Cutting quickly to the chase, Blue Note Straight Bourbon Whiskey Single Barrel Reserve is a great whiskey. It hits the right note, if you will. In fact, it hits a lot of them. Produced here in Memphis, I found this particular bottle — from a barrel hand-selected by the team at Buster’s — when one of said team, Kathrine Fultz, stuck it in my hand. I have a keen grasp of the obvious, you see.
These hand-picked barrels are more than just a gimmick. There is a lot of blending that goes into commercial production, which isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s how producers ensure a uniform product. No one expects their go-to bottle of bourbon to vary from batch to batch, like wine. Whiskey bottled from a single barrel, on the other hand, is something unique. Assuming that the people doing the picking know what they are doing, it’s a great way to enjoy a one-of-a-kind bottle. What Kathrine handed me was bottle #34 from the anointed barrel. I suppose that knowing exactly which bottle I was holding was a bit of a gimmick, but it’s a pretty cool one.
So, I opened up bottle #34 at nine years and, taking myself entirely too seriously, poured out a dram in a snifter. The color was beautiful. When cramming your nose into a tasting glass, remember to part your lips and breathe. That way you get to the whiskey and don’t just get a honker overwhelmed by ethyl alcohol. It’s deep caramel, with some oak spice to let you know it’s there. Then add a few drops of that pure, no-longer-needs-to-be-boiled, Memphis water. On the palate, there is also some citrus, but at 122.4 proof, there is some heat to it. At that proof there would have to be, but the feel isn’t raw.
The truth is that those tasting glasses are small and I don’t suggest whipping one out in public unless you just want to look like an insufferable ass. I think that it’s important to try a whiskey out in what we might call “real world conditions,” so I poured what we might call a “real drink” into a rocks glass, along with a cube or two of ice — like an actual human. After giving it a swirl or two, I let it sit for a bit.
If you follow booze twitter or Instagram while pretending to be at work, you get a lot of whiskey-purists barking about not putting water in whiskey. What bugs me about this isn’t that it’s bad advice, but that someone with the handle “Supreme_Bourbon_Buddha,” or some such nonsense, is broadcasting such an obvious rookie mistake. I suppose we all need a code to live by, but the laws of both physiology and chemistry still stand: The tongue and nasopharynx can only process so much ethyl alcohol. At 122.4 proof, you are only getting about half of what you bought. A little water will do both you and your whiskey a tremendous service.
After a swirl, the Blue Note really opens up and hits some different notes. That heat mellowed out into a deeper caramel with hints of orange, and with that oak spice still moving along the palate. The body — or mouthfeel — is richer than you’d expect for proof in this neighborhood, and it all thankfully lingers in a good, long finish.
The downside to a selected single barrel is that there is only one of them, and so by their very nature supplies are limited. Which is as good a reason as any to get to know your local liquor store. You just never know what they are going to stick in your hand.
