LOUISVILLE, KY, November 21, 2019 – For the Holidays this December, Four Gate Whiskey Company is releasing a uniquely finished Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey in a brand new type of cask designed by Kelvin Cooperage.

“For our first two batches,” said Chief Blending Officer Bill Straub, “we finished the whiskey in used cooperage. Then for the really small 3rd release, the whiskey was totally unfinished. We wanted to give Kelvin Cooperage the chance to stretch their legs on this batch with new cooperage and do something really innovative and creative.”

To that end, William Hornaday, of Kelvin Cooperage, crafted a series of medium toast new barrels. He and his team then hand-crafted a series of #2 char barrels and a series of #4 char barrels. They then broke the barrels apart and combined the staves into new barrels- alternating between toasted staves and #2 char staves on one series, and toasted staves and #4 char staves on another. The resulting “zebra” pattern allowed Four Gate Whiskey Company to combine the custard creaminess of toasted barrel finishing with the warm woody fullness of a double-barreled bourbon. Chief Barrel Officer, Bob D’Antoni, coined them “Split Stave™” barrels.

Four Gate produced 2,700 bottles from this inaugural release of Split Stave™. They are a blend of 5.5 year and 12 year Kentucky Straight Bourbon whiskeys and are released unfiltered and uncut at 115.6 proof.

5.5 year Mash Bill: 78% Corn, 10% Rye, 12% Malted Barley
12 Year Mash Bill: 74% Corn, 18% Rye, 8% Malted Barley


Tasting Notes from the Chief Blending Officer:

Appearance: Deep, rich brown

Nose:              Dark cocoa powder with hints of creamy crème brûlée

Taste:             Oak is front and center on the tip of the tongue while sweet custard and cinnamon notes strike the mid-palate

Finish:            Long and rich, the oak notes intermingle with dark chocolate and earthy tobacco for an intense finish.


Straub and D’Antoni run the company as the Chief Blending Officer and Chief Barrel Officer, respectively. With their roots in Louisville, Straub has leveraged his knowledge of bourbon and the industry as founder and Editor-In-Chief of ModernThirst.com since 2014. As a successful local entrepreneur, D’Antoni has used his connections to establish relationships to get his hands on some terrific bourbon.

A local collaboration like this feeds into the Four Gate Whiskey Company philosophy: if you start with the best whiskey, and leverage some of the best-regarded experts in the field on the effects of barrels, you wind up with an amazing whiskey that both connoisseurs and collectors alike will appreciate.

Four Gate Whiskey Company’s fourth release will be distributed in Kentucky and Tennessee at a MSRP of $174.99 per bottle with 2,700 total bottles available at retail.

Four Gate Whiskey Company started in 2018 with the goal of releasing several unique batches of whiskey products each year. With its first product launch of 11-year-old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey finished in sherry-rum casks in April 2019, the team is excited to unveil the other small batch products with unique finishes to come later this year. Learn more at fourgatewhiskey.com, like us on Facebook.com and follow us on Twitter @four_gate.

Kelvin Cooperage, founded in Glasgow, Scotland in 1963 and now based in Louisville, KY, is a full service family-owned cooperage supplying new and used barrels to wine, spirits, and beer producers around the world. For more information, visit Kelvincooperage.com