Single Barrel Select – Whiskey Wednesday

About the single barrel select program and really single barrels. Yeah. And it looks like we're in one of my favorite warehouses, Warehouse H. Correct. Great. How are you, Susanna? I'm doing pretty good. How are you, Tim? I'm great. Another whiskey Wednesday. That's right. All right. So just like you mentioned, we're in Warehouse H. A lot of people are definitely familiar with this warehouse, especially if you're familiar with the Blanton's brand at all and you've ever read a label, they all say Warehouse H on them. So that's where we're at. I'm sure a lot of you have been here. If you've been to the distillery, it's the big metal warehouse kind of right by where you check in. So it's a little bit unique kind of compared to some of our other warehouses because it's metal. It's actually uninsulated too. So you get a little temperature fluctuation. So on days like today, it's pretty hot in here. It is pretty steamy. I'll say it is pretty steamy in here today. And in the winter, it can be pretty colder here, but rain or shine, snow or ice, we're hosting the majority of all of our barrel selections kind of down in this warehouse. So we're going to kind of take you guys through that process today of what it's like if you were to come to Buffalo Trace and pick a barrel out and kind of give you a little bit of insight into what we do and kind of the importance around single barrel. So it's a pretty cool thing to be a part of. There's a lot of people reaching out literally every day trying to snag a full barrel of bourbon. And when we say that, we literally mean a barrel full of the bourbon. So it's not just empty barrels that we're selling here, but they're unique. Every single time you get one, it's going to be a little bit different. Really the beauty of it kind of traces back to Albert Blanton, Elmer T. Lee, kind of their favorite way of drinking bourbon was literally just straight from the barrel. And that whole brand was kind of built around that, the way that the bottle shapes and everything really kind of signified the barrel and the fact that everything in that bottle came from one particular barrel. So we're going to take you guys through that and kind of show you what a typical selection looks like. So hopefully you guys will be able to join us in person one time for these, but we'll give you a little insight to it. Great. And so this is Warehouse H. Is this a warehouse that Colonel Blanton himself had his hands on or just happened to be his favorite? So it was built back in 1934, so it was definitely here when he was kind of the president of the distillery. His house actually sits up on the hill. So if you've ever pulled in to the distillery before and you've noticed that house up there, we call it Stony Point, but it was Albert Blanton's house. And he was actually known for kind of coming down here, sending people down here to find a barrel that they had tasted and deemed as a honey barrel. And they would literally pull these barrels out of the warehouse and roll them on up the hill to his house and they would throw big parties where they just drank straight from the barrel. Very cool. So a lot of how we've designed our barrel tastings, not exactly like that. We can't have huge parties, but a lot of it kind of goes back to the way that Elmer T. Lee actually picked barrels with customers and kind of designed around him and Blanton's love for the single barrel and the uniqueness that they had in all of them. Great. And before we jump in, what do you do here? What is it exactly Susanna does? Yeah. We hear a lot about you. You probably see me running around if you're here visiting. So my actual title is Single Barrel Select Associates, but I pretty much manage all the on-site barrel selections that take place here at Buffalo Trace Distillery. So the Single Barrel Select program as a whole kind of encompasses a bunch of different distilleries under the Dazzurac portfolio. So I'm kind of here helping groups really pick out which barrels that they want to bring home to them or bring to their bar. So it seems like an easy job. A lot of people think I'm just sitting in Warehouse H tasting barrels all day. Not exactly inaccurate, but there's a little bit more to it. But not wrong either. Well, not wrong either. There's, yeah, there's definitely some pluses and some minuses to the role, but overall it's a fun job. I don't know how I really ended up here. It was kind of random, but I enjoy doing it every day and meeting new people coming in to pick barrels is also a lot of fun. Yeah. I have to ask you before we go into the magic barrel picking room, what are some of the groups? I mean, what's typically a group that you would host? Yep. Exactly. That's like my mom. When I started doing this, she's like, who is buying full barrels of bourbon and why? So the majority of people coming in to pick our retail outlets of liquor stores who are actually going to sell these bottles kind of personalized for their store specifically, which is why they like doing it. We also get a lot of bars, restaurants that are picking up barrels for their bar or restaurant. And then we get to just a group of people who either picking them out for a company gift or a wedding or bourbon groups. Those have gotten huge where a whole group will go in and kind of select barrels and then divvy them up between the different members of their group. So there's actually a lot of people trying to get their hands on barrels. Unfortunately, we don't have enough to go around. I think everybody's familiar with that across the board for any brand of bourbon. It's definitely not an easy thing to snag, but people there have become very popular because some of the more allocated stuff got really hard. And single barrels, they're unique. Once they're gone, they're gone. And people like kind of the allure behind that of having something that once you drink it all, you can never have it again, which kind of makes this really cool. Yeah, it is. You know, I've been on a few picks with you and others, but it is a really unique experience. And we'll get into that. We'll get into like how you sign up and all that. But I have to say, too, it is an incredible experience and it's your barrel and your bottles are one of a kind. Like you said, once they're gone, they're gone. So it is very cool. So I'm seeing a bunch of barrels through here. It looks like some stickers, but those are one of these. So these are barrels that have actually been selected by group. So when we have people coming in and picking barrels, we literally will slap a sticker in on at the end. We put it back in this rig. And that way they won't be touched until they're ready to be bottled for that particular group that came in and selected it. Great. So those are all just, they're just waiting to be bottled, shipped out. Yep. And all the signatures, usually groups that come in after they pick their barrel, they'll sign all their names on it with the entire group that came here. And it really becomes like a memory piece for them. Sometimes they'll maybe send the barrel on to age other product in it. Sometimes they'll break the barrel down, it'll hang up the barrel heads kind of in their office place or with their group. And there's a whole bunch of things that you can do with the empty barrel. So they definitely go on to be used, but having kind of that group of people who came and selected it. So when this barrel comes in, there's a story, there's a story to then tell. The liquor store can tell people coming in to buy these bottles like, Hey, I actually hand selected this barrel that you're getting to buy today. Which again, is kind of why this is a fun process for people who pick it out to be able to do. Yeah. It's very stamp of approval. Yeah. It's neat. Yep. I try to sign mine like five different times. Just to make sure, right? Just to make sure. Make sure. And then you still weren't even sure you signed it. No. You know, it's not like you, you don't, you get to taste quite a bit of bourbon. I mean, there's, when you go through the process and you're going to walk us through in just a second, but you go through the process, it's a real treat. These are barrels that are going to end up in the single barrel select program. You get to taste them. You get to buy one. So it's just incredible. Yeah. It's a really neat experience. Okay. It's definitely a fun process and we like to give you a selection of different barrels to taste from. So. So if I'm walking in. Yep. We're in warehouse H. This is, welcome to my office, I tell people. Exactly. If I'm not at my desk, I'm usually hanging out down here in this warehouse. Well, let me ask you, before we get into it, what's the first step? You know, I know there's folks watching this going, I would like to buy a barrel of bourbon. How in the heck do I get my hands on them? Exactly. So there's a couple of different outlets of purchasing barrels. Again, we kind of mentioned that the get go that the majority of people buying them are a liquor store, a bar, a restaurant that holds some sort of liquor license. So in that case, they get allocated barrels through their wholesale reps, the distributors. But then we also like to hold back a small portion of barrels that we give out to just people who want a barrel that don't necessarily hold a license. What they do, there's a single barrel select website that they can sign up for. And at that point, if they're a member of that site, they kind of get all the information regarding when barrels will be available. We typically do a release once a year. Again, it's not easy. I always feel bad talking to people and hyping them up about the program. And then when they figured out that it's a very slim chance of getting one, it's kind of a bummer. But if you are able to snag one, then it's a really exciting experience at that point. It's an incredible treat. So singlebarrelselect.com. Yep. Sign up. Yep. Put in your information. You get emails at random about what's coming up. Exactly. You'll get notified, usually in the fall, about an upcoming release. We typically do them once a year. And it's kind of like a first come, first serve type process. And then if you are able to snag one, then we're kind of looking at the following year to kind of get you in here to actually select your barrel. Yeah. So you pick a date. Yep. Hopefully. And you get a full tour. Yep. Yeah. So the experience usually includes a full VIP tour, which is just you and your group that's coming in to pick. And then we kind of come down here to the warehouse and let you taste through some barrels. That's great. All right. New group. Never been here. We're walking in. You're doing the barrel selection. What's the experience like? Yep. So come on in. You actually come on up to the front. We'll just treat this like we're doing it for real. We're actually set up for a barrel selection this afternoon. So typically we do about two a day. Again, it's not enough. We want to get more groups in here. So we're actively bringing more people onto the team to be able to host that, adding in new places to be able to do selections. But up until this point, pretty much all of them took place here. So the barrels that we roll out, they're semi-rolled out at random, but we have kind of sent them through a process to be approved for a single barrel. Okay. So, you know, I've had people ask or, I mean, if you're not super experienced in tasting barrels, you don't want to buy an entire barrel that's bad. We make it so that won't even happen. So they're all at least great. Exactly. So if you look even at the front of the barrel heads, if you can show them that there's usually little drill holes. So that's where literally members of our barrel team have gone in, drilled into the barrel. They've pulled out a sample that we then have our tasting panel go through and they taste each one of these individually, making sure that they're up to par with these brands. We're not going to sell something that we don't think represents that brand well. So at this point, when you get to the point where you're making the selection, you're really picking from our cherry picks. We think that all of these are phenomenal single barrels. These brands typically in the stores are sold as a batch of barrels. So a small batch where you take multiple barrels and combine them together. In this sense, you are going to pull just one barrel out of that batch. So it will vary a little bit than what you could be used to for brands like we have some Eagle Rare barrels over here or the Weller, but we still want to make sure that every single one of those barrels are good standalone single barrels that do a great job of representing that brand. So don't have to lose sleep over it. So they're going to be great regardless. But it's up to your taste. And you know, some palates are better than others, you have to say. Some really pick out the ones that are different than others. But I'm noticing a green stamp, black stamp. So it's our way of distinguishing different types of bourbon. So our green stamped barrels are how we started recently stamping our weeded bourbon. So anything that uses that wheat grain has that green stamp on it. And then the black stamp is how we signify our rye bourbons. So we started color coordinating it to make it a little bit easier. I'm sure some of y'all have wandered around the warehouse and the entire barrel hood is kind of covered with a barrel that leaked on it before. So by stamping it, it kind of just ensures that you're getting the right recipe. Gotcha. So this is obviously Eagle Rare. These three. So whoever's coming in after us, very lucky. Got some Eagle Rare barrels to taste and got some Weller barrels to taste. That's pretty cool. Okay. All right. So what do we... Come in. Susanna's here. So a lot of people might not know what this guy is, but it's called a whiskey thief. So it's the way that we get the samples out of the barrel once the barrels have been moved from the rick. We kind of talked about drilling them if they're hanging out still in the ricks, easiest way to get a sample out of it. It's literally crawling down those little aisles and drilling a hole into the barrel. But in this sense, we've popped out the bung, which is like the cork of the barrel, and then we can draw some sample out. So it works like a giant straw. You just put it in there, let the sample soak up. There's a little hole. I'll put my thumb over. How many times have you done this? A few thousand times. I've been here six years, so it adds up. And then you just lift your thumb up and kind of fill the glass. So you do get the experience of just sampling right out of the barrel. Yeah. That's great. Truly. Straight out of the barrel. A lot of times people will notice in these samples bits of char floating around that just got in there. Really the only difference, it's kind of one of the major differences between how you'll taste and how it'll come back. This all still has to be filtered, it has to be cut to the correct proof, but right now you're at barrel proof bourbon, about 130 proof, just straight out of the barrel. So if I'm buying, let's say, an Eagle Rare, and we know it's at least 10 years old, that's what it says on the, it's already a little older than 10 years. We know it's 90 proof. So am I going to taste it at 90 proof and straight from the barrel, or how are you doing that? So we usually taste it both ways sometimes. So either straight from the barrel, or we cut it down to 90 proof. We like you to taste it kind of back at the proof that it will get bottled, so we at least try to let you do both. That's kind of, went to school for chemistry, so I do like to use my science degree every now and then and actually proof them down as accurately as we can in a warehouse so you guys have a better idea of how it's going to come back to you in the bottle. We don't want any surprises with that. Yeah, so these are the ones that you've either, you've pulled out straight from the barrel, or you've already proofed it down. I would assume the ones that are more full are proofed down. Yep, it really depends on the brand that we're selecting and kind of how it gets bottled. If it's a full proof brand, we'll leave it at barrel proof for you to try that. If it's a 90 proof brand, we'll cut it down for you to try that. While we're on the subject of full proof, we have barrel proof, we have full proof, we have all that. So with full proof Weller, it's not barrel proof. Yep, that is something that a lot of people actually don't realize that there's a difference. If something's bottled at full proof, what full proof is actually the entry proof of that barrel. So when we fill these barrels, they actually get filled at 114 proof. Barrel proof, as they age, they typically gain proof. Sometimes they can lose it based off of where it's aging. But the barrel proof is you take a barrel, you dump it out, whatever proof it's at is what it gets bottled. For these, which are full proof, they do get a little bit of water added to them to cut them back down to that entry proof of that barrel. So it is a little bit different, but a lot of people don't know that there's a difference there. Great. All right. So what's next? I'm tasting, I got my group here. So next is the fun part. So we do all the history, we take you out on a tour, we get the samples pulled, which is building, right? Yeah. Anticipation. And then it's the fun part. It's time to then taste the barrels that we've kind of rolled out for you all to taste. So typically, typical selection, we'll have three barrels for what's getting picked. So we have three Guerreras, three Wellers rolled out. And then at this point, I get a number of experts in here. They all taste bourbon differently. What we tell people is there's really no wrong or right way to doing this. You'll be able to figure out which one you like best. It's typically the one you keep going back to as you're sampling. They're all great barrels, so there's really no way to pick a bad one at this point. So really, I like to keep it light and keep it fun and just give time for people to kind of sit here, taste through each of them, and really just start to narrow down to their top one. Usually that's the hard part. You get eight people in here sometimes, all trying to agree on what the best barrel is, knowing that everybody has different palates and different preferences. What do you do when most everybody is disagreeing? I've been on those. Occasionally, we have, you know, rock, paper, scissor. Yeah. We flip coins. Yeah. But we usually try to get it narrowed down. A lot of times, we then result to blind tasting. That's kind of a good way to do it, especially if we're stuck between two barrels. Maybe having the group leave for a bit, giving their palates a little bit of a break, coming back in here, retasting their top two favorites. And I would say the majority of the time, they're able to at least get the majority of the group kind of on board with which one they should select. Yeah. Yeah, this looks like a great tasting today. I may just hide in the back of the warehouse over here and just sneak in like I belong. Yeah, just act like you work here. It's like, oh, this is great. Well, very cool. And so, I've selected my barrel. Yep. What the heck? Do I just roll this thing in the back of the truck? So yeah, you don't get to take it away with you, the full barrel, unfortunately. It does have to get bottled, so that's part of the process. And this is kind of the lengthier part of the process. You came here, you picked your barrel, you're excited to get it, but it is a little bit of a time until you get these barrels back to your home or to your store or your bar. So really, they hang out here with us. At this point, they've aged 10 years at some point, so a couple more months won't hurt it. And then once we get kind of your customized medallions, that's something, too, that every group that comes in and selects a barrel, they get to customize a medallion that then goes on it at bottling. So we kind of go through that process with you, get a graphic picked out or a saying that you want to put on the bottles. And then at that point, we bottle it, and then it gets shipped to your local area. Okay. How do I pay for this bottle or this barrel? Yeah, the not-so-fun part, when it's time to... That's the question. I obviously don't... I'm not cutting a check to you. Yep. So we still... How does that work? Yeah, we still follow the three-tier system. So we can't sell the barrel directly to a customer. So usually, if you're a liquor store, it will come to your liquor store and you buy it from your wholesaler. If you're a customer, kind of without that liquor license, you then kind of have to partner with the retail outlet to purchase your barrel through. So we kind of ship it to them, and then it'd be like you showing up at a store and buying 200 bottles off of them, and you just buy it all then at that point. So up until your barrel's been bottled and shipped there, there's no kind of purchasing that happens, no transaction at that point. Yeah, it's just the same. So you have to buy it from your liquor store or your package store, whatever. You have to. So you can't just buy it from the distillery, and like you said, it's a transaction between you and them, just like it would be for one bottle. Yep, exactly. And hopefully you've got a great friend in the liquor store ownership that doesn't just like mark it way up or something crazy. Yeah, I mean, that is something that we tell them, you know, you want to have a relationship with the store that you work with. Ultimately, they'll determine the price per bottle. So yeah, you definitely want to have those conversations before your entire barrel shows up. I think that's a great point. Make sure there's no surprises. Yeah, that's a great point. You know, it's like some areas, a bottle might be a little more than others. And so just understanding what their cost is on a bottle of Eagle Rare or Weller is a good thing before 200 and some bottles show up. Yep, exactly. Well, cool. This was awesome. I got some questions. I got quite a few questions, but I'm going to sit through. Let's see here. So this is, these are great questions, y'all. So, okay, somebody says, I have a question. How is this different from bottles you can buy in the store? Yeah, so that's a good question. We touched on it a little bit earlier, but like typical Eagle Rare, for instance, when we put that, that normal bottle that you're seeing on the shelf is usually a combination of barrels, which we refer to as a small batch. But that's where you take at least two or more barrels. You batch them together. We call it a marriage at that point. And that's what's getting sold typically as Eagle Rare. The difference here is that you're kind of selecting one barrel that would be a part of that overall batch. So in that case, it can vary a little bit from the regular and then it's kind of unique just really to that store, that group that's picking it out, kind of taste preferences that they like. Some groups coming in may like a little spicier version of that, of that brand, or some maybe like a little softer, sweeter version of that. So it can be different really just based off of the store and who's picking it out. If it's a bar, are they going to put it in a cocktail, serve it neat? They'll kind of pick different variations kind of based off of how they're going to showcase it in their store. So there's a, there's a uniqueness to it. There's a difference, but the biggest difference is going to be the fact of your one individual barrel as opposed to a batch of multiple barrels. Yeah. I mean, it's a really hot thing with bourbon fans, bourbon enthusiasts is going around and grabbing some barrel picks from places and I love it. I think it's great. I love knowing who picked them. Yep. You know, it's like if my palate is similar to the person's palate that I know is picking these, I'm probably going to love it. I'm probably going to love it. I also really like the ones that don't taste exactly like the ones on the shelf. Yep. That's what a lot of people, they come in kind of maybe seeking ones that are different than what you can typically get. Yeah. So it's like Eagle Rare. We love Eagle Rare. Who doesn't? But one that's like a little different, you know, is, is, is really great too. So lots of questions, Susanna. So somebody's asking about, it's Mal from Facebook is asking, probably saw all these samples here, but it says, is there a specific amount of time the sample sit in the glass before the tasting panel gets to try them? So that's a good, that's a good question. So when, especially when you're adding water to bourbon, if we're tasting this, especially when for a final kind of product or a batch, you do want to let the water kind of marry for a bit in there. Cause it can change. If you just add water, as opposed to letting it sit and kind of open up, it does start to change. Usually we pour them, I'm just really a few minutes before a group gets in here. Sometimes we're pouring them as a group is in here, but what they've started to notice is as they sit here and as they taste them, they start to change. So they kind of think about the people who are going to be drinking it, you know, are they going to back to that? Are they going to be sitting there drinking over periods of time? Do you want the one that over that time kind of continues to change or stays the same or is really good at the get-go when you first pour it? But I would say like, I know our master blender, you all have met on Whiskey Wednesday before, he typically likes things to marry. And again, that's that phrase we use really just mix well, mingle well for about 30 minutes. And here, sometimes it's not that, usually the tasting lasts about that long or a little bit longer. So it has time to really kind of mellow out, open up for them to be able to taste it that way. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. We're going to talk about cost. What's the cost for a whole barrel? Yeah. So I get that a lot. And that's from Facebook. Yeah. That's a question we got. So the price per barrel is kind of determined by what brand it is because that will determine the bottle cost and then how many bottles you get out of the barrel. So they're all a little bit different. All of them have a little bit different yields, like Eagle Rare, for instance, 10-year-old bourbon. So at this point, we're hoping to have about a half a barrel in there, barrel proof. Weller's a little bit younger, hopefully a little bit more, but they're all going to vary. Typically, I would say average barrel yield for the barrels that we're doing could be around 200 bottles. So but whatever you do get, it's how many bottles times the price of that product and that equals the price of the barrel. So there's no blanket cost. It's really up to that barrel and the brand and then the retailer that you choose and what they price that bottle at. That makes a lot of sense. And I think that's comforting to know that I'm not just spending the top dollar on a barrel and I only get 80 bottles. Yeah. And occasionally we come across some light ones. That's just part of it. Yeah. But you're only paying for what you get. So exactly. OK. That's great. That's good to know. Because I buy a lot of barrels. Yeah. When it gets a bang for your buck, you just be picking them up to figure out which one was the heaviest. If that was the case. Exactly. So we do have a lot of folks chiming in from all over the country. It looks like it's been a it's been a great conversation online to a lot of a lot of great questions. So what about today's demand? We know we know barrel picks are super popular. We know bourbon is super popular, you know, and I can tell just by this conversation now is a lot of our brands, all of our brands really are allocated. Yep. And the barrels are limited to you can't have an allocated bourbon and have unlimited barrels. So it's hard to get these. It's hard to get our bourbon sometimes, but there's a lot more coming. Yeah, there's a lot more coming. And that's kind of the silver lining. I usually like to start any tour I give or any group I'm talking to by pointing up on the hill so they can see all the new warehouses that we're building. So every year we add more barrels to the program. We add new brands to the program. So it's definitely something to keep up with. Keep checking back on our website to see kind of new things that we're offering. But it is limited. I do get a lot of phone calls of people who can't find bottles of this anywhere. And so then they're like, oh, I'll just buy a barrel. Yeah, exactly. So then they call. But just like you said, unfortunately, because the brands themselves are so allocated, the barrels are also allocated. So it is limited. We try to do our best to make it as equally or as fair as possible on our website. And so definitely get signed up on there. We like to give everybody a shot at it. But it's definitely limited, which we like to let people know that kind of at the get go. Sure. So there's one other thing I think is really, really cool. I'm lucky enough to get a barrel. I'm lucky enough to get Eagle Rare, Buffalo Trace, whatever. And we know bourbon has to be in a brand new charred oak barrel. And we know after you dump it, it's really a bummer to toss that thing. So let's talk about the boomerang barrel. Yeah. There's a lot of good life left in that barrel. That's right. So we've coined it the boomerang. Our assistant, my boss, Bo Beckman, who you all met last week, the boomerang. So we mentioned that we have a bunch of different distilleries that we work with that we do single barrels of. So one of those is our Corazon brand. So a lot of groups, especially recently, tequila has become extremely popular. So after we bottle a barrel of bourbon, we kind of keep the empty barrel back and actually ship it down to the San Mateo distillery in Guadalajara. They fill it up with tequila. You can kind of pick the expression that it's aged as, Repo and Yeho, even Extra and Yeho. And then once that ages up, we'll bottle it and then you get another barrel of tequila. So keep the fun rolling. I think that's so cool. Seems really unique to be a bourbon, one time use, ship it down to Mexico, get your tequila aged in it. You can have a tequila aged in a Weller barrel if you were fortunate enough to get a Weller. And then, I mean, I'm assuming you could keep that party going too and ship it all around the world. Yeah, exactly. That's our, that's our goal. To have like a bunch of distilleries all across the world that we can keep kind of in your barrels too. The great thing about bourbon barrels is at this point they've only been used once. So they could still have a few more uses in them before they start to break down or start to have too much leakage. But at this point, yeah, they can definitely go a couple more rounds. Very cool. All right. Susanna, this was awesome. I can't tell at all it's the first time you've done Whiskey Wednesday. I feel like you've been doing these forever. Well, every day is a Whiskey Wednesday. I feel like when you're picking barrels. That's great. Monday morning, time to pick barrels. Every day is Whiskey Wednesday for Susanna. That's very true. All right. So any, any closing words or anything before we wrap up? No, definitely just, yeah, get signed up on the Single Barrel Select website. You'll get information about that and yeah, we try to answer a lot of questions on there. Our team is very responsive and try to get back to all these inquiries. So hopefully we get to see you in here one day picking barrels live in person. But until then. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much. And like, like you were saying, there's, there's tons more coming every year. We release more barrels for every brand and add more to your program as well. Yep. Awesome. Great. Thank you. All right.