French toast | Maple syrup | Burnt oak | Tobacco leaf | Light nutmeg | Dash of clove | Plantain | Faint pear | Interesting combination

Rye spice | Dry oak | Burnt syrup | Dark caramel | Burnt orange rind | Burnt brown butter | Dry flavors

Rye spice | Peppery oak | Burnt syrup | Dark maple hard candy

Jack Daniel’s latest Distillery Series Selection is an experimentation in time and double-barreling for the distillery. Distillery Series Selection #14 begins with the company’s standard rye whiskey, which is aged for an unspecified amount of time before being transferred into a second high toast, no char maple barrel, which was finished atop Tanyard Hill for three more years. The company states that it was “Initially released in 2022 as part of the Distillery Series, this rye whiskey was finished in a high toast maple barrel for an additional 20 months from that original release.” This was the most limited Distillery Series to date with only 3,300 bottles available for purchase.

The extended aging in maple barrels is clear right from the start, as the double barrel finish influence carries through throughout the sip. Large doses of French toast and maple syrup are met with an interesting swirl of scents, ranging from fruits to drier spices. The midpoint pulls in dark burnt notes, with burnt syrup and dark caramel leading the charge of these dry flavors. The syrup and rye spice carry through to the finish, bringing in a peppery oak and dark maple hard candy note. The sip never veers too far into the dry category, but it does lean heavily into burnt and dark flavors. It’s a nice contract from the initial release in 2022, but I find the extra time in the barrel to veer a tad too much into the burnt and dark categories compared to the brand’s initial offering.