What’s Single Barrel Bourbon?
Bourbons called single barrel are the result of bottling one “single” barrel of bourbon. The idea is something like this: Each barrel of bourbon is a little different, and the whiskey in it acquires a slightly different flavor. Furthermore, where the barrel is stored in the warehouse can make a considerable difference in how the whiskey ages. Typically, when a distiller bottles a bourbon, he collects together several hundred or even thousand barrels. These are dumped together, chilled and filtered, cut with water, and then bottled. What results is a reliably uniform whiskey. What the master distiller does, then, is to periodically sample the whiskey in barrels, especially those barrels in the best part of the warehouse. Usually this is the very center of the warehouse, called ‘the heart’ of the warehouse. Those barrels that are discovered to contain unusually fine whiskey are recorded and tracked with care. They are allowed to mature in years far beyond the average Bourbon. When they a
