Amen brotha'!

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Trying something I have been saving since I bought, just under $100, we shall see stay tuned!

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Never seen a barrel pick of the Redemption line what were your thought on it?

Local liquor store did a barrel pick of EC and its a 10yr 10 month single barrel. Couldn't beat the price either.

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Yeah I'm on my way home now to sample it. If it turns out to be as good as I hope it is I'm going to go back and buy a bunch of them

No clue other than money to buy it.

It is probably not as expensive as you think. I know Costco sells barrels for around 8K, which is retail.

Somebody just posted on previous page they bought a barrel we should pm him and ask

Go back to page 48 post 2369 that guy bought a whole Barrel we should contact him and ask him how much it cost

Two good articles about buying a barrel. No prices, sadly.

https://blog.distiller.com/barrel-picks-guide-tasting-buying-bourbon-barrel/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmccarthy12/2017/04/04/how-to-buy-a-barrel-of-bourbon/#39b8cd217161

Haven't seen any posts for anybody receiving their secret santa bottles lately anybody got any pics to share?

When a store does a barrel pick like that is the only difference that they go to the aging facility, sample some barrels and pick some for their own store? Other than that that it's all the same as others in the same batch? I'm curious because EJ is great, but I wonder how much different store selected barrels would be given that they charge more for it.

My understanding is that they get offered certain barrels to pick from. What I can say is this particular Barrel was 10 years old and 10 months and I know that the regular EC is between 6 and 8 years old.

Ahhh interesting, so there is an aging difference, cool. Will need to procure some at some point.

I'm in like Flint.

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After your whole house water heater ur gonna need to save ur nickels for a while

You got that right... and next comes the season.

I have been thinking about converting our house over to a tankless water heater system but I knew it wasn't cheap. As it is we have an 80 gallon propane water heater but I don't need that shit cutting into my bourbon fund

I have the ability to buy barrels with owning a bar. I recently bought and have a Buffalo Trace pick. I also picked a barrel of Weller a few weeks ago.

You are generally offered barrels depending on how much product you sell.

I could set this up. Want to to reach out to the distillers and see what would be available?

As far as price, you pay for what comes out of the barrel per bottle.

So for example how much did a barrel of weller run?

I’m in! And how many bottles in a barrel?

We did full proof so we won’t get as much as if we did 107.

We should get around 192 bottles from that barrel. We will pay around 49-52 per bottle. Around $9,600.

If we just buy a general barrel and not let full proof or age, probably around 240. The barrel of Buffalo Trace I picked got ya around 20 cases. 12 bottles per case.

If you guys are on Facebook you need to join your local bourbon/whiskey pages. I have several barrel picks from my local groups and they’re all great. We’re currently trying to get a barrel of Weller OWA or Full Proof.We’ve done Whistle Pig, 1792, Smoke Wagon, Kentucky Spirit and several others. One of the few redeeming factors of FB. I’d be in on a group pick but not if we have to buy 30 bottles each lol.

Dibs on going to the distillery to help pick the barrel.

Do you sell these at your bar? Or are they only available at retail stores?

We had an 80 that was doing ok... then it ruptured one evening and I had to put another in right away... an 80 was out of stock locally that evening and I had to "go with" a 50... It was never enough and so a year and a half later we just did it and got the tankless. Way expensive but man it's been great. Even my 24 yo daughter can't run the water out.

Full proof would be awesome. So 16 of us at $600/case....Seems reasonable to me.

I enjoyed the first glass very much, it’s nice and powerful. I am not a big rye guy and like more charcoal taste and darker in color but this one felt like it which was nice. I will let you know on my next glass as it’s no longer at my Total Wine store.

t8tony8t is correct, availability is usually based on how much product you move. I've been on a selection panel a number of times, and usually, we will pick from 3-5 different samples sent to us representing individual barrels. When we make our selection, the distillery is notified, and they reserve the barrel. When it's ready to go, it is bottled and shipped to the local distributor, and sold to us as a private select. While I have never traveled to a distillery to do a pick, it is not uncommon for people to do so.

The best part of private barrels, are that they are by definition, a single barrel. So brands that are normally "small batched"/blended can be tasted individually, with barrels being all over the spectrum for a particular brand. I've had some really good Elijah Craig picks that were completely outside of the flavor profile I would normally associate with EC, yet somehow, still Elijah Craigesque, if that makes any sense.

Even single barrel brands can be quite different than their normally offered profile. One of my all time favorite picks ever was an Eagle Rare we did a few a years ago. It had the oiliest mouthfeel of any bourbon I had ever tried, and had earthy, leathery tones that just coated your tongue and then transitioned to toffee and caramel. It was absolutely amazing. I have about 3 fingers left, and might decide to tip it back on Thanksgiving. The funny part about it is knowing that it was an "off" barrel, there is no telling what it would have been blended into, from Buffalo Trace to Benchmark.

I'm part of a few single barrel "societies" these days, so I usually get first dibs on a dozen or so bottles a year, and while the whiskey is always outstanding, the custom stickers on them are pretty interesting at times too, haha.

Nice information. Thanks for sharing!
Your Eagle Rare pick sounds amazing, right up my alley.

Well this pains me to admit but @Chisox you were right about the weller 12. Definitely didnt live up to the expectations I had for it thats for sure. The weller antique is hands down way better than this bottle. I was so displeased with this bottle that I actually sent their customer service an email stating my unhappiness.

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That stinks man, I'm sorry. I know that feeling well, and it sucks. That's how I felt when I finally opened a compass old blowhard a few years ago. It was "old school" stizel-weller juice and hawked as being the second coming of jesus.

Pure garbage. I let it sit for months hoping it would transform into the unicorn tears it was touted as, but it just stayed as the unicorn piss it was when I first opened it. Big disappointment.

I'm convinced at this point that W12 is scooped up by people the way it is as trade fodder for other people who have never had it to be used as trade fodder, and so on and so forth never to be opened...which is funny, because it was never a "special" bottle until recently. It's "ok", especially if it was readily available at $29, but it really is a middle of the road bourbon, and by extension, as is most of the pvw line, sans the 15 yo, which is actually pretty good.

Now that full proof though. I'd bet that's delicious, and lands between the 107 and the Antique Collection WLW in tastiness.

Yeah I haven't opened that bottle of full proof yet and I am on the hook to buy three more from the guy who sold me it. But it certainly isn't cheap and is definitely way more than I wanted to spend on it in the first place

Ok, so I’ll post first that I got my package today, which came with 2 really cool airplane sized bottles, and a bottle of R.M. Rose, which I’d never heard of before, but that was the thinking by my SS-to try something I haven’t before, and he’s 100% correct on that.
Thanks!!!

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And one really quick question: where are you shipping these out of? Mine is wrapped and ready to go, but when I was carrying it, you can hear the liquid on the inside moving, so I’m not sure the Post Office will allow it to ship.
Thoughts?

Thats really cool. Always good to try the different spirits from across the country. Just the fact we can send each other something special and feel good about it should make you all feel damn good. Cheers!

Perfect.
Just sent the wife to UPS With those instructions-hopefully homeland security doesn’t arrest her....or hopefully they do.
Bahahahaha

Sorry bud, hope I didn’t ruin your experience by planting the seed that it’s not great. I’d stash it and come back to it later and maybe you’ll like it more with the expectations tempered a bit.

Trying to put together that Thanksgiving table selection... Can't decide...

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That's always my old standby. "Artesian Homemade BBQ sauce", or being in New England, "Homemade Blackstrap Maple Syrup". Olive Oil is a good one, too. I've heard "water samples" (and marked so on the package) work great, too, and have even heard "urine samples", but I'm not that brave

I usually ship directly from Staples UPS or one of the other re-senders; they tend to ask less questions, and the packages are picked up directly by a driver once or twice a day, rather than through a UPS store, where they ask lots of questions, and the package is handled by multiple people prior to it actually being picked up.

That said, I ALWAYS add a "rattler" to packages; a store brand box or two of mac & cheese or just a box of macaroni works wonders. I place one "longitudinally", and the other "laterally" in the box for max effect; no matter what direction the package might be shook, it has maximum "rattle" to cover the "glug" sound.

So to sum it up, I mix up locations (try to be a week or so between using the same location to ship), and always declare maple syrup for my cousin, and a box of "Legos" for his kid. Works like a charm.

Use your own UPS account and have the box labeled and ready to ship.
I've never had the UPS store ask anything other than, "would you like a receipt?"