Proof: 126.62

Source: Undisclosed Kentucky 

Bottle count: 96 bottles

Tasting Notes: The nose is big, viscous, and dry - softly perfumed like black cherry barbecue, caramel sauce, and new leather. Still, it comes off dense and inviting.

The palate is powerful - coating and voluptuous fruits, gobs of dried oak, tons of leather, and plenty of spiced tannins. It comes off like a bit more rounded version of our 11-yr 119 NBC we did last year, continuing with tons of dried cherry, candied pecans, rich caramel and coating, savory oak.

The finish is long, coating, and spiced - giving deep fruit notes and long lingering creaminess that calls back to the sweeter, perfumed softness of the nose but ultimately carries dried oak and Mexican hot chocolate well into the long finish.

Seelbach's Story: We don't split stories often, but this one felt appropriate. In 2016, I received an invitation to the Jim Beam Distillery to take part in the selection of Booker's roundtable. This was a huge checkmark for my bourbon bucket list! You can read the full story here. But in the end, the bottle I voted for wasn't the winner. We went with the batch that was more crowd-pleasing with softer and sweeter notes. The Beam team was kind enough to let me leave with sample bottle A (my vote).

I've since poured that for friends as the unreleased "Blake's Batch." I'm now down to my last 50 ml of that sample. Opening this bottle brought back memories of sample A. The mix of brown sugar, dry tannins, and oak spice was so similar! That's why we named this one "Blake's Batch."