Barrell Craft Spirits Gold Label Seagrass

We (as in @pkingmartin , @Bourbon_Obsessed_Lexington , @Richard-ModernDrinking and @ctbeck11 ) had our quarterly online tasting. This was one of the spectacular pours of the evening, courtesy of @ctbeck11 . The other four were 1) Bardstown Chateau Laubade batch 1 2) Craigellechie 13 Armagnac finished , 3) Lagavulin 12 2021 and 4) 15yr Jacob’s Well. I wasn’t a fan of the regular Seagrass. I didn’t dislike it, just that I didn’t like it as much as their previous Dovetail or Armida. Not something I’d go out and buy. But this….this is a different beast. It probably shares the DNA with the regular Seagrass, but it’s evolved to an elegant silky pour. You gotta add water to this. The heat is simply too much. But, once you do, you’ll get aromas of honey, sweet fruits, maple syrup. Palette is buttery, molasses, dark cherry, and oak. It’s really elegant. The 800 lb gorilla in the room though is the price. At $500, it’s way on the upper end, and above most of the affordability range, including mine. But, should you happen to treat yourself or someone special to a memorable gift , this would be a great one to consider. Thanks to @ctbeck11 for the pour!

OK, so regular Seagrass is quite possibly my favorite Rye. For this version, there has been a bottle of this at a nearby store for $300. So far, I've resisted buying it. In Louisville and our hotel bar has it. I'm in... Delicious... I like the standard version better. There, I typed it. It's wonderful as you'll see by my score. But I'll defer back to the standard bottle. This is more like canned peaches and the accompanying syrup. More honey notes. Seagrass is phenomenal, this is amazing... So I don't want this to read as a negative review

Nose: this is a new nose to me. Different aromas than the single malts, bourbons and ryes I’m used to. I get airy thin honey. Also something floral like rose petals. There is a heavy raw sugar cane presence but it’s not there on every inhalation. There is faint plum and apricot but it’s a secondary or tertiary aroma. I don’t nose any rye but a lot fruitiness. The other thing I find interesting is that the nose is very very soft given the 64.06 abv. A few times I nose wet wood, not oak exactly more like what I would imagine apricot juice sitting in a wood barrel would taste like which makes sense since this rye spent some time in apricot brandy barrels. The nose is complex and tremendous and grew on me over the time I spent with this. Later I thought I nosed a little rye spice a little red hot but it was almost like a whisper and then it was gone. Also later a caramelly flavor emerged. Body: this is tasted neat. Huge. A strong Kentucky Canadian hug. Palate: sugary sweetness, high C, some darker fruity flavors I think the plum I nosed earlier. But it’s like a fresh juicy plum not an old fermented syrupy plum, this dram is alive with complex flavors all taking turns coming to the forefront. Caramel and I get more of the rye spiciness. Finish: long. Not smokey like I love my finishes but sweetness that lingers and just slowly ever so slowly fades away. 2-3 minutes later I’m still getting flavors wafting out. Sugary sweet fruity flavors. Note: another 1010 purchase. Not cheap, phew. But the last gold label was really amazing. This is really an interesting dram. So many flavors and aromas and they come in different combinations I feel like this is a whiskey Willy wonka would take great pride in creating. Complex and sweet. It feels like someone or lots of someone’s would have had to put a lot of TLC to get this all to blend together. This is really top not.