
BARREL SELECTION (RICKHOUSE C)
Bottled: November 2023
Floor 7: 0%
Floor 6: 0%
Floor 5: 44%
Floor 4: 0%
Floor 3: 18%
Floor 2: 38%
Floor 1: 0%
Rickhouse Proof:
59.8% ALC./VOL. | 119.6 (PROOF)
Kyle’s Notes:
I am often asked why more distilleries don’t release bottled-in-bond bourbons, even if they qualify by production standards. The short answer is that it is very difficult to do logistically, and our November bottling is a prime example of that.
Ben Holladay Bourbon has a six-year age statement, and that will continue to be the standard age for this product moving forward. However, when we started in 2016, we distilled extra of our original mashbill while working on details for the Soft Red Wheat production. Fast forward to releasing in 2023 where we were faced with a choice on our Ben Holladay Bourbon. We could dump the barrels and store in a steel tank to end the aging, or we could allow it to turn 7 and release a fun end of year Easter egg for the bourbon community. We like to do things differently, so naturally, we chose the latter option. This resulted in an extremely flavorful bourbon, and we loved sitting around our distillery sharing this pour with friends over the winter holidays (a lot of these friends said it was our best ever Ben Holladay release).
Nothing from the story above sounds difficult, and most people would love to have the “challenges” that I faced with this batch. This time, the burden fell on our sales team. Shifting from a 6 to 7-year age statement in one batch caused a lot of issues with orders, distribution, item registration, and all the other details that I don’t even pretend to know about. Personally, I feel they learned a lot of new skills in case we ever do something crazy like this again.
However, moving forward, we will go back to a 6-year age statement so for now, enjoy this 7-year one off bottling.
Bourbon Nerd Information:
On 11/1/2023 a total of 93 barrels were dumped to produce both the BiB and (onsite release only) Rickhouse Proof with a barrel loss of 35.7% during aging. The Rickhouse Proof version was 119.6 proof. A total of 18 distilling days were used in the batch from the Fall 2016 distilling season. The weighted average for the floor was 3.51 and there were 7 different ricks used as seen below.
