly built around a 99% corn bourbon, which is a rare but not completely unheard of barrel for beer aging (Eclipse had a Mellow Corn variant a while back that was very good)….

Lots of spice and vanilla the oak and leather are in the background clapping and the finish is long and sweet.

Woah. Hot front, sweet caramel middle, cinnamon heat tail. Heck of a blend. Almost worth the price tag.

Requires ice at this proof, but then it’s great