Single barrel number 1541 Aged 4 years Exclusively selected by "Ciao Chows!" on 04AUG2022 One of the many bottles that I picked up recently in a lovely (and expensive) birthday trek through my favorite distilleries, Limestone Branch made for half a dozen of those pick-ups, with no regrets at all. Starting from the lowest proof, this single barrel of the classic Select 93 bourbon was selected by one of the distillery's dogs, or more accurately, the handler of said dog. Ciao, I believe, was the pup named after this barrel, and was alongside a cat's barrel pick at the gift shop. If I remember correctly, the pet barrel picks cycle monthly, or perhaps quarterly. As fun of an idea as this was, it's been quite some time since I've ever seen a single barrel of the original Select 93, let alone owned one, but I blame Ohio for that. A very light color compared to other Select 93 bottles I've had, and even lighter in the glass than the bottle. A powerful nose of malted rye and more ethanol than expected are found alongside young corn, but not as raw and unrefined as younger ages would be. Repeated smelling brings up both chocolate and cherry, with just a hint of a floral finish. The initial taste is light and floral, but soon explodes into chocolate syrup, but the classic Hershey's over a smaller company's gourmet sauce. After a few more sips, the rye spice is tasted but just barely sinks into the gum line. The corn also comes around, and although it still tastes fairly young, it's starting to finally mellow out and round off the edges; another 18 months or so would really shoot this to an amazing level. A little more floral flavor surfaces around the finish, where the chocolate flavor from before starts to fall off. The finish itself becomes more and more young and predictable as far as craft bourbons go, but the rye spice does continue to build and a salted peanut note fades in and out. At the end of the day, there's no way I was going to hate this, but as far as single barrel picks go, this is slightly more complex with different flavor profiles than you would get from the batched Select 93, and would be worth, say, $10 more than the original, but probably no more than that. As I blacked out when I purchased everything at the gift shop, I do not remember how much this costs, but do think it's worth having as both a replacement to the batched version, as well as alongside said version for minor comparisons. Still, for a dog, I think this was a paws-itively good pick.