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: Pursuit Spirits, LLC

Distillery: Bardstown Bourbon Company

Age: 6 Years, 5 Months

Proof: 119.3

Mashbill: 78% Corn, 10% Rye, 12% Malted Barley

Yield: 191 Bottles

Release Date: June 2023

This is a barrel we’re really excited about. It comes from a spirits company founded by Kenny Coleman and Ryan Cecil, the same people behind Bourbon Pursuit Podcast. They started hosting the Bourbon Community Roundtable years ago which meets monthly and features a regular panel of members, of which Breaking Bourbon is part of. We were also featured guests on their show in May 2016, where we discussed our recently published 100th review and the interim results of our Bourbon Storage Experiment, which drew a good deal of attention at the time. Since then, we’ve selected barrels of other brands together and participated alongside each other in various bourbon events.

For this barrel selection, we started with a wide range of barrels Pursuit Spirits had set aside as potential single barrel contenders. They included bourbons distilled at the three distilleries that Pursuit Spirits works with for their Pursuit United brands, which are blends that include distillate from multiple distilleries in multiple states. Finger Lakes Distilling in New York, Bardstown Bourbon Company in Kentucky, and an undisclosed distillery in Tennessee (though specifically not Cascade Hollow Distilling Co./George Dickel). The barrels represented quite a range of flavor profiles across these three sources, of which each has a unique and discernible profile, but we decided to zero in on the Bardstown Bourbon Company barrels. We picked one unanimously, and we’re excited to share it with our Club.

The selection took place in October 2022, and at the time the barrels were still aging and had not reached the 6 year mark yet. Everyone clearly wanted to reach that milestone, and given bottling constraints it was given that we would let the barrel rest until it hit the 6 year mark. It actually made it about 5 months longer, though between tasting and bottling the flavor profile did not change dramatically. With that being said, this barrel represents one of the older barrels distilled by Bardstown Bourbon Company, which started production in 2016. As a result, it is a taste of history as we will look back many years from now as this being part of the initial group of barrels they distilled.

For the show notes and sticker, we just had some fun and went with a line from one of our favorite movies. And coming hot off the heels of the article we recently published on the topic of Artificial Intelligence, we prompted A.I. to design the cheeky sticker. We hope you enjoy this barrel as much as we do!

Tasting Notes‍

‍Nose: Melted caramel | Red currants | Red Hot Candies | Leather | Fig

Palate: Baking spices | Peach bread | Cinnamon | Charred oak | Green peppercorn

Finish: White peppercorn | Rich vanilla | Charred oak | Dark chocolate | Touch of clove

About Seelbach’s

For this pick, we partnered with spirits retailer 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!