Blue Note Uncut Single Barrel – r/bourbon “Supper Club”

When I first began trying to find new bourbons to try, I found myself reading reviews on many websites.   While reviewers palates vary, you can generally find alignment if you try a few liquors or beverages and compare notes.   This works because reviewers are relatively static, but what about a hivemind like Reddit’s r/bourbon?  Well things become trickier, as you have a mix of reviewers sharing opinions on the same bottles.  Yet, there are few things they agree on as much as the positive reviews for t8ke’s single barrel picks.  And as luck would have it, the first lottery I ever won was for a chance to buy a bottle of Blue Note Uncut Single Barrel – r/bourbon “Supper Club”

Blue Note Uncut Single Barrel – r/bourbon “Supper Club”

The particular barrel chosen has the following statistics and tasting notes:

• Aged: 4 Years
• ABV: 118.5pf
• Bottle Count: 145
• Price: $52 (before shipping)
• Tasting Notes: Pound cake, citrus, maple, orange rind, a big root beer note, confectioners sugar and butter cream. Syrupy vanilla bean and butterscotch, long citrus and maple finish. Back on that Old Fashioned in a bottle vibe that I got from our first Blue Note (barrel #15036) and I’m here for it. Reminds me of a night at the supper club here in the Midwest.

Below are my tasting notes:

Sight:  Amontillado Sherry to Copper.

Smell:  Toasted sugar, maple, and pound cake come out.  There’s a strong smack of alcohol top note here that keeps flitting in and out.   There are notes such as sarsaparilla, toffee, hazelnut, and game meat or smokey leather.   Fruit notes are pretty sparse, leaning slightly toward candied orange or white grape.

Sip:  The palate is moderate in weight, leaning thick as it sits.   Heat starts building quickly, and the edges can get rough.  Toasted sugar and cake are present with hits of oak, smoke, root beer.   There are some tobacco notes here has well, with just a hint of burnt marshmallow, and a touch of caramelizing green banana towards the transition to the finish.

Savor:  The ending maintains that heat and pulls in more notes of roasted pecan, slight pastry, and again, a cola or root beer like note.

Blue Note Uncut Single Barrel – r/bourbon “Supper Club” is complex enough to keep revisiting, but not quite well put together enough to be enjoyable.  The palate is hot and the flavors are a bit inconsistent from sip to sip.  Given the price point, I want to be wowed, or at least impressed.  Instead, it feels young, partially developed, and not quite smooth enough.  It feels out of its depth.

In Cocktails

In a Manhattan Blue Note Uncut Single Barrel – r/bourbon “Supper Club” doesn’t quite work as expected.  There’s a lot of weight added, which makes for a nice solid Manhattan.  Vanilla bean and maple candy mix with an herbal-woodsy note and sweetness that immediately shifts dry on the finish.    The herbaceous notes are nowhere in the general palate of just the whiskey.    There’s also an interesting smokiness that presents on the finish.  Overall, it’s an interesting, if non-traditional Manhattan.

In Review – Blue Note Uncut Single Barrel – r/bourbon “Supper Club”

Reviewing Blue Note Uncut Single Barrel – r/bourbon “Supper Club” is a bit of an exercise in futility.  With the extremely limited availability, you’ll never see it.  Given it’s a single barrel, it’s subject to all the variation that happens from barrel to barrel.  Combine this with the fact that it’s a surviving barrel from a tornado strike, and we’ll it just isn’t representative.  So why spend the time?

The fact is that limit availability bottles like this are good ways to peak behind the curtain of different distilleries, and to get an idea of the stock they’re working with.  They can serve as potential guideposts when trying to evaluate either a single barrel selector (such as r/bourbon) or the brand (Blue Note).  Ultimately, the challenge here is a mix of exclusivity and cost.  These picks are not uncommon in many states, and retail for something closer to $40.  After exclusivity mark up and shipping, this bottle ended up at $65.

That $20+ is a big jump, and brings this bottle into competition with things like 1792 Full Proof, Maker’s Mark Wood Finish Series and Private Selections, Russell Reserve Store Picks, and more.  Those are some big competitors, and Juke Joint’s age and complexity just doesn’t feel like it has the depth to hang here.