As I wrote about back in late November, the Buffalo Trace Distillery was nearing the end of the Single Oak Project, looking to create the perfect bourbon from an exhaustive, drinker feedback driven project centering on how different aspects of individually selected American oak trees interact with different bourbons. I say exhaustive because the 192 barrels from which the bourbons were drawn from were released every three months in increments of twelve 375ml bottles over the life of this endeavor.
For the sixteenth and final research whiskey release, Buffalo Trace is debuting bourbon drawn from barrel numbers 7, 20, 39, 52, 71, 84, 103, 116, 135, 148, 168 and 180. What’s particularly unique about this round is that, unlike previous iterations which tended to focus on just one variable (see list below), one can try a whiskey that covers in some ways all of the following:
recipe (wheat or rye); entry proof (105 proof or 125 proof); stave seasoning (six months or 12 months); grain size (tight, average, or coarse grains); warehouse (concrete floor or wooden rick floor); char number (number three or number four char); and tree cut (top or bottom half of the tree).
“This last release has quite the variety of bourbons,” said Kris Comstock, Buffalo Trace’s bourbon marketing director, in a statement. “We’ve got some wheat and rye recipe, both the 105 and 125 entry proofs, all three grain sizes represented both types of warehouse floors, and oak from both the top and the bottom of the tree. The only consistencies in this release are the stave seasoning at six months and the number four char.”
As for pricing and availability, expect to pay around $47 per 375 ml bottle when the bourbons hit retail by the end of the month. When buying from a retailer, make sure to check the bottle you are getting for the barrel number it was drawn from as there are likely bottles from previous releases still floating around.
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