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Spirits Explained
Barrell Craft Spirits: The Magic is in the Blend
Greg Horton, ReserveBar Spirits Contributor
Spirits Explained
Greg Horton, ReserveBar Spirits Contributor
Raise your glass to Black History Month and the change makers of the spirits world.
Check any reputable list of the best American whiskeys, and you’ll find multiple entries from Barrell Craft Spirits, the company founded by Joe Beatrice. Rather than a distiller, Barrell is all about blending. Beatrice started Barrell in 2013 after a successful career as a marketing and technology entrepreneur. His Blue Dingo Digital was one of the first new media companies to help other companies market and grow online. As his bio on the Barrell website notes, he’s always been driven by new ideas.
Beatrice was a homebrewer for thirty years, and during that time, he was fascinated and perplexed at his inability to replicate a style from year to year. Large brewers like Anheuser-Busch built a brand on their ability to recreate their famous flavor profile year to year, and for all the criticism they get, professional brewers know that the ability to replicate represents near-savant level skills.
It’s not that blending whiskey was a new idea in 2013 – Scotland and Japan both have extensive histories in blending – but Beatrice’s method definitely was. Prior to Barrell, blending in the U.S. usually meant mixing whiskey with neutral grain spirit, which does nothing good for the flavor profile, so the company now distinguishes “blended whiskey” from “blending with whiskey.”
So, no, Barrell Craft Spirits is not a distillery, another surprising move given that their location is in Louisville, Kentucky, but Beatrice wanted to do something very different from the norm. He wanted to source the best whiskeys available and then blend them to create specific and delicious flavor profiles. The company now works with 65 suppliers from a variety of states, including Alabama, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. They also source from Canada.
“Our batches may have as many as six components when we’re done, and we use the word ‘component’ to mean microblend of many barrels of bourbon,” he said. “We choose representative samples from the barrels and then blend to the goal. The math mostly translates when we blend to scale, but we do tweak here and there.”
When you source and blend whiskeys from as many producers as Barrell, questions about the process come with the territory. “One of the most common questions we get about our blends is how much is luck and how much is intent,” Beatrice said. “Everything we do is by intent. In addition to the detailed records, we approach each new batch by tasting through the previous batches and blind tasting all the barrels.”
Based on his experience as a homebrewer, Beatrice knew that replicating a flavor profile for a specific whiskey year to year would be a difficult process. “Replication is not simple,” Beatrice said. “We keep very detailed records, but even with that, we have to make adjustments in the process. Ultimately, our promise is that the consumer will get quality in the bottle, not uniformity.”
Seagrass provides an excellent example of how complex the process can be. On the surface, it’s a blend of Canadian and American rye whiskey. However, each of the whiskeys is finished separately in three different barrels: Martinique Rhum Agricole, apricot brandy, and Madeira. The blending takes into account flavor, mash bill, char levels, source, and barrel finish. Imagine all their detailed information about each whiskey as a database or large matrix. The data provides an overview of what to expect, but the blend tastings provide the granular details and experience that the team wants before committing to the blend. Nothing goes into a final bottling unless the team loves it.
“Blending is not just dumping barrels together,” Beatrice said. “We start with much smaller quantities and then blend toward a goal. It’s very meticulous, and it has an end in mind. We know we’re not going to get the same product in the bottle every batch, and that’s fine, because it’s still delicious and of the quality our customers have come to expect.”
The best analogy here is to fine wines like Burgundy or Chateauneuf-du-Pape. No, it doesn’t taste the same year to year; it’s not Diet Coke. However, there is a flavor wheel – so to speak – that helps us know what we’re buying within certain parameters. Burgundy still tastes like Burgundy, even if there are minor variations in aroma and flavor from vintage to vintage.
And just like fine wine, Beatrice only buys the best whiskeys available. “You can’t age away flaws,” he said. “You can’t blend them away. We’ve tried in test blends, but the faults come through no matter what, and so we’re committed to working with the best distilleries to provide the best components for our batches."
One of those stunning blends is Dovetail, a whiskey designed to highlight some of Beatrice’s flavors of barrel finishes, including Napa Cabernet, blackstrap molasses, and late-bottled vintage port. The result is surprisingly round and buttery, just what the team was shooting for, but if you tasted any of the components separately, you’d rightly wonder how they pulled it off because it seems more magic than science, but that’s the point of all the data, all the tasting, and all the barrel finishes – they use 96 different finishes, in fact.
At Barrell Craft Spirits, they whiteboard every concept and ask, “What is it we want to achieve?” The diligence and attention to detail has paid off, as has their commitment to delivering quality at barrel strength. Buying a bottle means you can start with the barrel-proof and then add water to your preferred sipping strength. The entire project begins with the consumer in mind, and it shows in every delicious batch.
Looking to explore more from this exceptional spirits brand and make your bar the envy of whiskey aficionados everywhere? You can shop the entire collection of Barrell Craft Spirits here, including ReserveBar’s limited edition Topflight Selections.