Do you have enough hazmat whiskey in your life? Before you say anything, the answer is apparently no, because some more hellfire juice has entered the chat. Barrell Craft Spirits, the Louisville operation responsible for so many fantastic blends of bourbon and other types of whiskey, just dropped its latest hazmat expression, and this one spent a total of eight years maturing in a very unusual type of barrel.
BCS is a company that usually provides as many details as it’s legally allowed to about its whiskeys, mostly having to do with the states that the whiskey it sources comes from, if not the actual distilleries (but you can often guess). This new expression is an 18-year-old American whiskey—not a bourbon or a rye—that was distilled in Indiana, which most likely means MGP given its age. It was initially matured in used bourbon barrels for a decade, so the reason this whiskey is not being called a bourbon could be because it was not aged in new charred oak casks, or the mashbill might not be 51 percent corn, or the entry proof could disqualify it—but those details are not disclosed. Next the whiskey was placed into used Curaçao barrels, a type of orange liqueur from the Caribbean island of the same name. That is an unusual type of barrel to use for American whiskey, but it’s not unheard of—for example, Heaven Hill released a bourbon given a Curaçao finish in 2018 as part of the Parker’s Heritage Collection.
Finally, the whiskey was bottled at 143.1 proof, which is very, very strong. Remember, hazmat refers to whiskey that is bottled above 140 proof, or 70 percent ABV, which the FAA has deemed unsafe to bring onboard an airplane (and is probably unsafe to drink more than a little bit of at a time). This comes after some other hazmat releases of note, some good and some bad. Terry Bradshaw’s bourbon brand just released a 12-year-old single barrel bourbon at 147 proof, and it’s actually pretty good. Garrison Brothers in Texas dropped its latest Cowboy Bourbon in late December, and that whisky was bottled at 146.4 proof. And last summer, Barrell released another hazmat banger, a blend of Canadian whiskies aged up to 30 years that came in at 142.7 proof and was also kinda drinkable.
We did not get to try a sample of this new 18-year-old American whiskey, but the official tasting notes sound pretty interesting: “Absinthe, birch beer, and clove cigarettes,” on the palate, with the Curaçao barrels providing a “melting creamsicle note” on top of notes of “rye toast, butter, and a puff of chalk dust.” Unfortunately, the initial release of just over 200 bottles has already sold out at the BCS website. There’s no word if there is more of this whiskey to go around, but keep an eye on the secondary market if you want to try for yourself (hopefully for not much more than the original $200 asking price).
Authors
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Jonah Flicker
Flicker is currently Robb Report’s whiskey critic, writing a weekly review of the most newsworthy releases around. He is a freelance writer covering the spirits industry whose work has appeared in…


