Bulleit Blenders’ Select 001
A question that Jay and I have asked on Weekly Whiskey (namely in an After Hours episode featuring this bottle). Single barrel bourbon is a fun portion of this hobby, and offers variance within the confines of an already established brand, but what about blended whiskeys? Blended whiskey is often overlooked at being inferior to single barrel offerings because of the basic assumption that all of the best barrels are either selected for the single barrel program and the leftovers go into a blend. Let’s see if Bulleit breaks this mold by dropping their first release in the line extension for Blenders’ Select.
This limited edition release from Bulleit is limited not only in quantity, but also in it’s distribution as it was only offered in eighteen States (and D.C.). As a sucker for limited edition whiskey (I’m weak…I know) I sought out a bottle of this one and was lucky enough to land one (cheers, Jordan!). I dug around a bit on the Bulleit website to see what they had to say about this product and I found this:
Limited-edition 100 proof bourbon that selectively mingles three of the ten distillates used in our flagship Bulleit Bourbon. These three distillates are each aged for a minimum of nine years. Hand-selected from more than 100 distinct liquids, this blend was painstakingly crafted by our blender Eboni Major to achieve a unique taste profile that is distinctly Bulleit in character.
-Bulleit.com
The bit about ten distillates will be familiar to any Bulleit (or Four Roses) fans out there, and the sheer volume of combinations that are available when working with that number of recipes is mind-numbing. Thankfully, Bulleit can lean on Food Scientist and blender extraordinaire Eboni Major. While Eboni’s usually in charge of making sure each batch of Bulleit comes out tasting right (read: tastes like Bulleit) she was given the reigns of this project to craft something unique and delicious.
Let’s dig into this one and see what Eboni Major has created. Okay, so the bottle is nearly gone, you can tell I’ve been into this product a few times–but let’s have a review-pour and analyze it. You know…for science.
Tasting Notes…
Nose – Quintessential bourbon profile of caramel and vanilla mixing nicely over oak. There’s a touch of fruit and it comes through in a somewhat dark and syrupy way. I really like how this moves through the glass and pops up with hints of butterscotch, caramel, and rich oily vanilla. The char from the oak almost brings some cocoa to this as well.
Taste – Big rounded and sweet profile. The mouthfeel is a little more luxurious than the nose suggested. Warm and bright caramel lead the way here, then it takes a darker turn with a hint of dark chocolate and the fruit that seemed dark on the nose comes through a bit brighter. There’s some spice coming through here (that classic Bulleit high rye mashbill) and it’s working to add complexity to the sip.
Finish – Long and enjoyable. This brings in multiple layers of sweet caramel, fruit, and vanilla, but they are balanced well by oak char and spice in the background.
Bourbon Finder Grade: A-
Final thoughts…
Well, damn! I like this one quite a bit. I’m a bit sad this is a limited edition–but it is labeled as Batch 001 which hopefully indicates that it there fill be future iterations of this product line. If they are anything like this batch I’m sure it will grow in popularity quickly.
This is a nicely done bourbon and it really does it for me–especially the fact that (while it’s not age-stated on the bottle) it is a mature bourbon with the components being a minimum of nine years old. Well done here. I’ll be looking for more of this one.
Our grading system: As mentioned in our About Us page, we’re excited to share bourbon with our friends, family, and readers. There are enough critics, cynics, and curmudgeons in the whiskey world as it is, so our goal is to foster the bourbon community in a positive way by bringing fun and entertaining content whenever possible–as such–we decided that applying precise scores to whiskey was simply too serious for us (and didn’t accurately showcase variability in taste from day to day). We use a simple grade school system to apply a grade to the whiskeys we review because we feel it is indicative of the whiskey’s grade for us on that particular day. A grade of a “B” today may very well be a “B+” or even a “B-” on another day, so rather than focusing on a precise score today that may not stand the test of time, we are just sharing our overall grade of that pour for that one tasting. Pour a bit and enjoy, friends, these are the good old days of whiskey!
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