Breaking Bourbon Award Winning Single Barrel Club picks are selected by Breaking Bourbon, and whenever possible with the help of Patreon supporters. The bottles are made available to Patreon supporters first by pledge tier. If any bottles remain after all supporters have had an opportunity to purchase, they are made available to the public on a first come, first served basis. Each barrel is sponsored by a retailer partner, who sells the bottles directly to end purchasers.

Retailer Partner: Seelbach’s

Classification: Straight Bourbon

Company: Stellum Spirits

Distillery: Sourced from an undisclosed distillery in Indiana

Age: 5 Years

Proof: 117.94

Mashbill: 75% Corn, 21% Rye, 4% Malted Barley

Yield: 192 Bottles

Release Date: February 2023

Stellum Spirits was launched in March 2021. The company states it was created as “a new national brand created to celebrate the modern-day whiskey drinker.” Stellum is produced by Barrell Craft Spirits, which is known for Barrell Bourbon and many other whiskey and spirits products. According to founder Joe Beatrice, “The Stellum name is derivative of the Latin word stella for star. Stellium also has an astrological meaning of a group of planets concentrated in a house. Stellum is not a heavily branded release, but we do want to always touch on modernity and our reverence for balancing intuition and scientific method.”

Unlike the Barrell Bourbon line, the standard Stellum is a blended bourbon that will not be a batched product where every batch is unique. Instead, it will be always available and consistent. According to an interview we conducted with company founder Joe Beatrice, “Stellum uses a “daisy chain” blending technique where a large portion is blended and then the rest is topped off with the same recipe and adjusted only with other cask strength barrels for taste and proof for consistency. This is a technique developed as a hybrid of our technique for constructing Barrell Batches and the reverse-solera we use for the Barrell Infinite Barrel Project.” However we’re breaking the mold of the normal Stellum process and instead, we got to cherry-pick a high-quality single barrel that would normally end up in a blend.

While we’ve done several Barrell Craft Spirits picks in the past, this is our first Stellum pick for the club. Working with the brand, we tasted through several barrels. While all brought a unique perspective compared to a standard, the one we picked checked all the boxes with respect to what we love about single barrels. It brings a unique flavor profile at a great proof point, and we think everyone will really enjoy it.

For the sticker, we had a little fun combining the fact that you can only get this barrel one time and one time only and the fact that we enjoyed the latest Avatar movie.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Baking spices | Leather | Honey | Seasoned oak | Anise

‍Palate: Honey | Caramel | Vanilla custard | Cinnamon stick | Clove | Graham cracker | Rich & full flavored

‍Finish: Cinnamon amplifies | Allspice | Caramel chews | Creme brulee | Lingering spice

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About Seelbach’s

For this pick, we partnered with Seelbach’s, which was founded by Blake Riber, also the creator of Bourbonr and the Bourbonr Facebook group. An online-only retailer with a twist, we interviewed Riber to discuss how he’s running his shop differently than everyone else. “Unlocking Craft Spirits” he calls it - seeking out up-and-coming craft distilleries and learning about their process and tasting through their products to find hidden gems.

Distillers, Producers, and Retailers: If you would like to be a part of this program and get your name in front of millions of bourbon enthusiasts, contact us.

‍Please note these bottles will not be sold by Breaking Bourbon, but will be sold by retailers we partner with in order to fulfill the orders and ship the bottles directly to Patreon supporters. Breaking Bourbon will receive no compensation from our partner retailers under these agreements (with the exception of a bottle from each barrel for editorial purposes). If you represent a retailer and ship to consumers and you’re interested in partnering just let us know!