Caramel | Vanilla | Cinnamon bun | Pretzel | Nutmeg | Toffee

Vanilla | Caramel syrup | Raisin | Seasoned oak | Light anise | Milky Way candy bar | Full-flavored

Nutmeg & baking spices surge than taper | Brown sugar | Honey | Caramel | Slight dry oak | Medium length

Each year, Barrell Craft Spirits creates a unique one-off blend that is bottled as their New Year edition. According to the company, “Each autumn, we create a very special blend of bourbons as a toast to the new beginnings and fresh energy of the year to come. Making New Year Bourbon gives us an opportunity to see the pillars of our brand through clear eyes, celebrate the inherent creativity of our blending process, and rededicate ourselves to our forward-thinking, quality-driven line of spirits. Released at the beginning of December, Barrell New Year Bourbon 2023 is a tribute to the optimism that every new year brings.”

A testament to the blending skills of Barrell Craft Spirits, New Year is a very cohesive bourbon and one you would never guess originates from distilleries located in eight different states. The whiskey builds off a vanilla, caramel, oak backbone and then expands from there into an array of additional flavors. Where Barrell Bourbon batch releases have more similar underlying traits from one to the next, New Year deviates a bit more than any single batch might. At the same time, its more traditional base grounds it in familiar territory, and the wide range of components comes together surprisingly well. Overall, it’s a great example of how well different bourbons can be blended together to form a cohesive end result despite seeming like an impossible task.