NULU Toasted Single Barrel Bourbon

Total Wine Pick. Definitely has the toasted profile. Smells sweet, like marshmallows, toffee, and praline. Drinks similarly. At 124 proof, you wouldn’t expect it.

Caramel, corn, and marshmallows on the nose. On the palate it's viscous and sweet with a building peppery rye burn that smolders for a fairly long finish.

(Tasting a Total Wine barrel pick.) Nose is wild. Like those butterscotch candies old ladies carry, with some subtler grassy notes hiding in there too. Palate is similar, but it takes a hard turn to the vegetal on the finish, which reminds me of Old Pepper rye. I’m not sure if they all taste like this or if it’s just this pick, but it’s a crazy unique, solid pour.

This bottle has been sitting inside my cabinet for months, untouched and often scowled upon as a pariah for taking up valuable space in my bottle collection due to a prior experience with regular Nulu bourbon which was dreadful, sour, made disastrous cocktails and eventually met a brown waterfall death as an $80 bottle of Drano. So why would I get another bottle, well sometimes the bourbon gods bestow gifts to their faithful partakers as my cancelled bourbon of the month club failed to notify their distributor of my departure which serendipitously resulted in a free bottle of Nulu Toasted and Blanton’s single barrel. Curiosity has gotten the best of me, it’s now open, and I will now find out if bourbon Loki is playing a trick to create another brown waterfall or if this will be brown nectar to be utilized in daily bourbon communion. The nose starts with a chocolate covered toasted marshmallow followed by burnt orange peel and caramel cinnamon apple fritter then spices of nutmeg, cloves, and roasted chestnuts with medium-high ethanol burn. The taste is a medium mouthfeel starting with a rich caramel along with chocolate covered toasted marshmallow followed by fruits of apple and orange before the spice of a Sichuan peppercorn takes over and lingers before finally transitioning to barrel spices of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and light oak with a high ethanol burn. The finish is medium length with toasted marshmallow, walnuts, graham cracker, chocolate, orange, caramel apple and light oak spice. Surprisingly this was not a trick, but rather an enjoyable bourbon that the toasted finish has helped polish out the flaws found in normal Nulu. This isn’t a complex whiskey, but a well-executed young bourbon that adds a toasted marshmallow flavor to traditional bourbon flavors and is easy to drink, but won’t result in any wow factor. I’ll no longer be shunning this one and enjoy it until it’s empty, but for the $80 this would have cost, I would rather just pick up another MGP like George Remus ($40) or anything from the Belle Meade range ($40-$80).

B30T bottle. Strong but balanced, toasted sweetness

VA Barrel Select pick. Nulu toasted barrel strength, 123 proof. Nose: outstanding scents of caramel and spices. Hints of vanilla, cherry, brown sugar and allspice. I could nose this forever. Palette: big flavors to backup the intensity of the nose. Heavy and rich. Lots of caramel and brown sugar with lasting spice from the toasted barrel. Long finish. This will be a difficult bottle to keep around, delicious.