It’s only been a couple of months since Four Roses was sold by Japanese company Kirin to California’s family-owned winery E.J. Gallo, but so far it appears that it’s business as usual at the distillery. Case in point, news just arrived about the second annual release of a new trio of bourbons in its single-barrel collection, which features recipes not normally included in this series, and we have the details.

Four Roses stands out from other Kentucky distilleries for that fact that it uses 10 recipes to make its bourbon, the result of making two distinct mashbills that are paired with five yeast strains. Mashbill B consists of 60 percent corn, 35 percent rye, and five percent barley; mashbill E consists of 75 percent corn, 20 percent rye, and five percent malted barley. Each type of yeast that is used is selected for the specific flavors it imparts into the whiskey: V has notes of “delicate fruit,” K has “slight spice,” O has “rich fruit,” Q has “floral essence,” and F has “herbal notes.” The distillery first introduced its single-barrel expressions in 2004 when Jim Rutledge was the master distiller, soon after Kirin bought the distillery and revived the brand here in the U.S., and until last year only one recipe was used—OBSV, a high rye mashbill with notes of delicate fruit. In 2025, the distillery launched three new single-barrel recipes—OBSF, OESK, and OESO—each aged for seven to nine years just like the original.

This year that series has returned with the introduction of three new single-barrel recipes: OESQ, OESF, and OBSK, all aged seven to nine years and bottled at 100 proof. According to the distillery’s tasting notes, OESQ has floral and vanilla flavors, OESF has light mint and soft grain flavors, OBSK has rye spice and caramel flavors. A quick decoder to those alphabetic names: O indicates the Four Roses distillery, B or E indicates the mashbill mentioned above, S means that it’s a straight whiskey, and the last latter signifies which yeast strain is used. These recipes will rotate every year, and there will be even more to work with in the future because the distillery debuted two new mashbills in 2024—52 percent corn, 43 percent rye, 5 percent barley; and 85 percent corn, 10 percent rye, 5 percent barley. That will eventually double the number of recipes to 20, meaning that the single-barrel program will likely expand and new expressions could be unveiled, but that won’t be for several years until these bourbons are mature and ready.

The new Four Roses Single Barrel expressions will be available starting in May, each with a price tag of $50 per bottle, and we will bring you more Four Roses news as it arrives throughout the year.