Single Barrel Snapshot

Today’s Single Barrel Snapshot is the second Stagg single barrel I’ve had the good luck to get my hands on.  Selected by a friend (Billy) this comes in at 133.4 proof and is (as always) uncut and unfiltered.  I’ll sip this and compare it a bit to the Dallas Bourbon Club Stagg single barrel, as well as a few of my favorite batches of Stagg Jr..

9.5 years

133.4pf

144

Billy H.

REVIEW & TASTING NOTES

As I always do in Single Barrel Snapshot posts, I’m going to compare this to other single barrels as well as my personal favorite batch of Stagg Jr., batch 12.

Every year, Sazerac holds a Single Barrel Select lottery for consumers to have a chance to get their hands on a single barrel of many different products under their umbrella. This particular barrel was selected by someone who drew a very (very) lucky number in the Single Barrel Select program.

A bit of a fun detail to this: originally, Billy wasn’t able to choose Stagg as the brand for his single barrel and he made another choice; however, Sazerac reached out to him to let him know of an error in the system and–to spice this up even further–inform him that he had actually drawn number one in the lottery. Numero friggin uno.

Needless to say, Billy had his choice of any barrel currently offered in the program. He did a wise thing and chose an uncut and unfiltered expression in the Buffalo Trace Distillery Mashbill #1 line: Stagg bourbon.

As for the tasting–I’ll share my notes on this selection to start out. The nose is instantly recognizable as Buffalo Trace Distillery with a combination of rich oak and dark cherries covered in chocolate. On the palate this moves with more delicacy than the 133.4 proof points should allow, and it coats the palate very nicely. This moves from sugary charred oak, to cherry cordial, and even brings a touch of a buttered pie crust before a wave of oak and spice round it out. All in all it’s really damn good. A step above the Dallas Bourbon Club selection in my opinion. That’s not a shot at DBC in any way–simply a subjective preference of two different pours of bourbon from different lots of barrels. Who knows, had this barrel been in the selection for DBC, they may have very well selected it.

Comparing this to previous batches I find a good amount of crossover between batches 12 and 15 of the Stagg lineup. It does a great job of bringing some of those larger fruit notes I loved in batch 12 alongside the slightly savory toffee notes in batch 15. While this doesn’t outperform either of these two batches for me, I think it will stand on the podium until something better comes along (which may not happen).

Thanks for reading along. I hope you have a chance to try some batches (or single barrels) of Stagg bourbon (formerly called Stagg Jr.) and perhaps do some batch to batch comparisons as well. Trust me it’s for science.

As a bit of a spoiler for you: I also drew a decent number in this year’s Single Barrel Select, and made an Eagle Rare single barrel selection back in early May. I won’t review my own selection, but I’ll certainly share some information on it. Cheers!

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@TheBourbonFinder