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Bardstown Bourbon Company Discovery Series #12 Review

Bardstown Bourbon Company Discovery Series #12 Review

Bardstown Bourbon Company has always found ways to keep itself busy and earn money while they waited for their own whiskies to come of age. One of the ways they did that was through sourcing various whiskies and releasing them in unique blends.

These blends have usually come in three different varieties: Fusion, Discovery and Collaboration Series. Now that Bardstown’s bourbon and rye whiskey are at least 6 years old, they’ve been showing up in larger quantities in each of those series. In fact, Bardstown did away with the Fusion Series entirely because they feel confident enough to release their own whiskey by itself. You can now find it in any bottle labeled “Origin Series.”

Bardstown Bourbon Company Discovery #12

Today we’re going to be focusing on the newest member of the Discovery Series, “#12.” This is coming hot off the heels of #11 which was released late last fall to huge acclaim. I’ve never seen so many consistently high scores for a bourbon as I did for Discovery #11 and what I’m hearing now is that #12 is even better. The caveat is this batch is 20% the size of Discovery #11. Depending on your location, that could be a good or a bad thing. I know that there are still plenty of Discovery #11 bottles hanging around Kentucky about a year after it was released.

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is triggering a lot of enthusiasts to run out and find their own bottle, but is it really that good? After all, the blend isn’t substantially different from Discovery #11’s. Sourced barrels from Wild Turkey still make up a majority of the batch while Heaven Hill (78/10/12) and Beam (78/13/9) join in the fun. Bardstown’s own Four-Grain bourbon even makes the cut. These are all components we’ve seen before (except the BBCo one), but will it taste substantially differently? Let’s find out. I sampled this neat in a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Fruit scents come first with notes of oranges, raspberry jam and lemon curd. Sweet notes are courtesy of brown sugar, Honey O’s cereal, white chocolate and brownies. Vanilla bean and seasoned oak add depth and age respectively. This is a very fragrant and rich nose and no one set of barrels really sticks out from the rest.

Palate: Spices like cinnamon, allspice, black tea leaves and a bit of nutmeg are found on the tongue. I can find nutty flavors that are accompanied by cappuccino and flat root beer. Sweetness comes by way of hard caramel candies while rye-forward notes like mint and indistinct herbs flash by. Fruit notes are just as big on the tongue as they were on the nose with lime and orange zest, grape must, cherry cough syrup and a bit of orchard fruit. The only odd note I found in the mix is this odd “chalky” texture my tongue occasionally gets coated with. Strange.

Finish: The chalky note continues onto the finish. It’s not powerful but it does manage to stick out a bit like the guy who wears a bowtie in an office full of Half-Windsor ties. I also find lingering flavors of cocoa powder which might go hand-in-hand with the chalkiness. Other flavors include oak oak, roasted nuts, and hazelnut spread. Vanilla wafers also stick around. Fruit comes by way of grapes and cherries. It all lasts a decently long time.

Score: 8.5/10

The 12th edition of Bardstown Bourbon Company’s Discovery Series is every bit as good as the 11th, but there is something keeping me from rating it even higher. I loved all of the flavors I found – except that chalkiness, what even is that? – but I didn’t think it brought anything more to the table than its predecessor did.

Discovery #12 an excellent example of how a blend of different distillates can come together to create something better than its parts, but it was missing a little bit of cohesion that would have sent its rating even higher. Maybe it just needed a few more months in the blending tank to achieve that?

Final Thoughts

At the time of this review, there are already a decent amount of opinions being published about this bottle, so here’s my summary. The main thing that is driving the hype around this bottle is the large amount of well-aged sourced Wild Turkey in the blend. There aren’t many producers who have access to these barrels which increases their value in the eyes of drinkers and collectors alike. When will Bardstown Bourbon Company run out of them? I don’t know, but I get the feeling that it’s going to be in the next 2-3 years.

With that being said, I think that many reviewers are subconsciously scoring Discovery #12 higher due to the perceived level of quality that comes from having almost 50% of the blend being barrels of Wild Turkey. Take that away and replace it with 14-year-old barrels of Barton or Jim Beam and I bet that scores and excitement would result in much lower scores. I still think that this is a very tasty product, but it’s not absolutely necessary to add to your collection if you’re struggling to find room or a place in your budget for it.

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